Spring has never been so welcome. We all endured a lengthy crypto winter that saw prices fall and many projects disappear. Some people got scared and said there was no future in crypto. But throughout the bear market I’ve maintained a bullish outlook for cryptocurrency in the long term. We knew it was only a matter of time before this market correction was finished and we bounced back stronger than ever.

Spring is my favourite season, both in the real world and the crypto sphere. It’s the sign of a new beginning.

Over the last three months, Bitcoin has risen from 4,000 USD to more than 13,000 USD. It’s extremely refreshing to see new life flourishing in the crypto community once more.

Innovation increases when the markets are positive. Technological and financial innovation is why we are all enthralled with cryptocurrency and blockchain, so it’s incredible to see development sparks flying again.

At Liquid, we’re perfectly positioned as the markets start to heat up, ready to welcome new and returning traders. Our product releases and platform improvements continue to focus on enhancing the Liquid experience – and this quarter has been no exception.

We’re looking at the broad spectrum of crypto users – from complete newcomers to seasoned professional traders. If winter is truly over, we’re looking forward to what’s coming next.

Here’s what we did in Q2 2019.

Quick Exchange

Everyone should have the opportunity to get a piece of crypto. With our new Quick Exchange feature, we make it substantially easier for someone to buy crypto on Liquid, with no need to get bogged down in order books, charts or any other points of confusion. Just choose what you want, enter the amount and press Quick Exchange. That’s it!

Liquid Pro mobile app

Crypto never sleeps. Every hour, every day people are trading cryptocurrency. As a trader, it can be very hard to step away from the screen when the markets are active.

A strong mobile app solves this problem. If you can trade on the go, it makes life as a crypto trader a lot easier.

Our Liquid Pro app is built for traders. It’s an excellent way to access the market, straight from your smartphone.

With Liquid Pro you can:

Buy and sell crypto

Margin trade with up to 25x leverage, or use Liquid Infinity with up to 100x leverage.

Chart using professional tools and mobile-optimized indicators

Track your positions, monitor your trades and react to market swings instantly.

If you haven’t downloaded the app yet, it’s available in the iOS App Store and Google Play Store.

Unicorn status

At the start of April we announced an ongoing series C funding round that resulted in Liquid being valued over 1 billion USD. The valuation establishes Liquid as a tech unicorn, one of only two tech unicorns in Japan's startup space. Founded in 2014, Liquid has achieved unicorn status in less than five years.

Heading to the US

Liquid is expanding to the US. For this expansion we have partnered with Virtual Currency Partners (VCP).

We have joined with VCP to create a jointly-owned entity called Liquid Financial USA Inc. (Liquid USA) to expand Liquid’s services into the US market. Liquid USA represents Liquid’s expansion plans into key growth markets.

We have recently formally announced the executive team of Liquid USA.

This is an incredibly valuable opportunity for Liquid to offer our services in another key market.

Gram Token Sale

You may have heard our most recent announcement: the Gram Token Sale is coming to Liquid.

Until now, you could only buy Gram tokens as a private investor. This is the first opportunity for the public to buy Gram tokens – only on Liquid.

Telegram is well known in the crypto world. Most crypto projects communicate using Telegram. Communities thrive on the platform..

Numbers don’t lie – and the 200 million active monthly users of Telegram are a colossal target market. Capitalizing on this huge user base, Telegram aims to make Gram one of the world’s most adopted cryptocurrencies.

Gram will be the native token of the Telegram Open Network (TON). If you’re interested in learning more about Gram and TON, we have a useful blog all about it.

The price per Gram token will be 4 USD.

However, QASH holders can access an exclusive rebate that means you can effectively pay as little as 3.50 USD per Gram – a 12.5% saving. The more QASH you hold, the higher your rebate.

The QASH rebate campaign has four holder tiers, outlined below:

To see the details of the QASH rebate, please read this post.

The Gram sale begins July 10.

Listings

As always, we have expanded our offerings on the exchange this quarter. In Q2 we have listed several new assets:

Customer support

It has been an extremely busy time for the Liquid Customer Support team as we prepare for the upcoming Gram Token sale. With the anticipation of this, we have seen a 300% increase on new customer signups, with 85% of those submitting KYC documents being approved within a few minutes.

But it's not just about speed. We want to look after you the right way. Our Net Promoter Score (NPS) performance continued to achieve a positive level with our highest ever score of +51.5 in June.

As a team we are always looking at different ways to be able to treat every customer as a unique individual and over the coming weeks we will be moving to a personalized tiered service where each client gets looked after by his or her own Customer Champion.

Russian language support

Expanding our language offering is an ongoing process, as we continue to make Liquid more accessible. The most recent addition to the available languages on Liquid is Russian, just in time for the upcoming Gram Token Sale.

Trading Improvements

Isolated margin

Isolated Margin gives traders the choice of selecting a margin type that suits them on a trade-by-trade basis.

Isolated Margin assigns a margin amount to your position, which is then restricted only to the assigned amount of margin. With Isolated Margin, you have precise control over exactly how much capital is exposed to the position. If the margin falls below the maintenance margin level, the position will be liquidated.

Margin Model

Under the old margin model, the initial required margin (IRM) also acted as Maintenance Margin (MM), which resulted in forced liquidations when the IRM (plus 10%) was breached.

Under the new model, forced liquidation happens when MM is breached. We believe the new model is greatly advantageous to our users as it gives significantly more leeway when it comes to forced liquidations.

Take profit

Take Profits on Liquid now act as limit orders rather than market orders. This allows traders to close their positions without any slippage.

Basic Account

The new Basic Account allows new users to try out most of Liquid’s features, including trading. Basic Account holders can withdraw limited amounts of crypto, depending on their location. A Basic Account can withdraw up to 2,000 USDe crypto per day, and 20,000 USDe per month.

Here’s a quick comparison of a Basic account and a Verified account on Liquid.

0-block Bitcoin deposits

On Liquid we now have the technology to confirm BTC deposits with 0 block confirmations. As a result, 80% of Bitcoin deposits will now processed and available for trading within 6-10 seconds.

In comparison, most exchanges confirm Bitcoin deposits after 3 blocks, which takes ~30 minutes.

Liquid consistently ranked among top exchanges

Exchanges are typically ranked by trading volume, which can be a valuable indicator, but many exchanges have discovered ways to falsify their volumes. This is harmful as it leads newer users down the wrong path.

A number of analysts have now produced research and applied alternative metrics to address this issue. A new standard is being set. Crypto exchanges need to be legitimate and this starts with accurate volume reporting.

Liquid appears positively in these rankings. Here are a few worth looking at:

Liquid Tap

Liquid Tap is our proprietary Websocket service for accessing streaming real-time data. It provides API traders with significantly lower latency, improved predictability and improved privacy too.

Liquid Tap fully launched in Japan this quarter, with a soft launch worldwide for API traders.

Out and about

Liquid CEO Mike Kayamori was a keynote speaker at LongHash DLT Compass in June. Mike gave a talk about the goals of Liquid and what it took to build a crypto unicorn company.

Mike also spoke at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in April, talking about our Series C funding and the fintech space.

The future is bright

Liquid is growing, improving, expanding.

We want to make finance accessible and we’re well on that path. We’re halfway through the year now and there’s a lot more to come.