As always with Bitcoin Wales, we are trying to source information about the foundations that are being built for the Bitcoin Ecosystem. The technology is growing up and the seeds have been sown to develop into something revolutionary. Bitcoin has caught the attention and imagination of many visionaries. Many of whom have gone on to create services and businesses themselves that are based around Bitcoin. It is reminiscent of the early days of the Internet where many start-ups would attempt to carry forward with their vision based around an open and permission less information technology that would break many barriers.

Many failed and some survived and thrived. Only the toughest survived to go on and establish themselves in the global and competitive market that the Internet created. Today we see the same actions based around an open and permission less payments technology. Many have a vision and idea that they wish to capitalise on that would not be possible with our existing financial systems. To carry out their dreams and ideas they need a new system built from the ground up. A payments system built for the internet age. As such I always tip my hat to those with the courage to create something from the ground up in a new and unexplored industry. Today we have one of those visionaries and his name is Vytautas Karalevičius, co-founder and CEO of Spectrocoin.

Spectrocoin is a Bitcoin based exchange and wallet service that wishes to compete in the competitive Bitcoin domain. Their service supports 150+ countries and they allow for instant exchange with 20+ deposit and withdrawal methods supported. Below is the raw interview with Vytautas in his own words.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and the people who started SpectroCoin?

I’m Vytautas Karalevičius, the co-founder and CEO of SpectroCoin. I’ve been in financial and management consulting industry for years. Another two co-founders are Mantas Mockevičius and Justas Dobiliauskas. Both of them have been in e-currency trading industry before and have necessary expertise. My colleague Mantas is CCO of SpectroCoin and he has more than 7 years’ experience in electronic money exchange business. Justas is professional IT specialist and software developer and he acts as CTO of our company. We, together brought SpectroCoin to life and made its services available for people in more than 150 countries worldwide.

Where can the SpectroCoin office be found?

As we are based in United Kingdom our office can be found at office space Level39 in Canary Wharf, the major business district in east London. This district was the best strategic location for SpectroCoin start-up. While our developers and support team are based in Kaunas, Lithuania.

How did SpectroCoin come to daylight?

It is a long story, but I could try to briefly outline the main aspects of our company past. SpectroCoin prehistory began at 2007, when Mantas and Justas released initial project of electronic currency exchange platform. However, at the century of rapid technological changes when new innovations are introduced every day and potential opportunity to improve or even expand current services could fall into hands from nowhere, you need to be blind or closed minded not to accept that kind of opportunity to move forward.

As a result, a few years later after release of electronic currency exchange application, I noticed two things. Firstly, the high potential of bringing cryptocurrency Bitcoin to exchange market. And more importantly unprecedented opportunity of bitcoin prepaid debit card introduction to the market. My observation of potential changes was the starting point of the SpectroCoin company development. Consequently, at 2012, me, Mantas and Justas had a discussion about the opportunity to introduce bitcoin prepaid debit card to the market. As a result, at the following year we registered SpectroCoin company in United Kingdom and introduced our services to people around the globe.

And now we are able to offer wide range of services and products, including e-wallet, exchange, prepaid debit card and more to people in Europe and beyond. That shows us that the primary idea wasn’t just an idea itself but good business plan with large potential to grow bigger in the market.

Can you tell us a bit more about the SpectroCoin team?

Including me, Justas and Mantas we have only 10 people in our team. I can say that SpectroCoin team is small but united and highly motivated to achieve more. Our team of diversely skilled professionals, such as IT and customer support specialists, continually push themselves to learn and to evolve so that we may provide our services to clients in the best possible way.

In my opinion, this small number of team members does not have negative impact. Oppositely, I’ve noticed that close-knit work environment has many benefits, such as good communication between team members or ability for all of them to have open discussion and to express their personal opinions and ideas, which can be very helpful in order to fulfil our clients’ needs and to provide better services.

Can you tell us more about the products and services provided by SpectroCoin?

SpectroCoin offers not only electronic wallet, where users can keep their funds, or possibility to exchange fiat currency to bitcoins and vice versa, but also variety of options of how users are able to dispose their funds. We are highly focused on fast transaction processes and ease of use of our e-wallet. As a result, we are offering more than 20 types of deposits and withdrawals methods, including a number of e-wallets, such as PerfectMoney, OKPay, Payeer, also International bank wire or SEPA transfers and many other options. I can assure that these deposits and withdrawals methods usually take no longer than 24 hours to proceed.

In addition, to fulfil British clients’ needs, as an option of withdrawal method, SpectroCoin offers Amazon.co.uk vouchers. Meaning, that our clients from United Kingdom are able to exchange their bitcoins to Amazon vouchers and use them to make a purchase at Amazon.co.uk website. Besides we are pleased to provide an opportunity to use small amount of bitcoins to top-up mobile phones on O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Virgin Mobile, Three and other mobile telecommunications services providers.

Moreover, our mobile wallet application, which is suitable for Android, iOS and Windows phones, can be used for purchasing goods and services at number of physical places. In the same way we offer Merchants solution, which provides the possibility for businesses to use our POS system, API or e-commerce plugins. Consequently, with our proposed system integration and little support, physical and online businesses are capable of accepting bitcoin payments too.

Furthermore, we recently introduced bitcoin prepaid SpectroCoin debit card, which is funded through SpectroCoin.com e-wallet and can be used at any ATMs or shops where VISA or MasterCard payments are accepted.

What are the latest achievements that the SpectroCoin Team can be proud of?

The most recent news that I can proudly tell you about is that SpectroCoin is successfully increasing number of physical places in Europe where SpectroCoin.com users can spend their Bitcoins. Currently, we introduced our SpectroCoin.com wallet to Londoners. The wallet can be used for making purchase at handful of restaurants and coffee shops around London town. And we are planning to expand this possibility to other cities in UK. Earlier this year the same was done at region of Baltic States and several places in Southern Europe, where SpectroCoin e-wallet users are able to make bitcoin payments at number of service providers.

What kind of impact does it have on SpectroCoin clients?

From my own perspective and experience, introducing Bitcoin into daily life not only makes us more satisfied, but also makes our customers happier. Firstly, because we are helping to remove bitcoin usage restrictions in daily life. Secondly, because we are acting as bridge between customers who are holding bitcoins in their pockets and businesses which are willing to integrate bitcoin payments, but lack of knowledge about that is stopping them. And we are proud because with our proposed solutions we are willing to bring them together.

It’s worth mentioning, that this method of making Bitcoin payment via SpectroCoin wallet gives our customers the time saving ability to pre-order their goods and services before entering the store or restaurant. This option is very good solution for people who are always in hurry.

What would you like to say to people who have a sceptical attitude about similar services to yours?

It is perfectly known that Bitcoin is volatile currency, which is not backed by any government and many banks have cautioned against it. Thus, for the people with conservative point of view it might be hard to accept something, what does not come with specific guarantees or cannot be touched and hold in their hands. Moreover, negative attitude might come from the fact that the countless number of companies tried to do similar things (adopting Bitcoin) as we do, but failed to succeed.

However, SpectroCoin services prove that the problem is not Bitcoin itself but the way of how companies offering similar services are dealing with Bitcoin usage possibilities. SpectroCoin assures that the online platform and digital wallet are easy to use and perfectly secured. And more importantly, on behalf of SpectroCoin company I can guarantee that if customer requested to buy 1 Bitcoin at particular exchange rate he/she will receive 1 Bitcoin, irrespectively to Bitcoin volatile.

Although, I could talk more about our services and benefits we offer, but facts speak for themselves. The large number of SpectroCoin.com users from United Kingdom, Eastern and Southern Europe and from other places believed in us when we started and now are loyal SpectroCoin customers. As far as I know, the number of people who use SpectroCoin.com is increasing day by day, purely because satisfied SpectroCoin.com users tell other people about services we offer. In my opinion, the world-of-mouth advertising is the best way of showing that we are on the right business path.