Time to continue our interview series! This time we’re interviewing CEX.io Chief Marketing Officer Eugene Kovalyk, a crypto exchange suitable for both newbies and traders.

You can find some controversial reviews and opinions on CEX.io from the web, so we reached out to them to talk about their platform, their recent improvements and cryptos in general.

What’s the story of CEX.IO?

Our story has mining roots. Thus, CEX.IO was the pioneering platform for cloud mining and worked in conjunction with GHash.IO, the largest mining pool back in 2014. At some point, we were even close to the 51% Bitcoin network hash rate but blocked the inflow of new miners not to cross the line.

Along with the industry development, the temporary fall of the Bitcoin price and the growth of the mining difficulty, we decided to focus on CEX.IO project as a cryptocurrency exchange. In January 2015, we suspended cloud mining services and entered the full trading era for the company. We believe that was a good decision, as today CEX.IO is one of the leading crypto exchanges, providing services to both beginners and professional traders, as well as covering almost the whole world.

Where does the name come from?

Although people tend to joke about our title how it sounds, the meaning is very simple and straightforward — ‘cryptocurrency exchange’

Biggest challenge in the next 12 months?

It’s not a secret that we’ve been growing rapidly over the past year, which is always a challenge for service-oriented businesses. We have already tripled our support and compliance teams and are aiming to speed up in terms of processing tickets and verification requests.

Another task is to provide even better conditions to our customers in terms of raised limits and geographical coverage, yet remaining compliant to the strict AML/KYC rules set by regulators and partnering payment systems. Finally, we are working on a special trading product and will announce its beta version soon. Stay tuned.

Any goals for the next 3 years?

The fact is our user base has crossed the point of 1 million signifies that our business is solid and growing. The biggest achievement is that we have maintained and even raised our position on the market despite downtimes the industry experienced. We managed to adapt to the changes and are now more confident in our business than ever.

Why use CEX?

Crypto investors of any level are highly welcome at CEX.IO. Thus, the beginners can use our Buy/Sell interface to easily buy cryptocurrency with credit cards, just like any other goods on the web.

Traders can enjoy margin trading and arbitrage. Both options come along with the most popular trading pairs, and, what is most important, safety. As we are a legitimate business with high-security standards, the investors can be patient about their funds.

Any myths around CEX?

There is a big misconception that crypto market is kind of shady one and there are no serious players or regulation working here. Which is completely false. Besides the fact that we are FinCEN registered and PCI DSS compliant, we are a self-regulated platform with a very thorough due diligence we make for the new customers.

You can see that as a con because it makes the procedure of verification last longer and requires a lot of documents, but at the same users can be calm about their money.

Trading or holding?

In fact you can do both; however, it’s important not to overestimate your abilities as a trader. It is always easy to be a trader on a growing market. In addition, everything leads to the point in nearest future when trading robots would take the biggest share of the trading job. Therefore, if you are not 100% sure in your abilities as a trader, you’d better buy and hold.

Which cryptocurrencies has CEX team invested into? Why?

We are investing into cryptocurrencies that have perspective, clear adoption and cannot exist without blockchain.

How do you pick your winners?

We pick up only the ones we really believe in based on the criteria I have named in the previous answer and also it’s important they pass our due diligence procedure.

If you were to trade on another exchange, then which would it be? 🙂

Bitstamp

Is there anyone who you specifically follow in the cryptocurrency space?

Mainly proven leaders of the industry like Charlie Lee, Roger Ver, Brian Armstrong

If you could borrow someone’s brain for a week, whose brain would it be?

Satoshi Nakamoto 🙂

When it comes to cryptocurrencies, is there anything that needs to be said to the people that are just discovering what cryptocurrency actually is?

The buzz is about the unprecedented cutting-edge technology backing the cryptocurrencies. Although a lot of people think that the idea is here to resist the control of the government and banks, blockchain and cryptocurrencies can be a perfect tool to improve lots of processes in various industries.

What I am trying to say is that cryptocurrencies are more than just money. Secondly, you can think of crypto as an investment but bear in mind that the market is still turbulent and volatile, so, as with any investment, make sure not to invest more than you’re ready to lose. Thirdly, avoid shady crypto businesses and choose trusted and time-proven platforms for the crypto services.

We appreciate Eugene for taking the time to answer our questions and wish him and the whole Cex.io team all the best.