Covesting is a cryptocurrency startup which has created a platform for blockchain-backed cryptocurrency trading platform for every investor. By copying the trades of the renowned traders, the investors can grow their assets and make profits on the network. This is done automatically by using Smart Contracts. Copy trading model is brought to the blockchain and cryptocurrency world by Covesting and it provides a platform where the small and new investors can compare their performance with different leading cryptocurrency traders and the investor can follow up to 20 traders. Different portion of the money can be allocated to these traders and on behalf of the user, Covesting will automatically copy the trade. A former investment manager of Saxo bank, Dmitrij Pruglo, who has 10 years of experience in the financial market and also the CEO of Covesting is here with us today.
Q. Hi Dmitrij, tell us about yourself.
A. For the last 15 years I am working in this industry. Like any other newcomer I was also a wannabe trader who had low balance and major hunger of knowledge. I realised that the world is the playground and due to internet connection we are not bound to stick to one place. I grabbed every material I could find and every opinion of the expert or every report of the newspaper, so I studied a lot. The basics of financial markets, the technical and fundamental analysis are very important to know and started to trade from a small account.
In SEB bank Lithuania I started my first internship at the age of 21 years. To become a pro financial advisor I cleared the securities commissions test as well. I was the youngest in the team. With SEB bank I had a good stint but I wanted to get into more hardcore trading. Then I joined the Saxo bank because it is the pioneer in assets trading around the world. For several years I worked with Saxo bank and became the associate of sales trading department and worked as a senior account executive for VIP clients from the associate in sales. I dealt in CFD, Futures, FX, Equity and Bonds. Then I decided to start my own Covesting when I was working in the Cyprus office of the bank and I quit the job.
Q. Tell us more about your team! Do they all have background of crypto?
A. I have worked with Tim Voronin, Andrey Zaveryukha and Max Sayganov. They all are the members of Covesting team at Saxo bank in the past. In financial world, they all have great track record and reputation. During the course, Sergey Sevantsyan (CIO, CTO), Konstantin Zherebtsov (Information Security and Compliance) and Ivan Sologub (Marketing and PR) and other experts joined us. Some members of our team have a great global financial market experience and some others are deeply involved with cryptocurrencies and blockchain movement. So the team is outstanding. As we bring the best talents from all over the world, we have some remote workers in our team.
Q: What inspired you to do an ICO?
A. From my previous work experience I am very familiar with IPO’s. IPO provides great value to the early stage investors and it also provides financial support to the entrepreneurs and I already know that. Banks are not in trend today and it is the reality. ICO is extremely transparent way of fund raising and I instantly thought about this when I heard about ICO. According to my vision, in future the ICO will work with harmony when there will be digital economy which will be powered by blockchain technology and there will be a platform for crypto currencies and fund raising.
Q: How did the idea of Covesting come about? Is this something you were doing before?
A. I immediately spotted arbitrage opportunities when I started cryptocurrency trading 1.5 years ago. Due to my presence in Forex markets, I have recognised the market inefficiency. The coin prices are pushed hundreds and sometimes thousands percent due to volatility and huge capital inflow into digital assets. Due to low knowledge and time, some investors miss the opportunity to gain profit because the cryptocurrency market really offers huge profit opportunities. By building a synergistic platform I thought of helping these people out, where in exchange of a part of the profit, we involve hundreds of experience traders to trade for them. Everyday investors can employ the professional traders with Covesting to make money for them. By allowing the novice traders to follow them, the expert traders earn a good income. In traditional markets the copy trading or peer 2 peer asset management is a win-win solution and it has already proven to be successful. So the idea of bringing similar platform like crypto came out naturally.
Q: What is the cap for your ICO and how did you come to chose that number? What do you think of unlimited ICO’s? How much money is too much money to be raised in an ICO?
A. From project to project, it varies. Some of the players in the market are trying to collect as much money as possible even if they have no roadmap or proper utilisation of the collected fund. At Covesting, we have a hard cap of 100.000 ETH. Even if we raise 20.000 ETH then also we can proceed with platform development, but we have to continue to work on it. During ICO, the scale of platform growth, user acquisition and marketing are influenced by the total raised funds. So there will be a better kick start and brand recognition when there will be more funds.
Q: If you successfully crowd sell with your ICO, where will your company be based?
A. We are already decided to start a Singapore entity. We believe that for blockchain startups they have a great legal structure.
Q: Do you have a background in conducting due diligence on crowdfunded projects?
A. I have successfully invested in several ICOs which provided me with an average of 3x returns. On daily basis I checked new ICO’s but there are lot of untrustworthy ICOs and scams which should be avoided by the investors.
Q: In addition to security, what do you feel must be understood when performing due diligence on cryptoprojects?
A. It is important to evaluate the previous career and experience from of the team behind the ICO. Sometimes I discovered that some guys are building spaceships in their dream while in reality they can’t even build a bicycle.
Q: What is your “bird’s eye view” of the block chain industry as a whole. From what you’ve seen, what aspects of token crowd sales could be improved?
A. I think we are in the very early stages and the most interesting part is just ahead of us! I can see that there will be many regulators who regulate the global ICOs and other parts of digital economy. Since regulations will provide more safety for contributors and investors it is not necessarily bad.
Q: You’re clearly very passionate about the crypto space! Which projects are the most exciting to you?
A. Any project which have solid business model and working token economics, I love them. It is because from that I will know that how the project generate profit and grow.
Q: What current proof of concepts has Covesting completed? What projects are in the pipeline?
A. In November we are launching MVP prototype version and all the users will come to know the interface and all features of our platform. I believe that this will increase the trust level of the community members in our project. Beta version release is scheduled for Q1 2018.
Q: What’s in the future for Covesting?
A. For crypto assets, we see ourselves as the leading peer to peer asset management in two years time. We estimate that around the world there will be 5000 users who will use our platform for hassle-free and transparent asset management services.
Q: Have you talked with any exchanges about their interested in enabling trading of your Covesting tokens?
A. Yes, as soon as the ICO is finished we will launch our token and we already negotiating with Yobit and HitBTC.
Great, thank you Dmitrij, I appreciate your time and I will be watching the crowd sale intently.
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ICO name: Covesting
Pre-ICO starts: 20.10.2017
ICO starts on: 24.11.2017
ICO ends on: 24.12.2017
Total # of coins: 20.000.000
Official Website: https://covesting.io
Official Facebook: https://facebook.com/covesting
Official Twitter: https://twitter.com/covesting
Official Telegram: http://t.me/covesting