Xfers and the launch of StraitsX XSGD with Liu Tianwei
Liu Tianwei, CEO of Xfers, share the origin story of his company and the recent launch of the stable coin, XSGD.
Fresh out of the studio, Liu Tianwei, CEO and co-founder of Xfers, sit down for a discussion on the origin story of Xfers and shares the backstory in how the company has managed to launch their StraitsX exchange with the first stable coin XSGD in Southeast Asia. Tianwei dived deep into the weeds in how the team put together the white paper from concept to launch with key applications in DeFi and worked with the regulators and partners to launch the stable coin into action. Last but not least, he shared his perspectives on the ongoing convergence between cryptocurrency and fintech.
"So I think from a market perspective, Southeast Asia is still in its early stages. We probably do not have that much of that to have so many stable coins. End of the day circulation and liquidity is everything. So the one that is pretty much have the most adoption and since the circulating and support will be the one that most, probably 90% of everything will happen at." - Liu Tianwei
Here are the links and show notes for this episode:
Introduction
- Liu Tianwei, CEO and co-founder of Xfers (or Fazz Financial Group) (LinkedIn, @Tian_wei)
- How did you start your career?
- What are the interesting lessons in your career journey that you can share with my audience here?
Xfers
- What is the mission and vision of Xfers?
- What is the origin story of Xfers? What is the problem which you are solving for the customer today?
- Xfers is part of the YCombinator 2015 batch in Silicon Valley. Can you talk about how that experience helped your team to build Xfers to what it is today?
- Who are the investors of Xfers?
- What are the products and services that customers would be able to access with Xfers?
- What is your geographic footprint currently in Southeast Asia?
- What does great looks like for Xfers in the next three years?
The story of StraitsX Singapore Dollar aka XSGD (Whitepaper)
- Based on my understanding in reading your white paper, StraitsX is the first stablecoin initiative with a focus in Southeast Asia, and explores the migration of centralized ledgers which document fund flows onto distributed ledger technology (aka DLT). So, it allows people or organizations to transact using 1 for 1 collateralized and denominated in their native ASEAN fiat currencies. The recently launched XSGD token is fully collateralized one for one by Singapore Dollar and can be redeemed for 1 SGD. This is similar to USD Circle or USD Tether or Dai in the US.
- To start the conversation, what is the motivation behind StraitsX?
- What are the use cases that XSGD solve for the market?
- As I am a long time Xfers user, I have a XSGD and did a successful transaction of $50 to my metamask wallet on the first day. Why is the limit at $50?
- Can XSGD be used in decentralized finance or DeFi similar, for example liquidity pools and lending?
- What is the process like for your team to put together the StraitsX initiative from the white paper all the way to launch?
- Creating a stable coin is not easy and requires the monetary regulatory bodies from respective countries, for example, what are the key things that XSGD have done to assure that there is oversight?
- What is the calculus behind the choice of supported blockchain protocols which I understand that there is support for Ethereum and Zilliqa? Will it be open to other layer 1 blockchains which want to build on XSGD?
- How do you work with some of your key partners, for example, Coinhako, Gemini and Uniswap?
- Will you create stable coins for other currencies in Southeast Asia, a stablecoin version for the Malaysia Ringgit or Indonesia Rupiah?
- We see that China will be launching their digital cryptocurrency, the digital Yuan, and I believe that it’s a matter of time that many countries will either launch their own cryptocurrencies including Singapore (with their Pulau Ubin project under MAS), will there be a plethora of sovereign digital currencies in the market and eventually they subsume initiatives like StraitsX?
- How do you see the fintech and cryptocurrency space evolving in Southeast Asia? What are the conditions that you think must exist when fintech and cryptocurrency converge at some point?
Closing
- Any recommendations (a book, podcast, movie or TV series) that have inspired you recently?
- Tian Wei's recommendation: Peter Thiel, "Zero to One"
- How do my audience find you?