
With FinNexus coming to Bitrue, I wanted to know what IS coming to Bitrue. FinNexus ——) Finance / Next ..... the next finance, DeFi, all kinds of things popped up in my head, so I started reading about it. Reading about it, is very nice, but what if .... what if .... let's just ask the CEO what FinNexus is .... So let's look at the screen and there he is: Mr. Boris Yang, CEO FinNexus ... very interested to hear more about the project. Mr. Yang, the floor is yours ! ! !

XRPTwin:
Could you please introduce yourself in a couple of sentences ? ? ?
FinNexus – Boris:
I am Boris, founder and CEO of FinNexus. I am a product designer. It is my passion. Product design was my responsibility in Wanchain before and also now in FinNexus. Before crypto, I worked in the software and internet industry for several years also as a product designer and then as an entrepreneur. I was so impressed by the white paper of Bitcoin in 2015 that I joined the crypto industry the next year. At that moment, I bought BTC with almost all my money. From 2016, I worked with Jack Lu, the cofounder of one of the first successful ERC20 tokens – Factom, to build Wanchain until last year.
XRPTwin:
You are one of the initial co-founders of Wanchain, how has this helped you in your current role and when did you decide to found FinNexus ? ? ?
FinNexus – Boris:
When I worked on public chain design, it made me feel like I was in the first stage of the crypto industry, oriented towards engineers and pioneers. But we all know that just engineers and pioneers cannot make the industry bigger. How to attract more regular users? My belief is that we need more assets token with different risk and return profiles to attract different investors. And we must make user experience better so it works more like the way we use the internet. That is why we started FinNexus.

XRPTwin:
Did you come up with the name FinNexus, and why FinNexus ? ? ?
FinNexus – Boris:
FinNexus is the combination of the words ‘Finance’ and ‘Nexus’ so the idea is that it is a hub for connecting different decentralised ledgers to each other and users, and also for connecting with traditional finance applications. The industry needs a solution that is not only interoperable between these new, fascinating blockchain worlds, but also between these blockchains and the legacy finance systems that still dominate 95% of the usage in the traditional finance industry.
Assets and users are always the core of traditional finance, which also applies to DeFi. Though public chains on the bottom layer are the major focus, protocols and applications are the portals for actual users and assets to get access to. That’s what we always want to do, to channel the flow of financial value efficiently and securely, with more varieties of assets, and to attract more users to this growing industry. That’s where the idea of FinNexus was born.
XRPTwin:
Can you explain FinNexus in ten sentences ? ? ?
FinNexus – Boris:
FinNexus is a suite of open finance products and protocols for both enterprise use and crypto aficionados. Our FNX token is on the Wanchain blockchain, but that doesn’t mean we are only concerned with the WAN ecosystem. We’re building a hub for connecting different decentralised ledgers – like WAN, XRP, BTC and ETH for example – to each other and making users more comfortable in accessing the products on those great ledgers.
The first iteration of FinNexus will be like a Crypto Supermarket with both fully decentralised assets and tokenised versions of more traditional financial products. Users can conveniently browse for different unique products that maybe better suit their risk and investment objectives. Our job now is just to stock the shelves.
XRPTwin: well 10 sentences have been written, but let's continue :–)
From a technical perspective, we build these products by focusing on what we call “interoperable protocol clusters.” So the first cluster is called ADP, which stands for Assets Distribution Protocol, that’s responsible for our UM1S token for example. The next cluster that we’ve started working on is called DO, which means Decentralised Options. We will develop in this way, step by step, until we have many varieties of products that we created and can provide to users, both B2B and B2C, through different FinNexus protocols.
XRPTwin:
Your protocol is based on three pillars of DeFi: diversity, value, and convenience. Can you highlight these three pillars showing their importance ? ? ?
FinNexus – Boris:
We are often asked questions like: In what projects shall I invest? Why should I invest in crypto? How can I make a crypto investment? These questions are actually the three key factors of DeFi, diversity, value, and convenience, which we like to call the three DeFi pillars. These are the very problems that FinNexus intends to solve.

FinNexus aims to advance open finance through the establishment of one-stop-shop protocols based on the three pillars of DeFi, by diversifying crypto intrinsic risks with more real-world application scenarios, building bridges to real-world value with blockchain technology, and creating a user-friendly ecosystem.
XRPTwin:
Of course I did my research, but in conclusion, is it wrong when I state FinNexus connects everything in the DeFi / Blockchain industry ? ? ?
FinNexus – Boris:
I would like to answer this question from a more technical angle. We try to build the combination of protocols connecting different participants and counter-parties into protocols clusters. The industry has called them now for a while ‘FAT PROTOCOLS.’
Protocols in DeFi are often compared with the Internet industry. Key protocols like TCP, IP, HTTP, FTP… these are the pieces of code that provide the basic layers of connection for the entire internet. But they didn’t earn much money for their inventors! Internet protocols create lots of value but capture little. Top-layer applications like Google, Facebook, Tencent, built on top of those foundational protocols accrue most of the value. Protocols are THIN, while applications are FAT. That’s kind of a basic hypothesis that a lot of people in blockchain industry believe, but hasn’t really come true yet.

The difference with how FinNexus thinks about this problem and your traditional “Fat Protocol” thinker is that we actually believe the protocol layer is gonna get carved up. You have your base layers – infrastructure projects like Wanchain, Zilliqa, and of course Ethereum – and of course they will get some of that value. However, in DeFi world, there are Middleware protocols that sit on top of public chains but, at the same time, also sit below the application layer. These protocols have the potential to capture an enormous amount of value.
We think that in the DeFi space, value will flow mostly to these layers because all the data is shared in an open manner, and secured by the base layer public blockchains. Anyone is free to build applications that sit on top of all these layers. But it’s interesting you see that the new wave of great DeFi Dapps don’t have any token at all. But you can build a token-based ecosystem where those tokens are driving the middleware in all sorts of cool ways.
If we can design native utility tokens that capture the value and unlock the full potential of these middleware protocols, and I’m not embarrassed to say we think Synthetix is a great example of this, but I think we can take it a step further and make it super easy for not only us but other teams to create apps and Dapps using our protocol clusters to solve difficult design problems.
We think that user adoption comes first before meaningful protocol adoption, so in everything we do we’re thinking how to enable mass adoption of cryptocurrency and tokenised protocols, so we can create that virtuous circle – continued usage leads to continued adoption leads to continued usage, etc.
Middleware protocols will provide the connective layer that makes everything in DeFi “just work.” So it’s in this middleware layer where FinNexus plans to develop its first sets of protocol clusters. In our first stage of development, we will concentrate on 3 different “protocol clusters” that will focus on 1) Blockchain Interaction Protocol (BIP), 2) a Protocol Cluster for Assets Payments (PCAP), and 3) an Assets Distribution Protocol (ADP).

Our operations in developing this blockchain middleware will simplify what is often an intensive token-interactive experience for DeFi users across many platforms. It can be so frustrating for first-time users that many users just give up without even trying. Even though it’s in their best economic interest to figure it out, they can’t be bothered. We want to solve that problem. Our aim is to hasten the integration of traditional finance and decentralised assets, which is ultimately the most basic requirement for enabling the widespread adoption of cryptographic financial technology.
So to your question, I believe the answer is yes, FinNexus wants to connect everything, it’s in our name. And it’s not just blockchain ledgers, but ledgers that sit in legacy systems all over the world, too. That is the FinNexus’ vision.
XRPTwin:
My name on Twitter / Coil is XRPTwin , so I have to ask something about Ripple..... RippleNet, am I allowed to ask if there are any connections between RippleNet and FinNexus (maybe you can say something about the Wanchain Network also) ? ? ?
FinNexus – Boris:
From the end of last year, we began to build connections with the XRPCommunity. Bitrue introduced some for us, especially technical connections. It is a good start. We are trying to build more and deep connections with the XRP team and community. We are now looking at the XUMM Wallet which comes out of the XRPL Labs. We think it is a very good wallet and look forward to enabling our UMnS asset products to be held there.
As far as Wanchain, you know I helped Jack Lu to found this project, so we have a good relationship with Jack Lu and other team members there. Our marketing advisor Noah is from WAN and they are one of our founding investors. Wanchain has finished some technical innovation, especially in cross-chain. So far, they’ve really helped FinNexus a lot both in tech and business.
XRPTwin:
In a perfect world, how do you see traditional financial products in the next/new economy ? ? ?
FinNexus – Boris:
Traditional financial products have been developed for hundreds of years. There are lots of wonderful novel designs and familiar accepted business models. They will dominate the world for a long time. Everyone knows there are some problems in traditional finance. In my opinion, the key issue is it is too centralised and monopolised by a few people or institutions. Regular people cannot share in the profits fairly and even in some regions of the world people cannot get basic services. Crypto finance is an infant now which represents a new idea to how to organise finance just like several hundred years ago people were aware of a new way to organise government to make the world with more fairness. I think in a long time traditional and crypto finance would work together. Crypto finance has to keep learning and growing. In time, it will gain more market share from traditional finance.
XRPTwin:
If you want to describe THE catalyst for FinNexus’ success, are we talking about mass adoption? Is that THE important ingredient ? ? ?
FinNexus – Boris:
Mass adoption is the only path to success for all projects. If we are talking about the one catalyst, in my opinion it is about the key event to make you on the right path. For FinNexus, it would be if one or two types of the assets we are productising and enabling with the protocol clusters we have on our roadmap, if just one or two them get lots of users and are accepted by the market, then we could see our head above water and could go from there.
You know we are building a Crypto Supermarket at FinNexus and a supermarket is a place you go to often because you need that one or two staple products your family always likes to have. For me, my family is always sending me to the store for vegetables, rice, oil, etc, so we are looking for that kind of thing in terms of crypto products for our Crypto Supermarket. You asked what is most important ingredient, so I think it is something like this everyday food you know and like, something that is simple and tasty and beneficial for your portfolio.
XRPTwin:
What do you think of the slow adoption of regulations in the crypto industry; does that hold back your roadmap rollout ? ? ?
FinNexus – Boris:
Regulations are related to history, the long-held interests of different gamers, marketing situations, lobbyists, even security of nations and order of governance play a part. This new crypto industry impacts all. I feel not surprised by the slow adoption of regulations. What we can do is know it is reality, face it and try to deal with it. It takes time and money to obey regulations of course.
XRPTwin:
Is Covid-19 slowing your progress ? ? ?
FinNexus – Boris:
Covid-19 really drove the market to some uncertainty, especially so close before the BTC halving, and we postponed our listing plan with Bitrue until this month, but our technical and product progress stayed intact and has been going well. We were able to dive deep into the mechanism design of our DO (decentralised options) protocol cluster, finalise a 1st-gen front end for it and start tackling the backend engineering issues head on. Though we have been quarantined away from offices and working at home, I don’t think we’d have made as much progress if people on the team weren’t all cooped up inside. For our team, some of which is distributed any way, telecommuting actually makes work more efficient and easy. Everything is going on just as we outlined on our 2020 roadmap. Maybe even a little bit faster.
XRPTwin: Well, Bitrue will be discussed later, nice you mentioned this, but ... later
XRPTwin:
Can you tell me a little bit more about ICTO and its advantages ? ? ?
FinNexus – Boris:
ICTO means Initial Convertible Token Offering. It’s a token distribution model that we innovated at FinNexus. It is different from the well-known IEO.
An Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) is when a project sells its first round of tokens to the public in conjunction with an exchange. The exchange assures the credibility of the coin and helps promote it, and in return, the coin project gets a large amount of exposure to help it raise funds for its continued development.
In an ICTO, the sold token can be converted at a later stage to a token that is backed by real world cash flows, at the discretion of the token holders within a pre-set conversion period. This mechanism gives token holders a way to balance their own portfolio according to their unique risk preferences, as well as a second choice when the market experiences uncertainty, should anything like Black Thursday happen again in the next 3 months of the choice period. Another interesting feature is that the choice period provides an effective safeguard for the FNX token price. Whales can’t dump on you, first of all because, in our case, lockups for fund investors are in place for this choice period and, second of all, if they did they’d just be forfeiting their right to exchange for another token backed by real verifiable cash flows.
There are many advantages to participating in an ICTO.
The essence of the ICTO model is that the holders of the FNX token are entitled to conversion rights, a second choice even after subscription. In the version that we have implemented for the Bitrue token sale, the FNX token holders may either choose to convert to the asset-backed token UM1S to enjoy lower risk and a fixed return for up to 3 months or they may hold FNX to be involved with the benefits from future FinNexus development. Investors may choose whether or not and when to convert according to their risk preferences. Like this, we always talk about 3 different kinds of investors: Alice, Bob, and Mike.

It is of interest to note that the conversion ratio is always fixed. Due to UM1S’s fixed return, one can get the principal and interest back at maturity. That’s where the safeguarding of FNX price during the conversion period comes from. If FNX drops below 0.10 USDT, arbitrageurs — and in crypto, especially DeFi, there are a lot of those these days! — can step in to capture some of this “free” value. The FNX price will be unlikely to drop significantly below the issuance price, thus preserving only upside potential for FNX during the conversion period.
The market decides how many FNX tokens are left on the market. The converted FNX will be burnt, leading to a decrease in the circulating supply, which benefits the remaining FNX token holders, i.e. those who do not choose to convert to UM1S.

XRPTwin:
Smart people often say companies/ tokens/ digital assets that have a use case survive bearish periods; what is FinNexus use case ? ? ?
FinNexus – Boris:
Like I talked above, the most important use case is assets adoption. Right now, we focus on 2 things: 1) providing tokens with real world value via our assets distribution protocol (ADP) and 2) a pure decentralised options (DO) protocol. These two products, we think, will provide diversity and value, two of our founding pillars, to the industry. Now it’s up to our engineers to make it convenient. Not only that, but these products are specifically targeted toward risk management. We don’t think anyone should have all their wealth in crypto, but if they do, they can easily diversify with our ADP products. If they don’t want to do that, at least they can buy some insurance against price movements against them using our DO products.
Our base use case is to make it easy for enterprise and regular crypto users to access great products and tailor their risk. We think people will need these features even in bear markets.
XRPTwin:
If any, who is/ are your biggest competitor(s) ? ? ?
FinNexus – Boris:
The crypto-initiated ecosystem may become a bit crowded, due to the fast growth of projects outpacing the increase of users. One of the major operations of FinNexus is to bridge the value between the traditional finance world and the blockchain world, hence introducing more users into the crypto world, to make the tokenised value understandable, secure, and convenient to most, like the way the internet is now.
It’s interesting you mention competition, because at FinNexus, at least in the DeFi space, we tend to refer to the other DeFi projects as our “brother” projects rather than competitors because, in reality, we’re all in this together to construct a more inclusive global financial system. Plus, with the way compostability works, we’re perfectly fine using another protocol in our tech stack if our engineers say it is well made. Why re-invent the wheel? The best innovation usually happens when you’re standing on someone else’s shoulders to get a better view of the new world you’re creating.
Traditional finance, or TradFi, has hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of value locked up in it, while EthFi currently just has around $1 billion. All the other DeFi systems not on Ethereum — Sologenic, Kava, Terra, Thorchain are some that come to mind — have different business models and ideas. So we really could be at the beginning of something special here in the broader DeFi industry. And we find ourselves lucky to be part of the future of finance, learning, and building upon each other. That’s what interoperability means right?
The legacy finance system has so many varieties of assets, together with all kinds of financial instruments and models, it is safe to say that even if there was a ton of competition out there, if we’re talking about the opportunity of bringing TradFi to DeFi it hardly even matters. The opportunity is just that big.
XRPTwin: and now it is time for ....... Bitrue ! ! !

XRPTwin:
Earlier this week we were shared the cooperation with Bitrue, with Curis Wang; what is your relationship with Bitrue/ Curis and how do you see this relationship in the next couple of weeks/ months coming to fruition ? ? ?

FinNexus – Boris:
Bitrue is a great exchange focusing more on long vision. Most of the really great DeFi projects we admire are listed there, so we are glad to cooperate with them. Besides FNX listing, we are talking about deeper cooperation such as UM1S and options products. We both have something in common which is bringing more assets to users in the crypto world and attracting more regular users into crypto.
I also had a quick word with Curis, CEO Bitrue and this is a quick line from him:


XRPTwin:
What do you see happening in the crypto space in 2020 ? ? ?
FinNexus – Boris:
I think this year will be a real turning point for the industry. It has been so long of everyone struggling through the crypto winter. This year we have BTC halving and probably ETH PoS, and then with all the money creation by central banks out there, there is more attention being paid to our industry by big investor like Paul Tudor Jones. Whoever can survive through these next few months has a chance of being a part of leading the next stage of crypto. So, 2020 is a year full of risk but also heavy with hope.
XRPTwin:
What do you see happening with FinNexus in 2020 ? ? ?
FinNexus – Boris:
We are just pushing through the roadmap we laid out in the beginning of the year. Back then, I thought it was ambitious, but actually we are making rapid progress toward finishing our plan to enable the issuance of two different types of tokens via our ADP and DO protocol clusters. After the conversion period, we’ll have an idea of our budget and can start implementing our business development plans to go alongside our already-in-beta products and protocols. You know it’s hard to BD something that’s not finished! But we’ll be ramping this part of the company after the Bitrue event is over.
If people want to have some more interaction with FinNexus, I would definitely visit YouTube where Jeff and Chip hosted FinNexus OTC – On The Chain

You can find the whole stream below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9IC5zswsRM
Chip and Jeff gave their permission to place the video here in the Blog ! ! !
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