- Buying, holding, selling, and using cryptocurrencies can be a relatively tall order for newcomers to the crypto scene, hindering mass adoption.
- “Our whole philosophy here at Coinberry is crypto made simple, so we’ve really honed in on simplifying the interaction with and use of cryptocurrencies,” says Andrei Poliakov – Coinberry CEO – in an exclusive interview with BitStarz News
- Cryptocurrencies can be a great alternative to fiat currencies thanks to their fast transaction times and low transaction fees.
Buying, selling, and using cryptocurrencies can be a complicated and arduous task at times – especially with so many platforms to choose from. On top of this, there are very few products available for purchase with cryptocurrencies once you manage to acquire them. To help tackle these issues, Coinberry has developed an intuitive crypto trading platform, while Coinberry Pay will provide a crypto-friendly merchant payment system.
Alex Meears spoke with Andrei Poliakov – Coinberry CEO – to find out more about how Coinberry and Coinberry Pay are shaping the crypto trading world and making life easier for merchants to begin accepting cryptocurrencies.
AM: Could you tell our readers a little bit about Coinberry?
AP: Coinberry is a Toronto-based digital currency platform. We operate the coinberry.com trading platform and we also operate Coinberry Pay. Coinberry Pay is a cryptocurrency payment processing solution that we developed for use by merchants, individuals, businesses, or municipalities. It’s all about allowing companies to be able to accept payment in cryptocurrency. Coinberry was founded in 2017 – we’ve been around for a couple of years now – and we build all of our tech in-house, which gives us a nice edge when it comes to offering bespoke and tailored solutions.
AM: Who is the typical Coinberry user?
AP: Right now, we only allow people with either a Canadian or US phone number to register, but we are looking to expand into the European markets very soon – this year in fact. We’re hoping to get things up and running in Europe by the summertime. Our user-friendly design makes the platform perfect for beginners and people who want quick, simple, and easy access to crypto markets.
AM: You have zero fees for deposits and withdrawals, that’s a pretty huge boost to the platform – what made you decide to scrap the fees?
AP: We were actually the first company in Canada to remove all funding, deposit, and withdrawal fees for fiat transactions. My business partner and I are both crypto traders ourselves, and we didn’t appreciate the fact that – prior to Coinberry – we had to pay those fees on a lot of platforms. So, we decided to not force our users to go through the same expensive funding process. We made the decision to remove all funding, deposit, and withdrawal fees. Then – of course – crypto deposits have always been free – bar the network transaction fee incurred from the mining process itself. On crypto withdrawals, we do obviously charge a transaction fee, but it’s the network transaction fee.
AM: Will you be adding support for Coinsquare’s CAD stablecoin?
AP: That’s a very interesting question. I was actually talking with my business partner and one of the co-founders of the company about this the other day, and it came down to a very basic question – do we trust another exchange to hold our money and do we trust that whatever Canadian dollar stable coin that they are going to be issuing is actually backed by the amount of dollars they say it’s backed by? What I can say is that we are in discussions with a number of parties that are working on Canadian Dollar stablecoins projects at the moment.
You have seen what happened with Tether project, and we see every single stable coin slip from its parity. Dealing with the trust and reducing the risk involved is a very interesting question and topic, but it’s difficult to solve. I’m not going to say yes or no to whether we will be accepting Canadian Dollar stablecoins in the near-future, but these are the things that currently concern me.
AM: How did you go about teaming up with Innisfil and the local council?
AP: We were put in touch with the town of Innisfil by Kyle Kemper – a very well-known cryptocurrency advocate in Canada. He met the chief administrative officer from the town at an event back in the summertime and in August of last year he put us in touch. I reached out, we started the discussion and I presented Coinberry to a group of around five people. From our initial contact to the actual moment that the crypto payment system was voted in was about nine months. During the nine months, we had gone to Innisfil to explain to the staff what it is we were doing, what the solution was, and how they would benefit from it.
We were very fortunate in that the staff of town are very forward thinking and very innovative. It was actually quite surprising, because it is a rather small town. Interestingly, all five of the people we met in the first meeting actually owned either Bitcoin or Ethereum, which was an amazing and positive surprise for me. They connected with our idea right away and the general support was quite positive, which at the end of the day led us to present to the council itself. And so, the council voted in our favor and unanimously for a one-year pilot project. It was a lot of work and a long time in the making, but we were fortunate to have had a very forward-thinking audience to support it.
It’s actually opened up a lot of discussion and dialogue in Canada and we are in discussions with a number of municipalities that have reached out since then exploring how they could start using a similar system.
AM: When will the payment system go live?
AK: The system is slated to go live this week on April 16th. From then it should be live on the town website and residents will be able to actually execute the payment from that point onwards.
AM: How long does it take to get a trading account up and running with Coinberry?
AP: Canadians can get their account fully verified and start trading cryptocurrencies in under two minutes – that includes being fully KYC verified as per FINTRAC requirements. Our whole philosophy here at Coinberry is crypto made simple, so we’ve really honed in on simplifying the interaction with and use of cryptocurrencies. Our user interface and user experience is in line with this commitment and we’re focused on making it as easy as possible for the general public to start buying, selling and using cryptocurrencies in Canada.
AM: Will you be adding any more cryptocurrencies any time soon, or will you be sticking with the big four?
AP: We have four cryptocurrencies we currently offer which are Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and XRP. We are constantly evaluating other cryptocurrencies to add – balancing customer demand and market forecasting. Also, we are looking quite in-depth as to the tech teams behind some of the cryptocurrencies. Some of the more popular projects are actually quite dead from a technological perspective, which is important to keep in mind when investing. So, we’re trying to onboard cryptocurrencies that we feel are going to actually be useful going forward – not necessarily just from a purely speculative perspective in the short term.
AM: How can people get in touch with you for advice on forging new partnerships?
AP: I hope that there are more companies in our space that take this as an indication that governments are ready to start looking at cryptocurrency payments. It’s in our hands to now reach out for these public-private partnerships, which are extremely important for mass adoption of cryptocurrencies. I would like to put it out there that if anyone has any questions, whether from our industry or from the government and reading this anywhere in the world, feel free to reach out we can be contacted on coinberry.com through our contact page there and we would be happy to help.
There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, Coinberry is truly revolutionizing the way we interact with the cryptocurrency world. Expect to hear big things from this company in the near-future, especially as it eyes up EU expansion.
Stay tuned to BitStarz News for the latest crypto news and interviews with industry leading experts!
