Predicting The Future Of Crypto

Highlights of an AMA with Bundle’s founder and CEO.

The Bundle AMA (Ask Me Anything) series continued with a forward-looking conversation with Yele Bademosi, our founder and CEO, on October 17.

Yele’s session was as insightful as it was down-to-earth, covering subjects including his personal journey as an entrepreneur, Bundle’s upcoming native token and the rising status of DeFi.

Keep reading for highlights from the AMA hosted by Joshua, a Bundle Alpha.

Joshua: Before we dive in, can you tell us a bit about yourself and some interesting facts about you?

Yele:

Hi everyone, I’m Yele Bademosi, CEO and founder of Bundle.

I’ll share some personal information about me, I have four sisters so I’m the only guy in my family. Something else you might not know about me is that I’m quite tall - 6 feet 6 inches.

Prior to starting Bundle, I primarily worked in tech and finance. I founded an investment firm called Microtraction that has invested in some popular fintech companies including Chaka, BuyCoins, Cowrywise, BitSika and Wallets Africa.

I was also a director at Binance Labs and I helped Binance expand into Africa as well as invest in about five African crypto companies.

Joshua: How did you get into crypto and what’s the most important advice you can give Bundlers about crypto or running a social payments app for cash and crypto?

Yele: I got into crypto in 2017, but the first time I heard about Bitcoin was maybe late 2013 or early 2014. I didn’t buy any at the time, I just thought it was interesting technology.

2017 was different because I noticed a lot of the US investors I followed at the time, such as Naval, were talking non-stop about Bitcoin and I started doing my research. This was in parallel with the ICO craze at the time and most people were drawn in by speculation and prospective gains.

Over time, I began to understand the true potential of blockchains and digital assets.

I truly believe it’s one of the most important technology innovations of our time and I am committed to making sure that Africa isn’t left behind or playing catch-up as we did with other innovations like the internet, computers and smartphones.

In terms of advice about crypto in general, don’t be in a hurry to make money - it makes you susceptible to scams and misjudgement. In my opinion. you should take time to do your own research and buy assets you believe in and can hold long term.

In terms of running a company like Bundle, the most important thing to us is our community.

It’s extremely important to build a customer-centric company. We wouldn’t be where we are with you!

Joshua: I guess some of us bought our first Bitcoin before you.

So, DeFi has been getting a lot of hype lately, with its value exploding by up to 1,000%. What’s its likely role in the future of cryptocurrency and how can crypto enthusiasts take advantage of it?

Yele: That’s the interesting thing about crypto, we made a couple of DeFi investments in late 2018 or early 2019. But it didn’t really pick up until this year. Given enough time, there’s always going to be some new innovation that will allow us to do things we couldn't do before.

Similar to ICOs, DeFi has been really hot because of the speculative gains, but beneath all of that is awesome technology.

There were some months this year when Uniswap had a higher trading volume than Coinbase which is something I did not believe could happen so quickly.

But the idea that we can have non-custodial (decentralised) exchanges and still maintain self-sovereignty over our assets is extremely powerful as it removes single point of failures and leads to more decentralisation.

Personally, I’m more excited about some DeFi applications that most people aren’t looking into at the moment, especially with credit.

It’s almost impossible for anyone in Africa to get affordable credit, and it sucks that where you are born determines the quality of financial services you have access to. DeFi can change that

We hope to be able to work on something along these lines in 2020 after the launch of our token.

Joshua: This is eye-opening, thank you.

Nigeria’s SEC seems to be making moves to regulate crypto. What do you believe is the likely outcome of these moves and what changes should crypto enthusiasts prepare for?

Yele: Like most people, I spent a lot of hours speaking with other stakeholders when the SEC memo was released.

In the grand scheme of things, I think it’s a net positive for the whole industry.

First, we know that crypto is not “illegal” otherwise we wouldn’t have a regulatory body like the SEC.

Second, it opens up the possibility of working with more banks and capital market institutions as not all of them have been able or open to working with crypto companies until now.

Another positive is that it will remove or reduce the likelihood of bad actors and scams as there will be clear regulatory guidelines. This will create more trust with consumers.

My hope though is that if we do get more clarity, as some of the information was ambiguous, it won’t kill innovation in the space. It’s possible that there might be capital requirements that digital asset service providers like Bundle and other players will have to meet.

I’m not worried about those requirements for Bundle as we are well capitalised, but others might not be able to meet them.

Joshua: Good to know that we’re in safe hands.

Crypto enthusiasts love having a variety of crypto to trade. What’s Bundle’s plan for adding more crypto and when will we be able to deposit and withdraw the most recent crypto added to the app?

Yele: When we started listing new assets, we shared how crypto listing will work and so it’s still more of the same.

I don’t want to give too much away but we are working on adding two assets on Bundle.

We have enough data from our most recent listings to identify the assets we want to support deposits and withdrawals based on trading volume

For example, LINK has been extremely popular with Bundlers so it’s one of the top candidates.

There’s an asset we are adding soon that will most likely launch with deposits and withdrawals as we don’t think there will be much utility supporting buying and selling alone for it.

Joshua: We’ll be looking forward to it.

The next big thing for Bundle is the launch of our own crypto. What are the plans for this and how will it affect the future of Bundle?

Yele: I’m really excited about the launch of Bundle’s native token. For me, the goal of Bundle is to build a product or platform that’s community-owned.

I think Bundle’s native token will be Africa’s version of BNB and WRX but the utility is going to be a lot more as our product features and roadmap for Bundle go beyond just crypto trading, this is just our first phase.

We should be sharing more information about how we are thinking about our native token soon and we will open it up to the community for feedback and input as we really want this to be community-owned.

But if you are curious about how we are thinking about our token, learning more about BNB and WRX is a great place to start.

Joshua: Fantastic! We’re looking forward to this soon. Thank you.

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.