[Billibit/Cryptoquant] New and old generation CEOs of Pohang University lead the blockchain industry through collaboration

[Interview_Blockchain Today Reporter Jihye Han]

CEO Joo Ji-young of CryptoQuant, a data analysis company specializing in cryptocurrency, and Billybit Jang-min, a core affiliate of FTB Group, have joined together.

Billibit is a company that provides crypto finance services and operates a cryptocurrency deposit and collateral loan service platform.

CryptoQuant is a data analysis company specializing in cryptocurrency that provides professional on-chain data and analysis to cryptocurrency funds and general investors. It provides information by processing data on-chain into data that has monetary value such as cryptocurrency surge/slump signals.

Billybit’s CEO Jang and Cryptoquant’s chief executive are said to be between seniors and juniors at Pohang University, and have been entangled with various ties from the beginning of the business. The first time the two met dates back to 2019. CEO Jang and CEO Joo met for the first time at an investment conference hosted by POSTECH Technology Holdings. At that time, CEO Jang was at the time of starting Billibit, and it is said that Tip Blackbird of Joo was also trying to commercialize it by researching and developing technology that monitors on-chain data.

At this time, CEO Jang said, “If we use this on-chain data in the crypto finance field, we will be able to incorporate a lot of the features of the blockchain into financial services.”

‘College seniors and juniors’ became the representatives of each company side by side, leading to the relationship of’industry seniors and juniors’. And they meet again and continue to try new things.

◆The relationship between CEO Jang Min and Jo Ji Young

The two met for the first time in 2019 at an investment conference hosted by POSTECH Technology Holdings. Since Jang has experience in running youth startup funds at Duzon Bizon and Hancom, and is also active at POSTECH Angel Club, it is said that he still participates frequently as an advisor to POSTECH’s startup screenings.

At that time, Timbleckbird was just starting a business, and unusually, it was trying to research/develop a technology that monitors on-chain data and commercialize it. CEO Jang said that it was the time when he was about to start Billybit, so meeting the two and combining technology was a very interesting attempt.

CEO Jang said, “If we use this on-chain data in the crypto finance field, we have the idea that we can apply a lot of features of the blockchain to financial services.”

In the traditional financial market, data can only be seen by some specific companies or organizations, whereas in the crypto market, anyone can access and use data transparently and fairly on the blockchain. This leads to the advantages of blockchain technology.

The reason why there are so many POSTECH graduates in the blockchain field is mainly because of the engineering-oriented education and the method as a research-intensive university. In particular, the characteristics of the block chain need to have a mathematical/cryptographic background to understand the advantages and disadvantages and to be able to commercialize the applied technology. POSTECH understands this background very well, and also, experimentation and practice/research from the beginning of university. It seems that the oriented education system has contributed to improving the understanding, adaptability, and scalability of these blockchain technologies.

CEO Jang said, “There are a lot of people from POSTECH, including CEO Joo, working in Cryptoquant, and it can be said that it is a characteristic of POSTECH that a lot of juniors with passion to work in a new field in the company of seniors visit.”

Billybit-Cryptoquant Collaboration Project

Cryptoquant is very specialized in on-chain data collection/processing/analysis/processing/visualization/extraction of insights. Billibit needs a lot of such on-chain data, and in particular, it needs data tailored to a special format rather than raw-data, that is, data in a form that can be used in decision making/prediction models.

Billibit has a business model for asset management/transaction of cryptocurrency based on market prediction, but it was confirmed that mathematical/statistical models are mainly used for prediction modeling. Recently, machine learning models are used a lot by utilizing technologies such as deep learning.

BilliBit’s AI engine is BilliBot. BilliBot is a predictive model using market data (price, transaction volume, etc.), on-chain data (data moving in the Blockchain network) and non-linear data (data collected and analyzed in natural language such as articles and promotions). The predictive model can predict short-term or mid- to long-term. Initially, PhilipBot made prediction models only with market data and non-linear data, but recently, using Cryptoquant’s on-chain data as an API, the model is newly designed and tested and verified.

Billibit is growing as a crypto asset manager. Cryptographic asset management is different from the existing traditional asset management method. In particular, in the era of AI and big data, data-based asset management technology will become very important, and in the crypto-finance sector, in particular, it will become a global competitive market for automated asset management systems based on blockchain data.

Billibit and Cryptoquant agreed that “in the future, we will continue to grow based on mutual cooperation in the field of on-chain data and crypto asset management.”

◆Crypto Finance Company’Billibit’

Billibit is a company that provides reliable crypto finance services with the motto of’BILIBIT, Believe it’ and operates a cryptocurrency deposit and collateral loan service platform. The Korean representative is Jang Min and the Chinese representative is Ae Seo-kwang.

A cryptocurrency mortgage loan service is a service similar to stock or real estate mortgage loans by entrusting the cryptocurrency in possession as collateral and borrowing a stable coin with a constant price. Deposit service is a service that pays contracted profits by staking a designated cryptocurrency for a certain period of time. It provides a new service that can increase customer assets through decentralized finance services using blockchain, and protects customers’ assets with the highest level of security management.

◆The footsteps of Billybit’s CEO Jang Min

CEO Jang Min graduated from the Department of Computer Engineering at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) and obtained a master’s degree in neural networks, a doctorate in machine learning and artificial intelligence at the same university. He was a researcher at Seoul National University’s New Technology Research Institute and Data Mining Laboratory, and worked as a senior researcher at LG Electronics’ Mobile Communication Research Center.

After that, he founded Chain Tobe, a blockchain specialized company, and developed a private blockchain business with companies such as ICON. At the same time, he is a member of the Steering Committee of the POSTECH Blockchain Executive Program (PBEP).

Representative Jang Min explained how he started Billybit.

“While running a chain to be company, I thought that blockchain finance and Decentralized Finance (DeFi) are the core business of the inevitable future, and while looking at the possibility of financial services using artificial intelligence, blockchain and cryptocurrency I was able to experience the remarkable growth of the company firsthand. I thought that the popular use of cryptocurrency and various legal and institutional changes, such as global companies and financial companies preparing to use their own coins, were imminent.”

◆The advantages of cryptocurrency deposit and mortgage loan service

Since its establishment, Billybit has been said to have made safety and trust the top priority for corporate values. To this end, it provides a strong asset storage service with Onchain Custodian, the world’s leading crypto asset service. In addition, the Billybit team boasts better insights and faster response to opportunities and risks in the blockchain world, based on long experience accumulated by top-tier companies in the international financial and technology industries. Finally, we are pioneering a start by collaborating with our best partners. We plan/develop and launch new products and services as well as technology.

AI trading bot

AI technology is a field in which CEO Jang Min has a long experience in research and development. Through AI and machine learning in various industries, the experience of data collection and analysis, modeling, optimization, and service expansion was applied to Crypto Finance. AI trading bot (Billibot) applies almost all algorithms such as statistical, mathematical and stochastic to crypto market data, and is working to select the best market prediction model through testing and verification work.

In addition, in order to reflect the characteristics of cryptocurrency, which has a characteristic of non-linearity, various media/articles/promotions from the crypto market are reflected in market and price prediction through natural language extraction/detection. Recently, through industry-academia cooperation with POSTECH (Pohang University), various artificial intelligence/machine learning prediction models researched/developed in schools are being applied to actively promote industry-academia cooperation.

◆Tim Blackbird’s cryptocurrency analysis service’CryptoQuant’

Cryptoquant provides information to investors by analyzing the cryptocurrency trends of 33 street cows, miners and large holders around the world. Although it provides similar services to Chainalsis in the United States and Elliptic in the United Kingdom, Team Blackbird analyzes using machine learning, where machines process tasks through self-learning. In the industry, Team Blackbird is evaluated to be ahead of other companies in tracking range, segmentation, and accuracy.

◆The beginning of Team Blackbird

When deciding on the name of the company, CEO Ju Ji-young said that the company name was set to’Team Blackbird’ because of the negative perception of domestic cryptocurrency. At that time, in Korea, even if the word’crypto’ was used, it was difficult to support the government or open a bank account. ‘Blackbird’ is the nickname for’SR-71′, the fastest airplane in history (strategic reconnaissance plane). It is said to contain the desire to become a fast-growing startup.

He started a company with Jang Byeong-guk (co-founder), a junior of the same family, at an officetel in Mapo-gu, Seoul in 2018. Since then, the number of colleagues has increased, and most of them have studied blockchain or artificial intelligence at Pohang University and KAIST, or were moved to the recommendation of the main representative while working at large companies such as LG Electronics and Netmarble. At the time of the recommendation, Joo said, “I did a sipchochory instead of a 3-gochoryo”.

In fact, it wasn’t on-chain data analysis that CEO Ji-Young Joo initially tried. The service created by Joo’s representatives and colleagues was a community for cryptocurrency whales called’Whaley’.

However, in early 2019, as the bubble of the cryptocurrency market collapsed, a dark period began, and while the main representative was wondering whether or not to close the community, a famous media’Consensus’ opened in New York. He said that after meeting celebrities at the time, he planned a data analysis service because he thought that if he processed Bitcoin on-chain data and provided it to a hedge fund, he could succeed.

CEO Joo said, “At first, we started out as a cryptocurrency investment, but later we were drawn to the blockchain technology and philosophy.”

◆CryptoQuant’s business direction

In last year’s Telegram’n-bang’ case, the perpetrators earned criminal proceeds with cryptocurrency. Tim Blackbird assisted when the police found the depositor of the case. It was in charge of finding out which exchange the money was sent to the perpetrator Jo Joo-bin’s account and where it was cashed. At the time, Team Blackbird eventually found an account.

“There are two main details of the business,” said Joo, “providing data to cryptocurrency investors, and supporting cryptocurrency tracking by public institutions on the other.” Cryptoquant provides services to many companies, including domestic as well as US cryptocurrency hedge funds.

Cryptocurrency is based on blockchain technology, and the key is that the blockchain stores the transaction history of the account on numerous servers so that anyone can view it. Bitcoin has never ceased trading since 2009, and no counterfeit currency has ever been issued. I have never been hacked. On the other hand, banks are paying enormous costs to secure internal servers. Using a blockchain, it is impossible to manipulate the ledger.

CEO Joo said, “With the enactment of the Special Provisions Act in March last year, it became possible to incorporate the cryptocurrency into the institutional rights,” and said, “We expect to expand opportunities for collaboration with the financial sector.”

◆Another project of Billybit

The government and related authorities are speeding up the legalization of cryptocurrencies, such as the official legalization of cryptographic assets through the Special Provisions Act starting this year, and taxation on cryptocurrencies formally from next year. Billibit announced that it plans to create a variety of additional services using crypto assets as well as managing crypto assets by taking advantage of the opportunity for crypto assets to enter the regulatory framework.

Accordingly, Billybit is pursuing the development of a service that fully manages asset management and strategy through AI (bots) by deepening AI technology. The technology required for this service is chatbot technology, and using voice recognition and context recognition technologies, we plan to provide optimal crypto asset investment service after analyzing customer needs while communicating and communicating with customers naturally.

Billibit is also working on projects with several companies including FTB Group based on CryptoQuant’s on-chain data. CEO Jang cited the ability to manage crypto assets as well as the training and management of traders as the biggest asset of FTB.

FTB has long been carrying out mining/management/investment with a vision for crypto assets, and recently, it has created an educational institution that trains traders, and has produced up to the third trader. In particular, with a global network, various information collection and mid/long-term direction of cryptographic assets are predicted and reflected in crypto asset management, so the synergy effect with the AI/big data asset management system of Billybit will be very large. Is expected.

Recently, the FTB Group has opened a global payment/payment/exchange service using cryptographic assets, allowing not only cryptocurrency management but also cryptographic asset holders to use financial services using cryptographic assets stored through their wallets. Through this, Billybit’s customers will be given the opportunity to simultaneously utilize various cryptographic asset services provided by FTB.

The era of cryptocurrency is still in its infancy. Billybit announced that it will continue to prepare for a bigger business in the future by collecting data step by step from now on.

Billybit’s goal in 2021

“By 2021, we aim to increase the size of crypto assets to over 100 billion won. To achieve this goal, the current Billybit app will be overhauled by the first quarter. It is to diversify the service category to suit the crypto asset management service, to strengthen the backend system that customers can use more conveniently and safely, and to expand the ungyong/management system for asset management. Through this, we will be able to deposit crypto assets of more customers and guarantee higher interest rates and stability to the deposited customers. Although the scale of asset management is not large, the best effort to continue to be a safe and reliable Billibit is our unchanging goal in 2021.”

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