From Ubank to Ubcoin: a Long Way to Blockchain

In 2018, cryptocurrencies continue to be the hottest trend with a lot of companies popping up quickly and sporadically to gain their share of the market. So, when you hear about a new trendy marketplace you might be sceptical. However, you shouldn’t feel such way about Ubcoin, and here’s why.

The team behind Ubcoin has made a long journey into the technological sphere to be where they are currently. Was the decision to conquer the blockchain world a spontaneous attempt to ride the hype wave? Most certainly not. Now, let’s see why this is definitely not the case for the company.

Navigating into mobile technologies

The history of Ubcoin team began more than a decade ago, when the team (including Felix as a co-founder), realized the power of gadgets and mobile technologies.

The team’s first pet project NaviFon provided navigation solutions for mobile devices, making ordinary mobile devices into a fully-featured GPS navigator. Navifon was cutting-edge at the time and was introduced even before Google introduced its own alternative. This particular system attracted Samsung, and resulted in the company integrating NaviFon into its mobile devices. The partnership with Samsung, the largest smartphone manufacturer has lead to many fruitful years.

Getting social

As competition in the navigation market grew fierce, the team switched to the growing social media and messenger market. The team developed uTalk ‒ an aggregator of all possible messengers and social networks, such as ICQ, Google Talk, Facebook and its Russian analogues Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki. Combining them all together in one application was intended to make an average user’s life much easier. Ever since, that very idea has been the pillar of inspiration for every project put forth by the Ubcoin team.

The app resulted with the success of having over 5 million users by 2010. Moreover, uTalk lead to an additional successful deal with Samsung in the form of pre-installing the app on Samsung’s smartphones distributed in Russia.

Diving into fintech

The next big project brought the team even closer to blockchain, as it aimed at the fintech market. Back then mobile banking was just starting to emerge, and most solutions offered by the banks were either lacking functionality or not user-friendly. On the contrary, online payment services like Paypal were on the rise.

The new project Ubank (a successor of uTalk in terms of naming), was designed as a complex solution for smartphones to facilitate mobile instant payments. Though its name actually contained the word “bank”, it was the complete opposite of what a bank represented: inconvenient offline branches with queues and high operation commissions.

The Ubank service made it possible for users to make instant payments directly from their phones to settle bills or even speeding tickets. Ubank allows the attachment of multiple credit cards from various banks to the account and the ability to add funds with no commission. It also enabled peer to peer transfers and transfers to banking accounts. The team concentrated on polishing every little detail and introducing new groundbreaking features to the app. It offered card scanning, smart finance management interface and built-in chat instead of a service hotline. Ubank created and utilized convenient features for consumers before the banks did .

Ubank was another breakthrough for the team. The app was downloaded more than 250,000 times for the first two months since its launch for iOS and Android. The start-up managed to attract investors and successfully secured a series of funds. Specifically, $8 million from Runa Capital, the largest investment that any Russian fintech company ever received. Another piece of evidence of Ubank’s success was the interest of Tinkoff Bank that offered to buy the start-up for more than $10 million. However, the team preferred to go their own way.

Blockchain era

Ubank was by all means the most successful product that the team created and it gained trust of over 16 million users overall. Nevertheless, the idea of making people’s lives easier is still on the agenda. The Ubcoin team seeks to make accessibility to blockchain and cryptocurrencies a convenient and tangible reality that has never been seen before.

The new marketplace powered by Ethereum smart contracts will introduce its own tradeable cryptocurrency called UBC. UBC creates a convenient and easy way for those who are new and want to get involved in the cryptocurrency world. Additionally, UBC allows current cryptocurrency holders to use their digital assets in the real world without having to wait for bitcoins and its analogues to be adopted by the banks in their countries.. Easy-peasy, isn’t it?

Ubank’s existing users will be the first to get crypto ‒ Ubcoin will be built-in into the app. However, the founders hope to attract a much wider audience, believing that cryptocurrencies will soon be mainstream and largely used for non-virtual tasks. Ultimately, the Ubcoin team’s track record speaks for itself. The team has accomplished multiple innovative and cutting-edge projects with successful results that anyone can believe in.

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