The Web3 Founder Journey: Building the Crypto Infrastructure for the Future

An interview with Jeffery Liu, Founder and CEO at XanPool

Welcome to the second feature of the Web3 founder journey, a new writing project to shed light on the founding stories accelerating the creation of the next generation of the web.

Jeffrey Liu is the Founder and CEO of Xanpool, a rapidly growing open-finance infrastructure startup based in Singapore on a mission to send all forms of money across the world faster, cheaper and at lower risk. XanPool participated in our cohort in Singapore and has since raised $27M from several investors.

Antler is on a constant quest to learn more about what it is that drives our founders to be successful and how they make positive change happen. Antler was able to speak with Jeff to talk about all things Xanpool, its team, and Jeff’s journey as a Web3 founder.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

What is your story?

I was raised in the Netherlands, where I lived until I was about 11 years old. After that, I moved to Hong Kong with my family. I had the opportunity to work in banking for HSBC after graduating from university. But it didn’t take long for me to know it wasn’t the proper place to grow and learn. Instead, I joined SnapAsk, an educational technology startup, and after two years of rapid growth and supporting the company’s Series A financing round, I was promoted to COO. This experience at this fast-growing startup taught me a lot about being in the trenches and made me itch after starting my entrepreneurial journey. I desired total control over my destiny, the ability to choose when and how I worked, and the ability to create something I could call my own.

Where does your passion for technology come from?

My first encounter with technology was with the online game Runescape, which I was a massive fan of as a youngster. Not only did I like playing the game, but I also looked for ways to automate mundane tasks like collecting resources (laughs). I quickly started to involve myself in the Runescape community and learned some basic Java programming. I also saw firsthand the power of technology, as I quickly gained control of many accounts (around 300) as the software could run around the clock in the background. It felt like magic, and it was a life-changing event that led me further into the technological rabbit hole.

What is your definition of Web3, and what excites you about this emerging industry?

Web3 promises to return power to users, something I am enthusiastic about. I’d like to provide an example from my experience playing Runescape to demonstrate what Web3 means to me (laughs). For instance, I had a lot of in-game currency that could be traded with other users for real money. However, using the game for personal benefit was against the rules, so one of my major accounts was banned, and all of my hard work was lost for good. This would never have happened if Runescape had been developed in a Web3 environment. In summary, Web3 promises to provide users with complete ownership of what is valued without the need for strong intermediaries such as tech corporations, governments, and central banks that could instantly switch off the music. Moreover, we start trusting code in the form of smart contracts rather than institutions, which is a significant switch that will change the rules of the modern economy.

What is the founding story of XanPool?

It all began after meeting my co-founder during the second cohort of Antler in Singapore. But taking a step back, I had been involved in crypto since 2013, and I was the weirdo at the office, always talking about Bitcoin, Feathercoin and Peercoin — as these were the only ones that existed to me back then (laughs).

The idea behind Xanpool happened in 2019, during the time crypto had reached its biggest downfall and was in a clear bear market state on regular exchanges. However, I discovered new peer-to-peer trading exchanges that were decentralized that worked perfectly. During that moment, I realized that real supply and demand existed for certain assets and that there was a lot of idle liquidity in these accounts across different exchanges. We wanted to fix this issue that allowed investors to easily move crypto in and out of their exchanges. That was the start of Xanpool, and today our mission is to enable seamless fiat to crypto infrastructure. By enabling this, we create financial access for those out of the reach of traditional financial infrastructure.

What main hurdles must be solved before Web3 becomes widely adopted?

I do not believe that we have arrived at Web3’s goal of genuine decentralization of power and actual ownership of your value. Many of today’s decentralized structures, for example, are very centralized. Many Ethereum blockchain operations, for example, are still powered on Amazon Web Services, which means Amazon could theoretically shut down the system.

Ethereum is attempting to fix this issue, but the answer is not as simple as it appears. One explanation might be the development of decentralized hardware that we can trust and that operates on these blockchains from the comfort of our own homes. If enough people do this, is it possible that Amazon will be unable to turn the system off? We don’t know yet. This transition will require enormous capital investments to build such infrastructure, but it will be worth it for the good of humanity.

What should aspiring founders do to get into Web3?

If you’re an engineer, you may do a variety of things, including participating in bounties, which are code challenges where you can look at old code and enhance it while getting paid for it. As a technical person, this is the greatest way to learn about the different protocols. If you’re more interested in the business side of things, I recommend becoming involved in the Web3 communities, learning how they operate and understanding where the attention is.

What areas should future builders in the Web3 space look into?

As I previously stated, I would have spent a significant amount of time learning to create a trusted decentralized hardware solution. If not, I would look into Layer2 solutions that aid in preserving the space that Layer1 is now experiencing as one of its key challenges. I feel these two fields are severely undertalented, and I hope more aspiring founders are willing to roll up their sleeves and solve these issues.

Interview conducted and written by Michelangelo Pagliara, Visiting Investment Associate.

Do you want to build a web3 startup together with Antler? Apply here for Antler’s next cohort. Our team is looking forward to connecting with you!