HECO AMA Series Recap — Wootrade
Series №003
Guest: Ben Yorke, Wootrade Marketing VP
Host: Sam Jia of HECO
Introduction
Sam: Could you tell us about yourself? What did you do before WOO and why did you choose to work for WOO?
Ben: Hah I worked with Cointelegraph Research before, and contributed by writing for other projects. My role here at Wootrade is officially the Marketing VP, but I help out in all sorts of areas like Business Development, communications, PR, strategy, and making sure everybody in the office has coffee if they need it.
Sam: Really cool
Ben: Originally I am from the US, but have been out in China for quite a while so grew quite close to all the development going on out here. Funny story, before I came to Wootrade, I went through a long interview process at Huobi. I passed the final round but then the HR BP took a leave of absence. So had that not happened, i might be working at Huobi now
Sam: really, haha, which position did you apply for Huobi?
Ben: instead I met Wootrade and I never looked back, It was a supporting role to Ciara/Robin with global communications.
Sam: What do you feel now, do you enjoy working at WOO TRADE, haha, do you mind i ask?
Ben: well, I ended up in a great role! And now I can still bring value to Huobi by helping with this HECO development! Wootrade is amazing, we have a really quickly growing team, tons of resources, and the leadership really gives us the responsibility to grow
Sam: Where do you locate, by the way
Ben: I based in Shanghai, the heart of this blockchain space. Really energetic city with a huge FinTech space
Sam: There will be a huge blockchain week in Shanghai next week if i remember correctly
Ben: I feel like there are always some events going on here, so love that part.
Sam: Cool, lets move to the Q&A session. Are you ready? Ben
Ben: Ready!
Questions and Answers
Q1
Sam: Could you tell us more about your project? In other words, what does WOO do?
Ben:
I have a picture for that! Initially, Wootrade is a liquidity network — a platform that aggregates order flows and can provide the smallest spread and the best execution price due to the algorithms of our trading team. We started with providing clients and partners with zero-fee spot trading. More than 20 exchanges and institutional clients are currently connected to Wootrade. Lately we started expanding on the DeFi side, with pools on HECO and BSC, and launched WOO X Beta — the beta version of our pro-trading GUI. Now we are uniquely positioned in both the defi and cefi spaces, delivering the most liquidity at the cheapest cost.
Q2
Sam: What is special about Wootrade compared to other projects?
Ben: Well, we use our advantage as traders to offer the cheapest liquidity (That goes to the platforms, which then can create a better trade environment for users). After the launch of Wootrade, a lot of exchanges have signed up for access as market demand for liquidity and market making has surpassed expectations. The rapid growth of DeFi made us gravitate in that direction as well — building trading pools that capture volume from DeFi. Now the decentralization of the project has taken an important place in our development.
Q3
Sam: Could you give us some info on the WOO Token?
Ben: Think I have a picture for that too!
The token connects all the parts of the Wootrade network together. Zero fee trading: Clients staking WOO can access the network for zero or even negative fees. There are already 47 million WOO tokens ($1.1m dollars) staked in the institutional staking wallet, with more clients looking to onboard. With the WOO X Beta launch and staking pools on Uniswap and Sushiswap, our community grew significantly along with the number of addresses on Etherscan over the last few months. Our market cap has shot up as well, indicating we are doing some good things here.
Because of our relationship with Kronos Research, a large number of institutions already know and trust us. We are their biggest clients, so when we launched Wootrade, many were eager to support. That’s why early BD work was so successful
Q4
Sam: If you were to summarize your project in 1 word, what would it be? Why?
Ben: heh, thats a good question. Aggregation. That’s what we do for liquidity, that’s what we do for traders, that’s what we can do for cross-chain assets and that’s what we can do for yield down the road. It’s the key to growth in the blockchain space. Actually, not just blockchain, but anything in the age of data/internet
Q5
Sam: Anything else you guys would like to add before we go into the live questions session?
Ben: We have a really active community that is built on collaboration. If any of you want to be a part of a community that values the people driving it, feel free to reach out (and join our telegram https://t.me/wootrade)
Live Question Session
Q1: How does Wootrade achieve high liquidity and zero fees?
Ben: Thanks for the question. Short answer: our background is in quantitative trading. That means we aggregate really high volumes, which enables us to get zero or negative fees on other platforms. Long answer: https://medium.com/wootrade/how-does-wootrade-provide-traders-with-zero-fees-and-still-keep-the-lights-on-c6688f935cfb
Q2: The blockchain industry is growing by the day, what makes WooTrade stand out against other projects and companies competing in the space?
Ben: We are not competing, rather connecting different projects together, CeFi and DeFi, as well as liquidity, so users can benefit from both sources. This way lots of projects are willing to cooperate, win-win for everybody.
Q3: Simple Question. Why HECO chain?
Ben: Thanks Banana! Very curious about your username, anyways I hope you find my answer a-peel-ing. Basically, we are network agnostic. We want to be on every chain, exchange, and other platform that can bring flow (volume) to the network. Huobi has been a staunch supporter of us from day one, and we want to support them and work with other innovators that are also on the network
Q4: Can i know about Woo’s upcoming products launch?
Ben: Hi Rashedul, we are launching new products all the time. For example, our professional trading GUI launched (in beta) in April. But the strength of our project is definitely by integrating with other platforms. So the product team is only one part of our liquidity solution. We want to be everywhere!
Q4: why call this project “Woo”? What relationship does it have with this bridge between Traditional finance and DeFis?
Ben: Creating pools on chains like HECO is a strategic moves to bring the liquidity on-chain. We also do Wootrade price quoting and building our own price oracle. The bridge is quite a trick, involving trading and hedging strategies. It was better explained here: https://medium.com/wootrade/the-best-of-both-worlds-wootrade-bridges-cefi-liquidity-with-defi-trading-4319d9085b39
Isn’t WOO COOL!? That’s what the co-founders Mark and Jack from Kronos Research thought having in mind making a better trading space for pro-traders. They started the digital “dark pool” (the idea comes from tradFi) to give traders the better liquidity and price execution? Does DeFi want the same? Sure… that’s why we are bridging.
Q5: Do members need KYC to enjoy all yours amazing features?
Ben: Well… the current CeFi platform has some limitations if you don’t KYC, but a lot of our integrations (and future products) will be in the DeFi space. Personally i love when i can just connect with metamask, I’m a degen at heart. So hopefully future Wootrade products have that as well
Q6: Zero trading fees is generally a temporary strategy. Do you plan not to charge fees indefinitely?
Ben: Not for us! We earn revenue from trading. That’s what makes us unique, I guess. Then we take that revenue and burn half.
https://twitter.com/wootraderS/status/1391783714359631876?s=20
Q7: Besides transactions and exchanges, can I use Wootrade for other things? If I am a Wootrade long-term investor, are there any special policies or long-term rewards for us?
Ben: We are going to have a lot of cool wealth management/investment products, as well as social trading. So you will be able to use it to earn yield. That’s what we do as traders, we generate a lot of yield. Wootrade will let others capture that as well
Q8: How does Wootrade intend to use the token in respect to settlement of a transaction?
Ben: Picking this question because you said please. The WOO isn’t used to settle transactions. Its more of a ticket to access the network. And then, to invest in other wealth management products.
· HECO Website
· HECO Twitter and Telegram Channel (For the latest news)
· HECO Telegram Community
· HECO Discord (Welcome all developers to join!)
· HECO Explorer
