Interview — Bay Abbott — Head of Partnerships at Beaxy Exchange

Published in

Khilone

6 min readMar 21, 2019

What is your name, function and role at Beaxy?

Hello 👋 I’m Bay! A short story about my name, since it’s not common, my great uncle, Mel Bay, was one of the first authors of instructional guitar books so my parents wanted to honor his legacy by naming me after him. Because it is not a common name, it has allowed me to stand out from the crowd my whole life. I’ve enjoyed going by a unique name and will likely put my children in a similar position. As far as my role, I’m the Head of Partnership and any listing considerations are my responsibility. I work with a team of 6 to collaborate on potential listings, create introductions, and manage the day-to-day.

How did you first learn about Bitcoin and the crypto space?

In early 2017 my sales trainer and close friend Bitcoin Birch was excited about Ethereum. At the time he had bought it for $8 and within a matter of weeks it’d 6x’ed; then, shortly after he discovered Antshares — which at that time was rebranding to NEO. NEO is one of the best returning ICO’s of all time. And, after learning that early investors made 100,000% return on their investment, I decided that I wanted to make my niche in the crypto ICOs.

Which aspects of Bitcoin and the crypto space made you choose to explore it more?

As much as I’d love to say, “I’m here for the tech.” I chose to explore it because my investment portfolio 5x’ed in a matter of weeks.

Did you work at anything crypto related before you joined Beaxy?

I started as an Analyst for Bitcoin Bravado in early 2017 with a focus on evaluating ICOs. While I was sharpening my skills in fundamental analysis I dabbled on the technical side of things enough to the point where I could read charts and make profitable decisions.

How did you learn about Beaxy?

After my surgery in early 2018, that had hospitalized me for 3-months, the day I returned Bitcoin Birch invited me to lunch with Franklin and Artak. The rest is history. We’ve had a strong relationship since that day and originally they had brought me on to help with their token sale but my role has evolved into what it is today.

When did you join Beaxy and why?

I joined Beaxy shortly after that initial meeting because Artak invited Franklin and I to his office and presented the demo he had at that time. After talking more about what he had already accomplished, I knew that we were onto something special. He had secured the exclusive partnership with OneMarketData, the competitive differentiator, and explained its significance; we were sold!

How does a typical work day look like for you?

If you’ve ever worked in a startup you know that a “typical workday” doesn’t exist. I wear a diverse range of hats so from one day to the next I could be working on polar opposite initiatives within the company. For instance, this past week I was involved in the Customer Service, Marketing, Operations, Partnerships, Legal, and Regulatory departments within Beaxy.

What would you consider as the greatest joys in the things you do for Beaxy?

The aspect of Beaxy that I enjoy the most is waking every morning and loving what I do. I truly look forward to going into work and being with some of my best-friends.

What’s the moment that made you most proud so far at Beaxy?

I am most proud of everyone’s contributions that have gotten us to where we are today. We succeed as a team and we fail as a team. There is not one defining moment because Beaxy is the culmination of every single person’s hard-work and unyielding determination to build something great.

In your own words how would you describe Beaxy?

“Beaxy is a breathe of fresh air.” I’m occasionally taken back by the fact that a competitive differentiator is doing things the right way. I was fortunate enough to see my father scale a military uniform company as a child. I watched him run a business the right way, interact with customers and employees respectfully, and be an outstanding role model for how to live your life both personally and professionally.

Do you see any room for improvements in Bitcoin and crypto?

Absolutely, technology is progressing so quickly nowadays that improvement is inevitable; specifically, what I think could be improved quickly are the shady business practices. We’d be able to progress as an industry much quicker without the looming cloud of skepticism caused by bad actors.

Do you see any room for improvements for exchanges and how do you think Beaxy is going to solve them?

There is a laundry list of improvements that exchanges could make but I’ll focus on the biggest ones for me. Shady practices like fake volume, charging absurd listing fees, exchanges pumping their own coins, exit scams, and more are an easy fix in my opinion. The other major one is reliability. Orders often don’t go through on people’s favorite crypto leverage exchange and a 10% move in either direction has consequences of shutting down even the largest players. I’m confident that Beaxy in collaboration with OneMarketData has built technology that can overcome the shortcomings in the market today.

What is the thing that drives and motivates you to build a better exchange every single day?

Ourselves. I was a D-1 400m Track and Field runner and the biggest lesson that I learned over the years was that you are competing against yourself. We are trying to be visionaries and we are paving the way for something that has never been done before. So, we are competing against ourselves and that is my biggest motivator to simply be better than I was the day before.

What’s your future vision for Beaxy and what is the thing you hope to achieve in the long-term for Beaxy?

“Hope” is a word that I’ve attempted to eliminate from my vocabulary because “hope”, to me, is out of your control. It is a tall order but I know that Beaxy can be the NASDAQ of crypto if we continue on this path.

When will Beaxy have succeeded in your opinion?

My definition of success is being the best, indisputably, for a lengthy amount of time. Others might consider it a success that we have 50,000 registered accounts, we raised enough money to operate comfortably at the bottom of a bear market, we built a matching engine with unheard of throughput, and we have things lined up that will change crypto forever. Or, being profitable is where they might draw the line but I won’t stop until we are the best; then, we’ve succeeded in my eyes.

And I would like to end with giving an opportunity to say anything you still want to say to the community or in general

Everyone’s patience is truly appreciated while we launch an incredibly complex product. The idea would be to under promise and over deliver; yet, we are human and being perfect is a pipedream so I personally want to thank everyone for empathizing with us throughout this stressful process.

Thanks a lot, Bay for taking the time to answer all of the questions and sharing all of this information. Follow Bay on Twitter here.

You can find all of my interviews here: https://medium.com/khilone/interviews/home