Meet Franky — LeadBest Co-Founder & Chairman
Franky is one of LeadBest’s four founders. He currently serves as LeadBest’s Board Chairman.
Franky has displayed his entrepreneurial spirit ever since college. After only five years at National Taiwan Normal University he completed both his bachelors and masters degrees in information engineering, at the same time founding his first company, Zoaks (http://www.zoaks.com), which provides Mobile App development services to clients across Europe and North America. In 2014 Franky started WageCan, a bitcoin debit card service, and in 2018 became an advisor at the University of California, Irvine’s Blockchain at UCI developer community in the U.S. (https://www.blockchainuci.org).
Franky was the first of the LeadBest group to begin working with blockchain technology and the token economy, starting with his attendance at the Bitcoin 2013 summit in Silicon Valley.
In 2013 the price of Bitcoin was rising steadily, and blockchain technology was gaining momentum in Silicon Valley like never before. At the time Franky had already noticed the incredible speed at which this field was developing, and without thinking twice he bought a ticket to the heart of Silicon Valley in San Jose to participate in the summit that changed his life aspirations — — Bitcoin 2013: The Future of Payments.
Many well-known exchanges from the early days, such as Coinbase and Mt. Gox, participated in the summit and were able to successfully obtain financing, proving that the future was looking good for blockchain investment. Franky read the Bitcoin whitepaper from start to finish and enthusiastically participated in all aspects of the Bitcoin 2013 summit. It was then that he became certain of the potential this technology has to change the way people do business. Franky believes:
“Bitcoin completely turned my understanding of things upside down! One of the things that appealed to me most was that Bitcoin was the first to use mathematical methods to ensure asset ownership rights. Bitcoin encryption uses mathematical proofs to generate a private key. All you need is to remember that private key and wherever you go your assets will move with you.”
The day after the summit, Franky participated in a hackathon in which he won 1st place in the Bitcoin offline transactions category. From then on, he has been fully immersed in blockchain technology and the token economy.
WageCan (https://wagecan.com) was the first blockchain entrepreneurial project started by Franky and his partner Bryan (current LeadBest CSO). Similar to many new ventures in Silicon Valley, WageCan was founded to resolve a critical issue: Bitcoin’s lack of liquidity. At the time many banks were unwilling to handle profits earned from Bitcoin transactions, and the majority of commercial stores were unable to accept Bitcoin as a payment method.
As a member of the blockchain and crypto community, Franky was deeply aware of the resistance blockchain faced from traditional financial organizations. As such, he collaborated with a card issuer to design a prepaid debit card for Bitcoin. Users simply transfer Bitcoin to their WageCan account to be able to use their debit card to shop at participating stores without the need to exchange to legal tender, and can even use their cards withdraw cash in local currency.
At first this service received little support from venture capitalists, but no one had foreseen the sudden increase in value of the WageCan’s Bitcoin in March and April of 2015. In 2016 the value was doubling each month! WageCan’s success foreshadowed the developmental power blockchain investments would have, and Franky started to think: What else can be done to make blockchain investment and other applications reach the public faster?
“Recently a number of foreign exchanges have come to the U.S. and have even registered with regulators.They’re seeking compliance, not looking for loopholes.”
Franky believes to truly integrate blockchain technology into everyday life there first needs to be stability. Only then can the technology become commonplace, the tokens be circulated, and the industry be developed. LeadBest and Franky share the same views. They hope that through smart contracts and a credit system private token sales can be automatized and made more transparent in order to provide an ideal foundation for the development of blockchain industries.
Starting in the second half of 2018, LeadBest will continue to actively expand into the U.S. market under Franky’s leadership. His experience and network in Silicon Valley will help LeadBest expand from Taiwan into the rest of the world to participate in the development of the global blockchain ecosystem.
To learn more about LeadBest, please visit our website: https://www.leadbest.io/
You can also follow us on Facebook / Twitter for even more news.
