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An Interview with STP CEO Mike Chen

This is an interview with Mike Chen, the CEO of STP Network [1]. The interview was held on 1st May 2019.

ZebraCrossing:
Hi Mike, thanks for accepting my interview. Let’s begin our interview now.

ZebraCrossing:
Can you briefly introduce yourself, like academics background and experience?

Mike Chen:
Yes, I am Mike, CEO of STP and Block72. I had my undergraduate degree from Columbia University. I joined industry in late 2016. In 2017, I mainly focus on investments ICOs and I also founded my crypto called GBIC. Then in early 2018, I found only investment was not good enough to help projects to succeed. So I founded Block72, a global digital investment banking. We helped more than 40 projects raising capital in 2018, like Aergo,Libra, hashgraph, algorand, etc. Currently, we have 25 employees in three office, Shanghai Seoul, and New york.

ZebraCrossing:
Impressive profile!

ZebraCrossing:
Can you explain briefly what is STP Network to our readers?

Mike Chen:
STP is a decentralized asset network that focusing on all forms of asset tokenizations, like ICO, IEO, STO, Tokenized securities. It will have business user case at day 1 by integrating block72 core investment banking business. After we launch our mainnet in Q4 this year, STP will also be used as gas and staking for the governance of the protocol.

ZebraCrossing:
Great! Can I say that STP=Civic+Onfido+Chainalysis?

Mike Chen:
Don't know onfido, but i will say STP will like a platform token just like BNB or HT, but we are a platform token for investment banking not exchange. In wall street, Goldman Sacks has way higher almost 10X valuation than Nasdaq. It means something. when the crypto market gets mature, Investment banking will play a very important role in the ecosystem. STP will be bought back by Block72 revenue and also STP can be used as how BNB used when we issue a new asset in our network. It will have different token economy to ensure the supply is deflated. We will have more info released on this. Please, check our official medium.

ZebraCrossing:
Sure, I have read your WP in detail. It seems like STP trying to combine the best of both IPO and ICO/IEO. However, ICO/IEO usually has no protection for retail investors, how do you address this issue in STP?

Mike Chen:
I think ICO IEO has no protection for both retail investors and VCs as well, since there is no law protecting it. We will protect investors in few ways 1) token economy, ppl can buy refunding insurance in STP, for example, a token that issued in our network, the original price is 0.1, retail investors can pay 10% premium in STP, to insure that he can get refund up to certain period. and the STP proceeds will be burned. This is just one user case. 2) We will have onchain compliance validator to add the legal layer into smart contract. So the smart contract is not only binding in technology level, but also legal level. 3) we will work with top authorities like lawyer or regulators to ensure the compliance is updated

ZebraCrossing:
Interesting!

ZebraCrossing:
In the WP, it also mentioned that it is cheaper and faster than IPO. But listing at top exchange like Binance is expensive, and other top exchanges might not list a project if a volume is low. How can STP address in this issue for fundraiser?

Mike Chen:
we have been working with most exchanges for a while. Exchange listing is one core service in Block72. Beside strong connection, I think the access to top assets is another strong value added, the goal of exchange is to list the top assets globally, not all the exchanges have the access. We can be exchange trust partner to refer the assets in our network

ZebraCrossing:
Do you mean STP will assist in listing of assets at major exchanges that STP has connection with?

Mike Chen:
Yes

ZebraCrossing:
Ok. Will STP Protocol available to all regions or selected few only, due to the reason some countries forbid ICO?

Mike Chen:
In different regions, we have different focus. In US, STP will only focus on compliant raise like STO, Compliant ICO, Tokenized securities. In Asia, STP will focus on IEO and ICO. We have global team, so it enable us to be very flexible on the strategy.

ZebraCrossing:
OK. Speaking of your team, how many team members you have because on your website, it only listed 3.

Mike Chen:
Currently, we have 25 employees in three offices, Shanghai, Seoul, and New York. The three listed on the website are founders only. We have a big global team.

ZebraCrossing:
Ok, nice to hear that.

It is mentioned in your WP that automated compliance in KYC/AML will be done via partnering with third party projects like Onfido, Argos-Solutions, etc. How does this works? Does it mean after say Onfido validated a user, then Onfido will manually key into STP Network via smart contract and validate that user? I believe Onfido is doing manual validation?

Mike Chen:
The validation is happening onchain, but for wallet identity sourcing is off chain. We will work with exchanges, KYC providers to tag different wallets with different identity. Once we sourced identity, the validation process will happen onchain inside our onchian compliance validator.

ZebraCrossing:
Who are your competitors? And how you differentiate with your competitors? And what are the main challenges ahead?

Mike Chen:
In protocol level, our competitor will be Polymath, Harbor, however, we already have strong business which will lead technology adoption. We are a business driven protocols, which means, we are very like Binance. They have users, business, traffic first, then they build binance chain.So once the binance chain launched, at day one it has lots users and transactions. On the other hand, there are so many tech driven public chains, that just no one use them even after mainnet launching. I strongly believe Business success will lead technology adoption.

ZebraCrossing:
Yes, I do agree that business success depends a lot on adoption.

ZebraCrossing:
I see the strong points of STP now. STP focus on business adoption than tech.

Mike Chen:
Thanks.

ZebraCrossing:
Another question.

You mentioned that STP will do an IEO on top exchange. And the IEO hype recently and especially the Bittrex IEO Ocean failed to close even after 24 hours. In your opinion, does this indicate the hype in IEO is dying or is this an isolated case?

Mike Chen:
I think there are so many parameters to determine an IEO success: 1) valuation 2) hard cap 3) lock up 4) exchange Traffic.

Mike Chen:
I think Binance , Huobi, Bittrex/Upbit and Bitmax are still four platforms have the most users traffic. A good project with low hard cap, strong operations, good post-listing service can all succeed in any of those platform.

Mike Chen:
Ocean fails mostly because its own valuation and hardcap, not Bitrrex problem.

ZebraCrossing:
OK, I see. So in your opinion, this is an isolated case.

Mike Chen:
Its 180m usd valuation

Mike Chen:
One last thing is market, if market gets worse, then its universal.

ZebraCrossing:
Agreed.

ZebraCrossing:
Will you do an IEO on Bittrex, given a chance to do so? Not saying that you will, because many ppl are now worried about Bittrex IEO.

Mike Chen:
It’s an option. Bittrex and Upbit are connected. Upbit didn’t support Ocean and it failed to support VBK because of technical issue. If Upbit fully support the Bittrex IEO, it will be a different story.

ZebraCrossing:
Yes. The Bittrex/Upbit combo is a very strong force indeed. Especially if Upbit list its KRW pair.

ZebraCrossing:
I saw many people very keen to participate in your private sales. Would you disclose so far how many applications you received?

Mike Chen:
For the 0.01 cents round, we have about 500+ wallet address participate. I will call it community round, since we are a community driven token. We distribute the sales as wide as it could be to prevent whales. No one can invest more than 100k.

ZebraCrossing:
Nice to hear that! STP really care about community, not just the whales, excellent!

Mike Chen:
So some VC sees the hype from community, who wants to invest larger amount, already agrees to buy at double the community round valuation.

Mike Chen:
So VC after community. I think STP is the first project.

ZebraCrossing:
Indeed, usually VC get a better deal than community.

ZebraCrossing:
OK. Any last words to our readers before we calling an end to this interview?

Mike Chen:
Haha community is no.1 to STP.

ZebraCrossing:
Thank you Mike, thanks for your time and effort!

Mike Chen:
Thanks

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