Overbit CEO: “Everyone wants to see crypto continue to grow”

In a recent interview, Chieh Liu gave Coinjournal some exclusive insights into the recent Overbit survey, as well as the inner workings and mentality of a thriving cryptocurrency exchange

Overbit’s CEO and founder, Chieh Liu

We spoke with Overbit’s CEO and founder, Chieh Liu, to discuss Overbit’s future plans, a day in the life for a tech CEO and picked his brains on the state of the market and where we might be heading next, as well as a look back at what Overbit achieved with its traders’ survey in 2020.

Liu has an interesting background and has established himself as one of the youngest noteworthy tech CEOs to emerge from the cryptocurrency sector. Graduating from California State Polytechnic University in 2011, Liu went on to gain experience at a number of investment firms in Asia before founding Overbit in 2017 to bring together forex and cryptocurrency trading.

What is Overbit?

Please tell us more about yourself, your entrepreneurial journey, and Overbit?

I am Chieh Liu, the founder and CEO of Overbit. My first journey into crypto was around 2013 with Bitcoin mining.

Since then, I have been watching and monitoring this industry closely especially in trading. Overbit officially launched in late 2018, and we developed a simple-to-use platform with an extremely easy onboarding process to fulfil the demands of novice traders.

Share with us your typical day at Overbit?

I start my day with H2O while reading the news/markets followed by a quick walk with my rescued mix breed dog, in the park.

As an early riser, I usually start my day early in interviews – as I am the key spokesperson for Overbit. I share my thoughts on Overbit’s plans to different media outlets across multi-languages, just like you are interviewing me now.

My day continues with a series of day-to-day meetings across the different business units such as with marketing, support, and development teams to make sure everything is on the right track.

I try my best to keep a work-life balance and usually by 6.30pm, I am walking the dog again as I wind down for the day.

What do you consider your biggest accomplishments with Overbit so far?

To be able to keep providing our users with the best trading experience and I have done so with the launch of a demo account.

All users are given practice funds, with 8 BTC and USDT $50,000 to familiarise themselves on the platform and to build confidence in trading.

Overbit demo account: www.overbit.com

Surfing for a survey

You launched a crypto traders survey from 17th of March to 31st of March 2021. How did the idea for this survey first surface and why conduct a survey?
An annual trader survey is really helpful for us to get a better understanding on how traders behave differently from year to year. Everyone in the industry wants the crypto industry to keep growing, so any contribution to the public discourse is meaningful and helps to achieve this goal.

What were some of the key highlights from that survey?
From a sample of more than 2,500 crypto traders from 90 countries across 5 continents, here are some interesting conclusions.

a) Trader background and preferences
Overbit found that most traders fall within the age group of 35 to 44. 73% of traders have at least one year’s experience of trading in cryptos.

53% of crypto traders only engage in spot trading, while 47% also trade in crypto derivatives including futures, options, swaps, forwards and contracts for difference (CFD).

b) Trader behavioural patterns
The last section of the survey attempted to gauge when traders are most active and the assets they prefer to trade. Overbit found that novice and pro traders trade the least, while mid-tier and advanced are the most active.

41% of crypto traders surveyed had also traded Forex. Of note, this number was higher amongst novice traders at 63%, perhaps indicating an interest in diversifying into crypto trading.

Please find attached a summary of key highlights in the next images.

If you are interested in reading 2020’s full survey, you can find it here. Stay tuned for 2021’s results later this month!

What is the biggest problem that Overbit is trying to solve through this 2021 crypto traders’ survey and why is this problem so important to solve?
Overbit is committed to educating traders both from the crypto and traditional space to understand digital currencies better and to promote a pathway into crypto.

We want to understand and share our findings with users on what is happening in the crypto asset space as the sector continued to boom. We trust that quantitative research such as this will be able to help identify the following key areas:

Cryptocurrency and traditional markets mindsets
The importance of exchanges onboarding users
Deep dive into traders’ behaviour and trading preferences
We will research into the different tools chosen by traders and communities
Why is security so paramount to Traders’ funds
We will look into the different trading platforms and exchanges
Lastly, we will share the demographics of traders who have embarked on this survey

What are some of the trends and predictions that traders can look forward to in this 2021 crypto traders survey?
Traders can look forward to seeing trends related to growth in emerging global markets, increasing institutional adoption, booming DeFi activities and a spotlight on Non Fungible tokens (NFT), which are all becoming the centre of attention.

The future of Overbit and the market

What are your thoughts on the crypto market, short-term and long-term for the following?
1. Bitcoin
2. Ethereum
3. DeFi
4. NFTs
5. Cryptocurrency in general

Bitcoin and Ethereum are the OGs in crypto, and I do not look at them for the short-term. I am highly expecting them to have significant growth over the next two years.

DeFis are getting more mature now, and we are also considering listing some of them on Overbit.

NFTs are hot and are the new kid on the blockchain right now. Money flows with hype in my opinion, but it is yet to be seen if there will be more applications for NFTs down the line.

So in summary, people should be excited for all the good stuff that’s in store for the cryptocurrency space.

Can you tell me what you’re looking forward to accomplishing the most with Overbit in 2021?
A stunning mobile application is coming in Q2-Q3, and we are also rebuilding the trading page to optimise its effectiveness. Watch this space closely!

What is the one thing that you would change about cryptocurrency that could bring a positive result for all?
Getting rid of “proof-of-work”, aka mining as that would greatly help the environment.

Mining with computer processing is energy intensive and hurtful to the environment. In a recent article by mic.com, it was said that Bitcoin is responsible for nearly 37 million metric tons of carbon emissions each year. This is comparable to the annual carbon footprint for the entire country of New Zealand!

Do you feel cryptocurrency is slowly moving into the mainstream to the point it could replace fiat currency one day?
I can see one day when we start using CBDCs; possibly backed by Bitcoin if it were to one day become a world reserve currency.

How could blockchain technology be applied to change modern society and business/retail and even Government infrastructure for good?
Blockchain has the potential help create a more efficient world where different companies, industries and people can be connected with each other without intermediaries in a much more transparent and efficient way.

What misconceptions do you feel stop a lot of people from investing in cryptocurrency?
Let’s talk about Bitcoin, where the naysayers are thinking that Bitcoin is virtual and can’t be physically owned because it is just a hype bubble.

Yes digital currencies are “virtual” indeed, however the scarcity and functionality that Bitcoin offers is much more clear than physical gold. We have seen Bitcoin jump to 700 per cent in the past year and in the first two months of this year, it had already risen by 70 per cent, hitting a record US$61,742 on March 13.

With all the support from the institutions such as MicroStrategy, PayPal, Tesla and the list goes on, Bitcoin has surpassed the value of gold.

Do you think any altcoins could knock Bitcoin of it’s position as top dog?
No, I am a Bitcoin believer.

Do you think cryptocurrency will ever be widely adopted by big retail firms like Amazon for payments?
Yes, and it has already happened fuelled by institutional investors and investments funds viewing Bitcoin as an alternative portfolio diversifier and an asset to store value.

I honestly believe this trend is not going to stop anytime soon.

How was 2020 for you and Overbit? What are some of your key takeaways from last year?

2020 was an unprecedented year with COVID-19. Thank goodness, the crypto market and trading industry only received minimal disruption in comparison to other industries. We saw an increase of almost 40% in trading activity during the pandemic as more people stayed at home to work and had more time and flexibility to trade.

In the midst of doom and gloom, I wanted to inject fun and cheer to traders, so I invested a five-digit budget to launch Overbit Sketches – a series of educational trading commercials with a funny spin on it.

Here is our latest Sketches commercial on security, check it out and have a laugh!

I also wanted to give back to my traders who were loyal to Overbit. So with that in mind, I launched Overbit Rewards Hub. This is another long-term investment that is able to bring daily joy to our traders.

Being a gamer myself, I understand the principle of gamification and know the potential in gamifying trading. A trading ecosystem such as this can help build trust between Overbit and traders as it has been proven by the success of many blockchain-based gaming platforms.

With the rewards hub, traders can now have fun playing different types of games to earn crypto perks or even BTC or USDT without having to physically trade on our platform.