Five Questions with Federico Variola from Phemex

Federico Variola: Sure, in 2018, while conducting research for my PhD, I met one of the co-founders of another crypto exchange. We engaged in frequent discussions about crypto over the course of several months. When he decided to launch his own exchange, Phemex, he asked me to join him. 
Exchanges at the time were usually built with several products stacked on top of one another, lacking coherence in their architecture. We envisioned building a seamless solution from the ground up to enhance traders’ performance, anticipating an eventual bull run. We were very much aware that trading volumes would multiply by 100.

Federico Variola: I would say Nov/Dec 2022. After FTX’s collapse it was humbling to experience so little faith in exchanges across the space, which makes sense in retrospect considering how many people were blindsided by that event. Users panicked to withdraw their funds, and every transaction  between cold and hot wallets could be misinterpreted by the on-chain observers. However, we released our POR page shortly after, and confidence in our exchange has been growing steadily since then.  

Federico Variola: Phemex offers a unique hybrid approach bridging the gap between  a CEX and a DEX. We are launching our Web 3.0 ecosystem to empower our users with full ownership of their online identities and invite them to own a piece of our platform. Our users will partake in our growth and benefit from the widest range of products available in the crypto ecosystem.

Federico Variola: I see more and more newcomers jumping straight into on-chain trading, thanks to meme coins and the upside potential of novel narratives. We need to accommodate this trend by being as flexible as we can with our listing policy and product integrations, all while ensuring the safety of users against scams and rugpulls. Moreover, I believe that digital identities will play a significant role in crypto’s future narrative. To lead the way, we are testing several approaches through our soulbound token and collaborations with other protocols.

Federico Variola: We are planning to build a DeFi stack around our exchange token, enabling even our most risk-averse users to safely experience novel products and take advantage of the full range of financial products the market offers. Soon, you will be able to borrow, lend, provide liquidity, access exclusive IEOs, and more, all through our exchange. All this while also benefiting from our growth.

We asked our users to mint a soulbound token in order to pre-mine our tokens, and with this move, we are venturing into the world of NFTs as a tool to build a social and financial digital identity. We firmly believe this is a key next step towards mass adoption, and we are committed to being at the forefront of this movement.