6 Questions For…

“The guy in the goggles” tells Cointelegraph about his single question to Trump that helped turn around crypto’s fortunes in the U.S.

Malcolm DeGods, better known on social media as the guy in the goggles, asked presidential candidate Donald Trump a single question at an NFT event at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month and has since been credited with triggering a crypto revolution in Washington.

We caught up with Malcolm about what he thought of his small part in crypto history and the story behind those gaudy sunglasses.

I think that there have been a lot of very smart people whether its Brian Armstrong and Paul Grewal or the Blockchain Association who have been on the Hill dedicating their lives to crypto regulation and making the U.S. a safe haven or at least somewhere where crypto teams can operate.

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JPEX staff forced to flee Token2049 after execs arrested, Mt Gox repayment delay stretches 10 years, Diners Club goes Web3 in Singapore.

Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industrys most important developments.

JPEX scandal grows to over $166M 

Last weeks Token2049 conference in Singapore was a life-changing experience for some; for others, the event did not meet expectations but for a select group of individuals, the imminent prospect of being pursued by law enforcement meant they had to abandon their booths and flee the event.

On Sept. 21, local news outlets reported that Hong Kong police had arrested 11 individuals linked to troubled cryptocurrency exchange JPEX on charges of fraud and operating an unlicensed virtual assets exchange. More than 2,000 users are estimated to have been affected, with $1.3 billion Hong Kong dollars ($166 million) involved. Police allege users’ assets have been embezzled by JPEX staff.

In a dramatic raid on Sept. 13 day one of the conference Hong Kong police arrested key JPEX executives, leading staff to abandon its corporate booth. The exchange subsequently applied for voluntary deregistration with the Australia Securities & Investment Commission, disclosing that its Australian entity had little assets left. After the news broke, JPEX reportedly raised its withdrawal fees to 999 USDT per transaction to prevent capital flight.

In an announcement on Sept. 20, JPEX said that 400 million Tether (USDT) worth of users’ deposits would be eligible for redemption. However, the catch is that the funds can only be redeemed starting in late 2025. The firm stated that due to the ongoing law enforcement investigation, its telecom service providers and asset custodians have frozen applicable services.

In a press conference, John Lee, the chief executive of Hong Kong, said, “This incident highlights the importance that when investors want to invest in virtual assets, then they must invest on platforms that are licensed.” Founded in 2019, JPEX heavily promoted its presence in Hong Kong with brand banners on local metro stations and taxis, as well as soliciting the help of celebrities such as singer Julian Cheung.

Before its collapse, JPEXs marketing included free vouchers to any users who signed up, offers of up to 300X trading leverage, and stablecoin staking yields exceeding 30% per annum. The firm has since suspended all of its services despite previous assurances that it will not collapse.”

Mt. Gox trustee creditors, trolled? 

Users of defunct Japanese crypto exchange Mt. Gox were dealt another setback on Sept. 21, when it was announced that bankruptcy trustees would delay payment deadlines by another year. If executed, this means that the bankruptcy process would have stretched out for 10 years (if not more) since a devastating hack obliterated the exchange in 2014.

In April, Mt. Gox set a final deadline for creditors to register a claim against the defunct crypto exchange. A target date of October 2023 was then set for the repayment of users’ assets. The registration process has been extended periodically for several years. Despite previous reassurances, Mt. Gox trustees wrote: 

“Given the time required for rehabilitation creditors to provide the necessary information, and for the Rehabilitation Trustee to confirm such information and engage in discussions and share information with banks, fund transfer service providers, and Designated Cryptocurrency Exchanges etc., involved in the repayments, which are required before the repayments can be made, the Rehabilitation Trustee will not be able to complete the repayments above by the deadline.”

Mt. Gox was the biggest Bitcoin exchange in the world when it filed for bankruptcy in 2014 after discovering that 850,000 of its customers Bitcoin (BTC) had been stolen after years of subtle siphoning. The exchange has since recovered around 200,000 BTC. The funds have been held in trust for the creditors, with 162,106 BTC ($4.38 billion) sitting in wallet addresses tracked by Token Unlock. At the time of the hack, the price of Bitcoin was around $580 apiece, meaning that many creditors would have realized gains on investment despite over half of their BTC being stolen.

In its communication to creditors, the trustee stated that payments could come as soon as the end of this year for registered creditors. However, like for the past decade, a caveat clause was included (as always): 

“Please note that the schedule is subject to change depending on the circumstances, and the specific timing of repayments to each rehabilitation creditor has not yet been determined.”

Singaporean fintech raises $10M 

Singaporean firm DCS Fintech Holdings has received a $10 million investment from Foresight Ventures for creating crypto-fiat on-ramping solutions. 

According to the Sept. 21 announcement, DCS, which originally stood for “Diners Club Singapore,” the first credit card issuer in the city-state nation, will use the capital to develop “new payment solutions that provide a seamless connection between Web2 and Web3.” Its subsidiary, DCS Card Center, is regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore for issuing credit cards. CEO Karen Low commented:

“The rapid evolution of Web3 today necessitates the bridging of payments into Web2, while the rise of fintechs is democratizing payments for consumers, creating demand for greater variety and refreshing experiences. These are opportunities that DCS is well-poised to seize.”

As part of DCS’s initial foray into Web3, it has developed a Singaporean-dollar-backed payment token, which is also dubbed “DCS,” for the financial service sector. 

Also based in Singapore, Foresight Ventures is a $400 million fund investing in Web3, AI and blockchain-related entities. In May, the firm pledged an additional $10 million for its Web3 accelerator, bringing the total to $20 million. The firm also backs the $120 million Sei Ecosystem Fund.

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Leila Ismailova left Belarus — and an epic TV career — behind when she moved to America. Today, she’s at the forefront of digital fashion.

Leila Ismailova began her professional career at the age of 15 as a broadcasting star in Belarus, the Russian-neighboring Eastern European country that plays home to 9.3 million citizens. She continued in the role for 10 years, she says, before reaching what she felt was a professional ceiling and beginning a journey that led to Web3.

I remember my audacity as a child, just sneaking into the buildings with newspapers and magazines it was called the House of Press, Ismailova recalls in an interview with Cointelegraph. I would handwrite my stories and sneak into the building because I didnt have a pass  by making up stories that I was someones granddaughter, or by just going in when someone else entered. And I would find the doors that said editor or editor-in-chief, and I would just walk in and give them my articles. People smiled, and Im sure they felt I was naive, but I felt they also had some respect for me doing this work.

Her renegade news career led to television in a matter of years. She joined the countrys First National Channel at the age of 15, where she started on a show that covered news and culture for younger viewers.

My first audition went horribly, Ismailova says. I turned purple. I was thinking really fast, but they still wanted me to come for the second round.

Also read: How brands are using digital fashion in real life

Ismailova moved to the United States in 2016, setting off what she calls a season of migration for her family, including her brother, Bahram, and sister, Esmira. Bahram is a serial tech entrepreneur whose inventions include Peech App and Yope, among many others, while Esmira is an author whose published works include On the Shores of Bosphorus. (You wont find it in English yet, so dont spend too much time scouring Amazon.)

Ismailovas and her siblings success came despite hardship. Their father died when they were children (Bahram was just 1), fighting for Azerbaijan in the countrys war with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

It happened very abruptly, Ismailova says. Of course, no one planned for it, so we went very fast from being a well-off family living in the capital of Baku to being a very scared family. We were pretty much on our own in a country that was going through the war with Armenia and, on top of that, separating from the Soviet Union. It was a very harsh time for everybody.

Ismailova says that experience inspired her to launch a charity during her broadcast career that offered mentoring for orphans, an activity she would like to resume in the future.

It seemed like these girls, even though the government provided very simple basics for them to start life, didnt have parental guidance, Ismailova recalls. It seemed like a lot of orphan girls were insecure because no one told them they were beautiful. Our goal was to create that guidance and to give them a confidence boost. […] For me, it was very important to do, and I was so lucky that I had a chance and a bit of influence. Right now, I miss it very much.

Today, shes a Web3 veteran after spending three years at Artisant, a digital fashion brand she co-founded inspired, in part, by her career in journalism. As a child, I didnt have access to a lot of beautiful dresses, Ismailova says. But I always appreciated the elegant and beautiful part of fashion, and when I watched TV, I always saw TV hosts and red carpets. It always looked stunning.

Ismailova left Artisant in July to launch a new chapter of her career as a consultant for digital-savvy fashion brands. Im sort of coming back to reality, Ismailova explains. Artisant was a digital fashion brand, but there was no physical product.

1. You moved from Belarus, where you were a TV journalist, to the United States. Whats the story behind that?

Im the only one from my family who moved, at first. I opened the season of migration for my family, as right after I moved, my sister moved, and then my brother. He didnt just move he ran away in August 2020, right after the Belarusian presidential election, when they started hunting people down. He had to run. His two co-founders were arrested.

My personal story is that I was a pretty successful TV host back home, I started when I was 15. I wanted to be a TV host because I wanted to wear beautiful dresses. I was very happy. It was my dream job! I started working early, and I think I was very hungry for success. I got all the national awards I dreamed of at a very young age, hosted all the shows I wanted to, and reached the professional ceiling back home.

2. What got you into crypto?

Well, my first stop in the United States was California  this was before I moved to Miami. I got into graduate school for a masters program at USC Annenberg. (To be honest, Im still struggling to connect to American society.) Ive always been a nerd, and school seemed like a safe environment to connect to people. I started learning about entrepreneurship during the first wave of crypto in 2017, and then I invested in my first crypto and lost it. I bought Litecoin at $250. But I started working in crypto only in 2020. 

3. What brought you to Miami?

I felt very limited in Los Angeles with the COVID-19 restrictions, and very isolated. I couldnt even walk my dog because they closed the parks. So, I got into digital fashion. It got me very curious about how something that didnt exist could make someone feel so good. That was when I met my Artisant co-founder, Regina [Turbina], in 2020. We were talking, and I started helping with little things. In 2021, I joined Artisant full-time.

Related: Blockchain games arent really decentralized but thats about to change

Things were flowing, so I quit my job and took a leap of faith  which brought me to Miami. And since I joined crypto, never have I met so many bright, prominent people with open minds. Everyone has been very welcoming, even though I knew far less in the beginning than I know now. People were willing to spend hours on the phone with me, sharing knowledge. I think the welcoming environment encouraged me to stay.

4. How do you see digital fashion evolving over the next five years?

Looking at the last bull run, I think it was awesome, but its over. We have this romantic notion that were all moving to the metaverse, and our avatars will all need clothes someday. I want to see technology become a tool that makes people more well-rounded, sustainable wholesome.

Related: An eclectic display at the 2nd Metaverse Fashion Week

We have this vicious circle in the Western world of buying goods we dont need. Brands manipulate us into buying things. Consequently, we need to produce more goods, and we have this vicious circle of overproduction and overconsumption. We have a situation where fashion, the most beautiful business in the world, is responsible for 10% of carbon emissions.

We have a huge problem at hand, and I see digital fashion and technology as a possible solution. Were moving from the notion of building digital clothes for the metaverse to looking at how digital fashion can be useful right now. Look at Dior and their B33 sneaker collection with NFC chips built into the sole. Its an amazing technology that allows you to link them to digital assets. So, this is a very good way for brands to solve the problem of counterfeit products.

5. You recently left Artisant. Where are you going next?

Im starting consulting jobs, and I want to start writing more. For now, I want to focus on companies that deal in digital fashion. Companies that provide digital fashion services as an agency. I have a brand that wants me to consult their team, and they do an amazing clothing line that has augmented reality storytelling built into it. Im sort of coming back to reality. Artisant was a digital fashion brand but there was no physical product.

Seeing Artisant grow not just in numbers but in real people who defined Artisant as their community meant the whole world to me. But I came to a point where I gave everything I could to the project. Technology has a huge mission in reforming the world of fashion, and I want to contribute. While I am still pondering my next big professional adventure, I know it will be fun and will serve humanity.

6. Whats your life like outside of crypto?

I love having a balanced life. I have a dog. (Thats a hobby, right?) I play chess. For me, chess is a very important game that helps me a lot in business and in analyzing situations. I also like sports. For me, its very important to keep moving. Yoga has been part of my life for quite some time. Since I live in Miami, I do things like paddleboarding and kite surfing. And I take dance classes. That was one of my first dreams, actually  to become a dancer.

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Mighty Bear Games CEO Simon Davis — AKA “Papa Bear” — gave us a look inside his Web3 gaming studio, and his thoughts on the future of gaming.

Simon Davis is the co-founder and CEO of Mighty Bear Games, a multiplatform game developer in Southeast Asia creating accessible multiplayer experiences in Web3.

Davis has spent almost two decades working in the gaming industry, but he never planned to actually work in this field.

Before crypto, he was a professional guitarist who made ends meet by playing in metal bands and cover bands and by teaching guitar. But after his money dried up one summer, he scored a six-week gig as a professional game tester and he’s never looked back.

During his time in the gaming industry, Davis has held management and product lead positions at gaming companies including King Digital Entertainment, Ubisoft, Bigpoint, AKQA, Empire Interactive, and Laughing Jackal. 

In 2017, Davis teamed up with some friends and fellow industry veterans to launch Mighty Bear Games in Singapore, where they intended to focus on creating traditional games before pivoting to blockchain in 2022. And in 2023, the firm launched an open beta for Mighty Action Heroes, its first Web3 gaming title.

Davis, who also goes by “Papa Bear,” said every Mighty Bear employee receives a “bear title.” Some of Papa Bear’s employees include “Arty Bear,” “Bear-Abel,” “Excel Bear,” and “Bear McNumbers.”

Why the pivot to blockchain gaming?

I was lucky enough to kind of get into Bitcoin by accident in 2015, so Ive been in the space for a few years. In 2021, I started playing with NFTs, and Im lucky enough to be also based in Southeast Asia, so I could see firsthand what was happening with Axie [Infinity]. I think, for me, as someone who lived through the transition to free-to-play, it felt very much like a moment, kind of like when Farmville came out on Facebook. 

I think that for live service titles [games like Fortnite, League of Legends and Apex Legends], a dominant business model is going to emerge to revolve around player-owned and operated economies. Because I dont believe you can have virtual worlds without digital property rights, essentially.

And I think that does enable a lot of new things that were really starting to scratch the surface on. So, I think that really was the pull factor.

What format do you think serves as the best way to attract users to blockchain gaming?

I think mobile gaming is going to be the dominant platform because of geography. You see this if you look at the charts for the countries that have a great slope of interest in crypto or Web3. They tend to be countries where existing payment rails are not super developed.

People are largely unbanked in places like Indonesia and Brazil. These markets are mobile-first. Like, people in the Philippines and India are not necessarily using high-end PCs. 

So, you need to go where the users are. And this is a bit of a spicy take, but this is why Im very bearish on people making super HD high-end Web3 games because its just not where the markets are today. So, you see a lot of these teams raising, like, mega bucks to make console-quality titles, but if no one can play them, then they arent going to do very much.

What do you think the current hurdles are for large-scale blockchain gaming adoption?

A lot of people talk about it in terms of silver bullets, right? Like, Oh, we need one good game, or like, We need to solve the wallet problem. I dont think its any one of those things. I actually think it is just a lot of lead bullets, a lot of small things that need to happen. 

What Ive experienced today is still pretty terrible, and scary, like social recovery. And its starting to become a thing, but that needs to become a lot easier.

I just think, in general, it needs to be as easy and as brainless to use as a Web2 experience. And so I think there is an inherent conflict today with how people think about Web3, you know. They say things like, Oh, you need to educate the users, or, Train people to hold their private keys.

But you know, my mom doesnt want to hold her own private keys. She does all her trading on Crypto.com. We need to make it essentially idiot-proof so anyone can do it.

I think were still quite a long way away, but I am seeing meaningful improvements, actually. Im seeing products that are going to go to market next year which are going to help a lot. 

I dont know how old you are, but Ive just turned 40 this year. I remember in the 90s setting up a home internet connection on dial-up. It took me two days of calling technical support and someone telling me like configs. I was having to go in and change manually and stuff. And now, you know, we solved that, right? And then, the internet became a mass market, and then people could just put a CD in their computer, and it just worked. I think we need to get to that stage.

Do you think the bad rap blockchain/NFT gaming gets is a big issue? 

Its funny because gaming got a pretty bad rap in the 90s. You know, everyone was talking about how games were making children violent. There was a big moral panic, just like there was in music a few years before.

But I think that when you start to get these things in peoples hands and experience them, perceptions change. I do think a lot of the reputation that we have in crypto and Web3 is deserved. There are a lot of bad actors exploiting the lack of regulation, but the things that excite me: Ive seen some games, for example, that allow players to earn small amounts of Bitcoin, And this sort of things retention numbers are very strong, like the initial metrics are very promising. And I think thats a really nice use case.

Reddit is also a great example, right? They put NFTs in the hands of huge numbers of people. A lot of people didnt even realize they were interacting with NFTs. So then they had their first taste, and yeah there are some stats that have come up, and not a huge amount of them have transacted on-chain.

But I actually dont think thats such a bad thing. If people are not dumping the assets on day one, I dont see that as a negative. So, I think onboarding through stealth is pretty good.

What kind of adoption metrics are you looking for with your games?

So, people talk about installs and sign-ups its just a vanity metric. For me, Im interested in how many people are coming in every day, how regularly theyre coming back, and what the growth curve of that looks like initially.

And then once we do the mobile launch [of Mighty Action Heroes], which will be around August/September, how well are we doing on attracting non-crypto-native people into the game as well? That will be very interesting, and to see how they play together. Its a different angle, but its one that Im pretty bullish on.

What are some ideas or tech upgrades that could help blockchain gaming?

ERC-6551 tokens. 

Essentially, they give a smart contract account or a smart contract wallet to a 721 [token]. So, you know, a traditional NFT would be a JPG with some metadata attached. But essentially, the JPG or the asset, whatever that is, is then bound to a smart contract. 

And this is pretty cool because it means that assets can communicate directly with each other. So NFT to NFT, without using MetaMask. And it could also be compatible with other smart contract wallets. 

I think the really cool thing is that, essentially, your asset becomes a wallet and can have its own logic as well. So you could have a base character in a game as the 6551 token, and then all the clothes or the items or everything that that character has, the kind of sub-assets, can change within, each with its own logic.

As a game developer, you start thinking of how your characters could evolve and how you can attach new assets without updating the core.

Then as a dev, I think its really good for reputation management as well. Like, if you did a soulbound version, you could have achievements, proof-of-work, proof-of-play, social identity. I think its pretty cool. […] Its more secure because its not just an asset within a wallet like it is on smart contracts with its own private key.

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Transfero’s Thiago Cesar says when he started buying Bitcoin in 2012 he knew it had amazing potential for “internationalizing money.”

Thiago Cesar is the 34-year-old co-founder of Transfero, a company helping to make crypto more accessible for Brazilians with BRZ, the first stablecoin pegged to the Brazilian real. 

Cesar grew up in southern Brazils Pindamonhangaba municipality before making the 90-mile trek to Sao Paulo for college. He graduated from Fundao Armando Alvares Penteado, and it wasnt long, Cesar says, before he became infatuated with Bitcoin as a graduate student at the University of London.

By 2014, Id been convinced that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, in general, were going to be a big thing, Cesar says, leading him to author his graduate thesis on the competitive and comparative advantages that Bitcoin could bring to a business.

In 2015, Transfero was born.

Crypto became a hit in subsequent years: A 2022 Chainalysis report gave Brazil the top rank of any country in South America on its annual crypto index and No. 7 globally. Cryptos surging popularity is one reason whyRio de Janeiro announced in Octoberit would begin accepting crypto for tax payments, with Transfero facilitating settlements.

What inspired you to start Transfero?

Transfero was a joint dream between me and my four Brazilian co-founders. We met in Rio de Janeiro just after I returned from the University of London in 2015, where coincidentally, I wrote my masters thesis about Bitcoin.

One of my co-founders Marlyson Silva had previous experience in the payments industry and developed a payment gateway that could also process Bitcoin transactions. The system immediately converted Bitcoin into reais, so merchants didnt have to worry about price fluctuations.

Being a crypto-native group, our idea was to leverage everything that a borderless and permissionless asset class could provide. Brazil and other neighboring countries were always financially limited in some way: be it due to inflation-inducing economic policy like in Argentina or a rigid FX market with some degree of capital controls like in Brazil.

Crypto can fill multiple gaps for citizens coming from emerging markets. Asset protection, international remittance rails, portfolio diversification and so on. Transfero builds on top of legacy financial technologies in LATAM such as PIX in Brazil and combines the abovementioned crypto elements to deliver products and services that solve real-world pains that are common in emerging markets.

What are the biggest things Transfero is doing?

Transfero is one of the largest fiat ramps in Brazil and Argentina. Multiple international businesses crypto and non-crypto related use Transfero to receive deposits and perform payments within the Brazilian and Argentine banking systems. 

Also read: Bitcoin is on a collision course with Net Zero promises

Transfero is also the issuer of BRZ, a stablecoin for BRL. Thats the basis for our stablecoin settlements for flows between the United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America. It is a synthetic representation of BRZ, as the actual BRL currency is non-deliverable. That means international companies cant carry it unless they have bank accounts in Brazil.

You also started the Transfero Academy. Whats its goal?

Transfero Academy is an educational program for Brazilians from vulnerable neighborhoods. We offer a full-time blockchain technical course, which prepares students for a career in crypto. We have a 95% employment rate for students who have graduated.

Transfero Academy changed the lives of hundreds of students; now were partnering up with governmental and private educational groups throughout the country.

Cryptocurrency has a higher adoption rate in Brazil than any other country in Latin America. Why are Brazilians so interested in crypto?

Crypto opened up the international financial world to Brazilians. Not a lot of people know, but in Brazil, you can only have bank accounts denominated in BRL, and retail traders can only trade stocks on a local exchange called B3.

When Bitcoin, Ethereum and stablecoins arrived, Brazilians could finally access international platforms and open up their financial horizons. Crypto is not only a different asset class but also an international financial rail for Brazilians.

What brought you to crypto?

Back in 2012, when I was working for a South Korean company, a friend told me about some type of internet money called Bitcoin that was used for deep web transactions. I became interested in the subject and started my own research.

As with most people, I didnt understand much at the time, even after reading the white paper. But when I started buying Bitcoin at the end of 2012, I was amazed by the potential it had for internationalizing money. Coming from Brazil, the idea that I could carry a United States dollar-priced asset that could move or be sent anywhere was groundbreaking for me.

By 2014, Id been convinced that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, in general, were going to be a big thing. That led me to focus on crypto for my masters thesis at the University of London.

What are your hopes or goals for Transfero on a five-to-10-yeartimehorizon?

Transfero is expanding throughout LATAM. Right now, we provide services in Brazil and Argentina, but our main goal is to be the main issuer of stablecoins and fiat ramp for the region, operating a settlement network between emerging markets.

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