The leader of BitWell, a digital asset derivatives platform, "Heroes in Troubled Times" Jeff Young

In the flashy and turbulent currency circle, there is never a shortage of innovators. An endless stream of concepts and models are turning up and down in the currency circle, and entrepreneurs are "fighting for hegemony and leading the way".

The so-called heroes in troubled times. Jeff Young, is one of them. Compared with other entrepreneurs in the currency circle, Jeff has more of the calmness of the traditional Internet circle.

He claims to be a child of the media and the Internet. He was born in two major portals - Sina and Tencent. These two valuable experiences as a product manager have given him a special feeling for both the media and the Internet. Because of them, I have made myself what I am today. He was also an early member of Binance and witnessed the explosive growth of Binance. Currently serving as BitWell CEO, a trading platform focusing on cryptocurrency derivatives.

Continuously jumping out of the world that others look up to and starting again, Jeff is constantly creating his own "hero" stories.

Shortcomings

The 20 years from 1999 to the present have been the 20 years of rapid Internet development in China, and also the 20 years of Chinese companies being listed in Hong Kong and the United States. During this period, Chinese users had few platforms and opportunities to participate in the Hong Kong and US stock markets. Sina saw this opportunity and released the first domestic trading platform for Hong Kong and US stocks. Jeff is one of the operators of this platform.

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"At that time, the team hoped to use Internet thinking as a brokerage, so that users in mainland China could invest in US stocks and Hong Kong stocks more easily and conveniently." As the product manager at the time, Jeff said, "This platform is the same as the current cryptocurrency exchange. It was a gray area in China at the time."

Seeing the real needs of the market, there was an opportunity to become bigger and stronger. In view of the compliance issues of the project and Sina’s strategic transformation of the mobile terminal, the brokerage project was marginalized, and Jeff was transferred to be in charge of the product and operation team of Sina Finance APP. At this time, Wu Tianhua, head of Netease Youdao's search-zce technology, explored transformation and founded Tiger Securities, an Internet brokerage that also focused on US and Hong Kong stocks, and developed rapidly.

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"Watching others build tall buildings", the stranded brokerage project became a small regret in Jeff's heart. It is this shortcoming that also paved the way for his future development.

Leaving at the peak 

Afterwards, Tencent established a strategic product center and needed a person in charge who understood both products and user growth. Considering Jeff's experience in product operations and user growth at Sina, he was invited to become the product person in charge.

"Tencent's product thinking is very good. It is product-oriented first, and then wins the entire market based on users." Jeff recalled, "Tencent can be called the 'Whampoa Military Academy of Product Managers'. At that time, every product manager They all hope to go to Tencent.”

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The real shift came at the end of 2017.

At this time, Bitcoin gradually entered the eyes of the public, and cryptocurrency exchanges emerged. Binance, which was just established, sent an invitation to Jeff.

Obviously, leaving Tencent to join Binance was a very difficult decision. On the one hand, there is a big difference between the two companies: Binance has just started, with a team of only a few dozen people, and it is even more difficult to face regulatory siege and market uncertainty; while Tencent has already become one of the Internet giants, and its stock price is also high. It has reached a new height, how many people sharpen their heads and want to join. On the other hand, colleagues and friends around me don’t understand. It seems very unwise to leave a big platform like Tencent alone and go to a start-up company with various risks and uncertainties.

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However, after nearly two months of deliberation, Jeff finally made up his mind to join Binance.

“The reason why I decided to join Binance is first of all because of my work experience in traditional financial transactions. I am good at and like the trading track. Second, I think this industry has a bright future, just like 20 years ago. Like the Internet, it is an innovation in traditional finance, although it is not yet recognized by the public, but it is gradually advancing." Jeff believes that although Binance was still in its infancy at the time, there will be a lot of room for the future. For him, if he can grow together with Binance, it will be a very challenging and fulfilling thing.

At the end of 2017, the currency circle was in disrepair, and all business formats needed to be redeveloped. Accustomed to the rhythm of Internet companies, Jeff is both excited and challenged by the 24/7 international currency circle.

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What is exciting is that we never know what will happen in the future. What happens in this industry every day is fresh, and we who participate in it are also constantly innovating with its rhythm.

The challenge is that the status of talents in the currency circle is uneven, and the currency circle is more of an international business. It is not enough to simply speak English, but also to communicate with overseas colleagues from different countries and cultures, and more importantly, to feel Some habits of overseas users. Therefore, when different cultures collide and one party sincerely laments that the other is great, Jeff is very moved and proud.

For nearly two years, Jeff has witnessed the explosive growth of Binance. He is very glad that he participated in this process, and is very grateful for this rare and valuable experience. At the same time, he deeply understands the tremendous changes brought about by the blockchain era. So at the end of 2019, after thinking twice, Jeff decided to leave Binance at its peak, transform and start again.

Gong then retreats, the way of heaven.

Appointment as CEO is a matter of course

The development of human beings goes up in a spiral way. Exit at the peak of a stage, re-enter from another field, or at another time, and move to the next peak. This kind of life is wonderful.

After leaving Binance, Jeff started the next stage of his journey and founded the Block Vision Capital Block Vision Fund. The main purpose is to find and invest in some projects with better development prospects and grow together with them.

After looking around, Jeff returned to the exchange track he was familiar with and was good at, and discovered and came into contact with BitWell.  

"I was very pleased to find that there were several familiar people in the team. They were old comrades-in-arms and colleagues who had worked together before. In view of my previous experience, I was invited to be the chief product consultant at that time. Since everyone trusts each other, it is also I was more recognized, and later recommended by investors, so under the warm invitation of the team, I decided to officially join and become the CEO.”

BitWell, a digital currency derivatives service platform that has just started. When DeFi is hot and exchanges are launching related currencies, BitWell timely and cleverly launched DeFi options products, and became the first platform in the world to launch DeFi options

Going from investor to CEO is a matter of going with the flow, making up for previous shortcomings, and testing Jeff's overall situation. It is no longer simply execution, but strategizing, courageous and strategic.

This also reveals Jeff's investment rules as an investor.

The first is to predict the track. This also includes the profit model, whether the project has use value, the user situation in the track and its future potential.

Take the derivatives exchange as an example. In this track, only Deribit has done the best in options, and currently no exchange can compete with it. But the problem is that Deribit is mainly aimed at professional users, basically giving up novice users. In addition, although BitMex is famous for its contracts, there are few types of contracts, and product optimization and services are not in place. BitWell, on the other hand, starts from options, and targets both domestic and overseas markets, as well as professional and novice users.

"The threshold for options is high and the market is small, which is a tough issue for many teams." Therefore, the second criterion for Jeff's investment is to look at the team. In Jeff's view, the quality of the team determines the life and death of a project. An excellent team will certainly be able to create high-quality projects, and will naturally attract high-quality resources and contacts. This is also the reason for Jeff's bold expectations for BitWell - take root in options, root in derivatives, and be the best in the industry.

Finally, investment should also pay attention to investment timing, learn to predict and discover value depressions. Jeff said that the bear market is the best time to invest, and only the teams that really do projects will persist in the bear market. Regarding the future cryptocurrency market, Jeff believes that one is DeFi, which will gradually develop benignly and healthily, and the other may see a wave of NFT.

Delayed gratification

From Sina, Tencent to Binance, to starting his own business, it seems that the better choice is to remain unchanged, but Jeff always retreats bravely and wins in danger.  

Regarding the current achievements, Jeff said: "I basically think about my future at the best moment. Don't worry about the gains and losses of the next city and pool, but see if there will be an exponential growth in the next 3 to 5 years. increase."

From this point of view, Jeff's "thinking about the future at the best moment" and "ByteDance" founder Zhang Yiming's wise words "satisfaction delay" (with the low degree of satisfaction delay of most people, it is simply not their turn to fight for talent) Same purpose.

Delayed gratification, this concept first appeared in the book "Leadership Echelon", it refers to: a person is willing to give up short-term satisfaction for more valuable long-term results. And how to learn not to be satisfied with the pleasure in front of you, but to focus on longer-term planning is a question that every young person should learn to think about as soon as possible.

Learning to delay our own gratification is to keep us restrained from anxiety at all times, and it also allows us to focus more on the essence of things. The pain of most people is that they care too much about the satisfaction of the moment. "As young people, or entrepreneurs, we still need to work hard." Jeff said.

Look, in the hero's story, there are plains and twists and turns, adversity and good times, tragedies and surprises. Heroes are not old, but in the end, heroes will become heroes.

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