Chris Chris 10.01.2023

'Crypto is HERE and it is not going away' - an Interview with Nikolay Mishchenko, COO of YouHodler

Today we are joined by Nikolay Mishchenko - a COO at YouHodler. He's got 10+ years of experience in strategic and operational consulting, IT, and research. 

Chris:

Greetings! Thanks for taking the time with me. Let's get straight to it: your website, i.e. YouHodler.com, entices with the headline "Crypto is HERE" — which gives me goosebumps. Do I understand correctly that you believe that you set yourself apart from the competition in a big way? Can you tell us how?

Nikolay:

Thank you for this interview, it’s a pleasure! 

Yes, for sure we stand apart from most crypto wallets, exchanges, and crypto platforms – both small and big ones. YouHodler builds a product that opens crypto to users and allows safe and comfortable utilization of this powerful instrument. 

We are on our way to building Web3 banking that combines traditional payment services like cards with simple trading instruments. What is noticeable, we do not reinvest the funds of our users, meaning that YouHodler is not subject to Celsius-like risks. 

 

Chris: Interesting! Can you expand on the concept of MultiHODL for us, please?

Nikolay: YouHodler’s MultiHODL is probably the simplest instrument that gives trading experience to people who do not look for the complicated solutions Binance and Kraken provide. We are proud of our MultiHODL as we believe it opens the world of Crypto for those who did not have a chance to understand the basics of our new financial system. And as I said before, we do not reinvest funds of our users, so no exposition to extra risks is given to our clients. 

 

Chris: Can you tell us about Crypto Loans and Dual assets? 

Nikolay: These products are of a different nature than MultiHODL, but they have the same philosophy behind them – a simple interface for our clients that provides access to the complicated product. Our Crypto Loans are something close to a traditional asset-based loan that allows having leverage on one’s portfolio while having crypto assets diversified giving better risk management for those who dug deeper and understood the instrument. Dual Assets on the other hand provide hedging on a market with low volatility helping one earn during periods of stability in crypto markets. 

 

Chris: Now as we shed the light on the aforementioned — can you explain how can your users earn crypto with you? 

Nikolay: There are many ways to earn crypto with YouHodler. For those who look for low-risk and low-income, we have deposits in place, but this instrument is rather limited and is aimed at sharing our revenues with the most active platform users. For those willing to take risks, MultiHODL allows earning really high incomes on one’s assets through margin trading-like product, but here risks should be kept in mind. Each of our products is aimed at giving a way to earn crypto.

The combination of all of our products actually allows our users to have complicated portfolio management strategies that hedge the risk of the market.

 

Chris: Your Blog is rather vibrant, which I have not seen at many of your competitors. How content marketing impacts your overall play?

Nikolay: Thank you for noticing! I really like our blog and always read our new articles. For our blog, we create original content that comes from requests of our users, their areas of interest, and issues they face through their crypto experience. We do not make mass-market crypto traffic sources from our blog as it is one of the ways we can make rather personal communication with our users. We understand that this format of blogging is not the most efficient way to build up a user base, but we also believe we make something valuable for every person who runs into our articles. This blog is one of the reflections on how YouHodler stands out among other crypto platforms.

 

Chris: On a personal note: how old is the company and how the initial idea came across? 

Nikolay: YouHodler is around for almost 4 years, but the team has been working together for much longer. The initial product was a rather romantic educational initiative Investory.pro which actually still has some loyal users. Later there were numerous spinoffs and finally, every idea and piece of code was combined into YouHodler in its modern way.

 

Chris: What are some vital lessons that you have learned along the way? Would you do something differently if you could start everything afresh?

Nikolay: Every successful business is built on a tremendous number of mistakes and lessons, so it is hard to recall any truly vital ones as a proper way of failing is a part of growth. For myself, I can say that I would focus on the “Fail fast” approach in areas that were not critical in terms of the safety of our clients’ funds, but this is rather cosmetical change as I believe we would still build YouHodler similar to the way it is now. 

 

Chris: Sweet! Can you share your plans for 2023? Is there anything big in the pipeline?

Nikolay: For sure! 1st half of 2023 is a time for significant upgrades since many of our R&Ds come to implementation. Features that are really worth mentioning are the introduction of payment cards for our European users. We also have Web3 Wallet upcoming in the nearest future to help our users assure their funds are safe and are not subject to any financial institution’s failure. There are many more features upcoming related to providing better products overall and in particular trading experience. Follow our updates to find them out!

 

Chris: Thanks for a captivating talk. Any last word? Where can we follow your updates?

Nikolay: Thank you for this interview! I want to say that Crypto is HERE and it is not going away. The crisis we have now is not the crisis of Crypto itself, but it is a fundamental recession that reflects deep issues with the old economics and finance system. We will pass through it as every crisis and recession is a time of opportunity and we are already using it to our fullest. Hope that everyone will do the same! And for our updates follow our blog, Twitter and our CEO Ilya Volkov