I had the pleasure of chatting with Denis Gorbachev, co-founder of coinmarketbook.cc, an effort to bring honest and accurate market data to crypto enthusiasts. His site ranks alt-coins based on “buy support” rather than the easily manipulated “market cap” measure, and also features in-house indicators. The site rivals the popular coinmarketcap.com, which has come under fire for inaccurate and wash-traded data in its rankings. We also talk about a new project that aims to further add integrity to crypto markets. You can find more of Denis’ works here.
Our Discussion
How did you find out about Bitcoin?
“I first heard about it through a client of mine. I was working on web applications. He wanted to make a simple BTC price converter. Back then, there weren’t many pricing tools available. The purpose of the tool was to drive traffic to a project the client was working on. This was around 2014. He convinced me to accept payment in BTC for the work. So then I took time to read the BTC white paper. Like many others, I heard about it previously but this was when I really got
more interested.”
Being a Russian citizen, how do you feel is the sentiment towards Bitcoin in the East when compared to Western countries?
“I remember there was a bill to outright ban Bitcoin at one point, but the bill was never passed. In some ways I think it’s worse than the West, legally speaking, but people’s sentiment generally is more positive than the West, I believe.”
Back in October, you started coinmarketbook.cc to help shut down the manipulation going on. How has the reception been since the launch?
“First of all, I’d like to give credit to Imamudin Naseem here, who did the bulk of the code. I was the author of the idea, and wrote all the formulas, but Imamudin implemented it. It’s been a warm, surprising reception, especially since we haven’t promoted it much.”
There has been renewed speculation over possible manipulation and illiquidity with cryptocurrency Ripple (XRP). A ranking filter when compared to CMC seems to have predicted this months ahead of anyone else. XRP was outed as the most crooked, suspicious token. Any thoughts on the news?
“It’s good that we’re shedding light on these issues so quickly, it helps people get another point of view on previously unseen risk. The more information out there, the better it is for traders, investors and users. However, I don’t want to rush to any judgement on the project until the verdict is out.”
What updates coming to coinmarketbook.cc?
“Currently, we only have altcoins priced for analysis. So, we have a trump card up our sleeve with the BTC-USD chart. However, we want to make sure that we have enough market data, including futures pricing. In the equities markets, they have a saying “the tail wags the dog”, this is why we must include futures data. Cash-and-carry–arbitrage. It will take some time to integrate, but the BTC-USD pair is coming.”
You’re working on a new futures exchange?
“Yes, we’re working on Moonbase.Exchange. It’s a futures market for ICO’s that haven’t launched yet. Trading these ICO futures will put downward pressure on the bad projects before they even get the chance to raise money. From a game theory perspective, it also prevents scammers from causing too much damage. For example, if there is a fraudulent ICO that never plans to release a product, the creator would have no choice but to short his own ICO, before the short sellers do. This will help to bring a more reasonable prices to these tokens, so the playing field is leveled a little more with investors, users, and traders.”
That’s interesting, it seems that you can never completely eliminate bad projects, but this is a really elegant way of mitigating them. Any other projects in the works?
“Yes. We’ve asked our users what they would like to see. Many follow trusted traders and strategies, but don’t have the time to constantly monitor the market. So, we plan to integrate an exchange that allows you to delegate asset allocation to traders. It simply copies their orders for you. Think of it as outsourcing your trades”
Interesting. What other projects do you find compelling right now that you’re not involved with?
“I’ve been following this start up incubator called Master Ventures. They operate a bit like Y combinator except they encourage founders to interact with each other more as peers, rather than just the mentors. For example, Y combinator encourages separate living arrangements, whereas master.ventures encourages as much contact as possible. Also, they specialize more on blockchain projects.”
“As a founder, it’s something I’ve been looking for. Getting away from the distractions at home and surrounding myself with like-minded people to collaborate with would be great. So I can focus on my work.”
Of course, pricing everything in BTC assumes it’s a good measuring stick. We haven’t seen full blocks come to BTC until 2017, do you think the uncertainty around scaling will effect your outlook?
“No, I don’t do fundamental analysis. I assume that the collective intelligence of all market participants does this job. It’s almost impossible to know more than the experts out there. I just wait until information is reflected in the market. So, I’m a technical purist.
Whatever happens with the scaling debate, whether it’s lightning, liquid or some on-chain solution, I don’t really care. I just look at what the chart tells me.”
What’s your outlook for the rest of 2019?
“2019 is going to be very interesting because many altcoins have exited the accumulation range, according to our charts. Of course this doesn’t say much about the market as a whole, because all of our charts are priced in BTC. So, I can tell you that some alts will do very well against BTC.”
What are your views outside of crypto? How about the equity or bond
markets?
“Yes, it’s very simple: a break below 2,400 on the S&P is bearish, a break further up above this recent upswing is bullish.”
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