Yuzo Kano is a man of resources with a vision. He’s currently on a mission to build the world’s leading exchange service for digital currencies. It certainly doesn’t hurt that this former Goldman Sachs alumnus is the prominent head behind Bitflyer Inc., Japan’s #1 exchange service. So far, he has doubled his staff over the past six months. He’s looking to have the best and the brightest working alongside him by the end of the year. The company’s aims to have 300 of the best talents from the banking industry and the cryptocurrency field.
Poaching the talent, getting ahead
Luring talent from other companies is not an uncommon practice in the business world. But being as aggressive as Bitflyer has been certainly seems to put in evidence that Yuzo Kano is taking the lead on getting the best out of the relaxation on regulations in the use of digital currencies by the Japan government. In the land of the rising sun, government officials are managing trade and exchange of cryptocurrencies with heavy supervision. This has made the legality of transactions using digital currencies compliant with a legal system on one of the world’s most powerful economies. No market can provide this kind of approval at the moment.
The main offering of Bitflyer
Bitflyer stand out from other services because it’s mainly dedicated to the exchange of high profile cryptocurrencies. The company only focuses on Bitcoin and it only handles established FIAT currencies, meaning US dollars, Euros and Japanese Yen. Outside the USA the exchange service can deal ETH, ETC, LTC MONA and LISK. Unlike many services, Bitflyer doesn’t charge for creating an account or even maintenance costs. However, users need to be mindful of the fees charged by their banks.
Bitflyer charges at least 10$ when you transfer your earnings to FIAT money back to your bank. For dealing transfers and withdrawals within platform in BTC, the company takes 0.0008 satoshis for each transaction. The transfer of funds from your Bitflyer account to a regular bank takes up to a business day. However, the verification process only takes seconds. The security of the service is guaranteed by the powerful encryption provided by DigiCert. The cold wallets handles the storage of the currencies.
Going global, getting credibility
With Japan being set up as its main base, the plan is to go global by opening offices on business capitals of the world. The list includes Tokyo, Luxemburg, San Francisco, Australia and unspecified regions of South America, Africa, and Asia. He plans to go beyond the exchange service by offering new entrepreneurs the framework and the advice to make their plans successful. While his plans look ambitious, it’s very much at odds with similar initiatives such as the one started recently by Mike Novogratz who launched a Merchant bank for digital currencies just a little while ago. The talent already hired by Kano gives him a leading hand since it gives credibility to the operation inside his country and outside of it.
Even with a declining number of interested parties and unstable numbers on the behavior of Bitcoin over the last six months, Kano is managing to draw in some very powerful talent by offering some of the best salaries in the industry. He is making sure that people coming to work, have a clear idea of the ultimate goal of the company. It is a guessing game to say how successful he will be. But, it’s worth watching how Yuzo Kano’s efforts pay off in the end.
