Jay Delagrange is the CEO of a new social platform for cryptocurrency traders known as Crytrade. An experienced entrepreneur with a background in sales and marketing, he was quick to recognize the potential strengths of Bitcoin when he discovered it in early 2013. Cointelegraph recently caught up with Delagrange for an interview.
Cointelegraph: How about you tell me a little about yourself?
Jay Delegrange: I am an entrepreneur, with a background in sales & marketing.
I grew up on Long Island NY, and was raised by my aunt and uncle (father passed away when I was young). I attended Suffolk Community College to follow my dream of becoming an animation artist.
I took a break from college to work full-time and save up some money and stumbled upon my knack for sales and marketing. My first business venture was a sales consulting company, pro-nect, where I developed the sales process and pitches for various small businesses and start-ups.
When I found Bitcoin in early 2013, I was certain it would take over the financial industry (being the conspiracy theorist I am) and being a libertarian I am against our current corrupt banking system.
I was big into day trading (from the days when I was studying for the series 7 to become a stock broker before the '07 crash) and found BTC-e shortly after I found Bitcoin. I realized that there were not any services or places for those new to Bitcoin to find honest advice and trading strategies - this is how the idea of Crytrade was born.
I teamed up with a buddy of mine that I met on the BTC-e chat box and began the Crytrade journey.
In December I took a break from developing Crytrade to assist my business partner in developing the sales process for his other venture, Digital Mining Investments (a 600Gh/s mining operation). I left DMI in May and came back to Crytrade to finish development.
Ever since I stumbled upon Bitcoin, I knew this was a brand new blank canvass for entrepreneurs to pioneer a new industry, I knew right away what I needed to do to do my part in building this industry.
Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have since been my passion and I have devoted a lot of my time educating friends and family to advocate Bitcoin awareness.
CT: So, can you tell me a little about CryTrade?
JD: Crytrade is a social networking platform where traders can charge subscription fees to their groups (information). There are 2 types of groups, Auto-trading and Informative.
Trading groups will be run by one individual (trader/advisor), they link their trading account via an info-only API key and Crytrade will post their trades on their group forum. Subscribers pay an entry fee or "subscription" fee into the group to view that information so they can follow their strategy and make similar trades. Crytrade will keep track of the profitability of that trading group (advisor). In theory, the more profit an advisor makes the more they can charge subscribers.
The concept is similar for informative groups only they would be selling information instead of their trades, such as research, pump team, mining advice etc. Users will also be able to send micro-tips to each other on the forums if they find a users post was helpful.
Crytrade will also offer some cool trading tools as well.
- Crytrade Homepage, featuring the company's clever tagline
CT: Are there any particular exchanges this will work best with or can group owners use whichever exchange they want?
JD: So far we are testing BTC-e and cryptsy and plan to test Mintpal as well. Group owners can choose the exchange or link to multiple exchanges
CT: What are your plans for introducing this to the cryptocurrency community?
JD: Ads, Bitcointalk, Google Adwords, blogs, articles (like yours), BIG (Bitcoin Investment Group), FB page, FB ads, exchange chatrooms, and of course....conferences.
Regarding exchange chatrooms, I have been active in those for about 2 years so I know quite a few traders who will spread the word when phase 1 rolls out. I also have a plethora of contacts in the Bitcoin space who are willing to help spread the word too.
CT: There's a lot going on in the world of cryptocurrencies. What kind of future do you see in cryptocurrency trading?
JD: I believe in the future an entire new field of brokerage will emerge, advisors will trade alt. Coins for clients like today’s institutional day traders. With new blockchain tech emerging, I believe we will see a new form of securities. Companies will issue stock based on Bitcoin tech such as an altcoin. Altcoins will take the place of stocks.
CT: It seems like the crypto space has become skeptical because so many people have created "junk" coins meant strictly for their own profit. Can you think of any way honest startups could get around this kind of reputation?
JD: Regarding companies issuing altcoins as a stock, they would need to further develop blockchain technology for it to work. The company would have to pre-mine the total amount of shares (total coins) that are being issued.
CT: Marscoin seems to be created on a similar principle for the sake of helping to fund the colonization of the planet Mars. They've already made donations to the nonprofit organizations Mars One and the Mars Society. What do you think of altcoins like Marscoin that have been created specifically to bootstrap particular causes?
JD: Marscoin is awesome, the idea is genius. I think it gives an altcoin a practical and almost fun purpose.
Colonizing Mars from Deepspeed media on Vimeo.
CT: Do you have any tips for newcomers to the cryptocurrency world who want to get started with trading?
JD: Be careful of pump and dumps which is what seems to be running the altcoin world, follow the volume and do research on the dev team behind the altcoin. Don't get greedy, if you are in profit it is always better to take 20% rather than miss out on the chance to sell before the dump.
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