Dialogue with Coin98 Co-founder: How did we transform from a YouTube channel into a DeFi super application?

Guest: Lê Thanh, Co-founder of Coin98

Interviewers: Kit, ChainCatcher; Chun Chun, BitouchNews

Organizer: Xiyou, ChainCatcher

How is the development of the Web3 ecosystem in Vietnam, and what opportunities are there? How to enter the Vietnamese blockchain market? To answer this series of questions and ultimately promote the co-creation of the China-Vietnam Web3 community, ChainCatcher, in collaboration with the local Vietnamese Web3 media SaaS platform and our strategic partner BitouchNews, initiated a series of interviews titled "Finding Vietnamese Web3 Builders," directly engaging with the most influential project founders and builders in Vietnam to help you find the most valuable answers.

In the first issue, we invited Lê Thanh, the co-founder of the largest super application Coin98 in Vietnam, to share with us the story of Coin98's rise and the local ecosystem and policies.

[Coin98](https://www.rootdata.com/zh/Projects/detail/Coin98 Finance?k=MjM5) is a super DeFi application that integrates various functions such as wallets, DEX, and cross-chain capabilities, allowing users to trade, lend, invest, and earn cryptocurrencies. It aims to be a one-stop entry point for users into DeFi applications, supporting access to ecological applications across multiple chains.

According to the crypto data platform RootData, Coin98 publicly disclosed four rounds of financing from 2021 to 2022, raising approximately $17 million, with investors including well-known capital firms such as Binance Labs, Hashed Capital, ParaFi Capital, and Multicoin Capital.

However, this well-known super application started out in late 2017 with a YouTube channel. Coin98 experienced a deep bear market in 2018 and saw explosive growth during the crypto bull market in 2021-2022, receiving support from prominent capital.

Today's achievements are inseparable from the Coin98 team's persistence and deep cultivation in the crypto market, which allowed them to capture market trends before the explosion of DeFi products and quickly deploy products such as wallets, DEX, and cross-chain bridges. In this ChainCatcher interview, the co-founder of Coin98 repeatedly expressed, "We cannot create trends, so we must stay in the market and iterate with the market updates. Only by not giving up during the bear market can you seize the opportunity when it comes."

Additionally, as a blockchain company originating from Vietnam, Coin98 is considered a representative of Vietnam's crypto applications, which has filled crypto community users with expectations for the future of the Vietnamese market.

According to the "2022 Vietnam Cryptocurrency Market Report" released by Coin98 Insights in March, Vietnam is one of the countries with the highest cryptocurrency usage rates, with 16.6 million Vietnamese people owning digital currencies, accounting for 17% of the total population, meaning approximately 1 in every 6 people holds cryptocurrency. Among them, 31% have invested in Bitcoin.

In addition to having a considerable number of cryptocurrency investors, Vietnam also has many excellent developers. Currently, there are about 200 blockchain projects operating in Vietnam, including well-known projects like [Axie Infinity](https://www.rootdata.com/zh/Projects/detail/Axie Infinity - Sky Mavis?k=MzMy), [Coin98](https://www.rootdata.com/zh/Projects/detail/Coin98 Labs?k=MzQwNQ==), and Aura Network.

How did Coin98 grow from a media outlet to a one-stop DeFi platform? Why is cryptocurrency so popular in Vietnam? To explore these questions, ChainCatcher interviewed Lê Thanh, the co-founder of Coin98.

Lê Thanh

1. ChainCatcher: When did you start to become interested in cryptocurrency? How did you initially establish Coin98, and what unforgettable stories were there during this process?

Lê Thanh: I entered the crypto market in 2017, initially just analyzing and observing the market trends without planning to start a business. My early plan was to continue in the e-commerce industry I had previously worked in, but then several friends invited me to invest in cryptocurrency, and many said it would be a great opportunity, so I wanted to explore what it was all about.

In the third quarter of 2017, I started trading cryptocurrencies, making some profits and also incurring losses. From December 2017 to June 2018, the crypto market crashed, and BTC fell from $20,000 to $6,000.

As a software engineer, I spent a lot of time understanding the technology behind it during the investment process. I still remember that in June 2018, I read thousands of white papers, along with studying economic models, operational methods, and how projects design their businesses based on these. This allowed me to grasp crypto-related content in a short time, which is still very useful to me today.

Many people, including industry leaders, left the market during the bear market of 2018, but I believed that the crypto market would not disappear and would recover again, though the timing was uncertain. I began to think about how to position myself to seize opportunities when the market recovered and where to focus my energy.

So, I started a YouTube channel, which was the initial Coin98, where I attempted to share the knowledge and information I had learned. In June 2019, this channel transformed into a media company. During that year and a half, the team was small, with only a dozen people, and we tried many projects and tested numerous business models. We were always trying to figure out what kind of products and company structures could survive in a bear market.

In 2019, as IEOs on exchanges began to rise, many hundredfold tokens emerged, and we gained significant profits from them, so we started investing some of the profits into companies. By the end of 2019, some foreign companies were also growing larger in the Vietnamese market. I began to think about how the company should expand. While media is a good business with lower risks, it is challenging to capture significant advantages in a bull market. So, we decided to try some new ideas—transforming from a research group into a research institution, and at the same time launching the laboratory Coin98 Labs. After establishing the product department, we decided to launch a wallet. Subsequently, user growth began to surge.

As of now, Coin98 has 6 million users, which is somewhat incredible. But looking back at the development history, this stems from the compounding effect of our hard work that began in 2017. The countless ideas and beliefs from 2017 to 2020 have led to today's Coin98.

2. ChainCatcher: Now that Coin98 has developed to a certain scale, could you briefly introduce the background of Coin98's founders and the current size of the team?

Lê Thanh: From 2017 to 2018, the team was basically just me. Later, I decided to work full-time in crypto and began to build a team. In the following 18 months, the team maintained around 10-12 people. By 2020, we began to gradually expand, and now the team has exceeded 200 people. If this growth rate continues, we expect the team to reach about 250 to 300 people this year.

3. ChainCatcher: As a rapidly growing team, Coin98 has transformed from an initial media platform into a full-service DeFi platform with a wallet, exchange, and cross-chain bridge SpaceGate. Can you describe this process? What drives you to continuously expand into new areas?

Lê Thanh: Financial markets are similar; if you look at the last bull market, the entire market was still like this, with many tokens having crazy price valuations. But in reality, for many users, finding a good product is very difficult. Many projects backed by star venture capitalists and founders do not seriously invest in product development.

The reason we have ventured into many businesses is that I see the crypto market as a long-term game, and I imagine myself spending decades in this game. From this perspective, you will realize the importance of building your own community and ecosystem. To maintain a good community, you must control your technology stack and provide the best products for these community members, rather than relying on others' technology.

I believe that cryptocurrency is still in its early stages, and more users will enter the crypto space. In my view, there are still hundreds of millions of users who cannot access cryptocurrencies and blockchain, and there needs to be an application or ecosystem to evangelize this, which is our mission.

4. ChainCatcher: What is the progress of Coin98's new features such as lending, staking, NFT marketplace, and derivatives?

Lê Thanh: The new features integrated into Coin98 can be traced back to 2021.

For the NFT marketplace, we have decided to officially launch it. Currently, we are also improving the business architecture of the platform to increase profits, such as adding lending, rating, and other functions, but due to potential regulatory risks, we haven't spent too much time and energy on these yet. Additionally, the NFT marketplace will also launch a user-friendly product for retail trading, mainly serving community users, through which a series of high-quality projects can be released.

Of course, we will continue with the wallet business. Most of the current wallets are hot wallet solutions, and we are trying to address potential issues regarding wallet security and creating hardware wallets. We will present ourselves as a wallet service provider. Because in the future, many people will want to launch wallets, and the best solution is to come to us.

5. ChainCatcher: In addition to the local Vietnamese market, Coin98 also has a strong international influence. Can you share more about Coin98's global expansion and what the plans are for the global market?

Lê Thanh: In the past, for global expansion, we mainly spent a lot of time in the English market, which was the main strategy when the team was smaller. Now that the team has grown, we have more resources and talents to expand into other markets, including Chinese-speaking countries. We hope that Coin98 will have a new leap in the Chinese-speaking market.

In the coming months, we will work with shareholders and all partners to explore how Coin98 can better serve community users and hire more talents from different regions, spending more time serving users from various areas. Soon, we may start relevant work in the Chinese and Korean markets one by one. Currently, Coin98 wallet has maintained a relatively stable market share worldwide, but it is still below MetaMask. The main goal now is to enter the top three first and then gradually surpass it.

6. ChainCatcher: What are Coin98's plans for the future?

Lê Thanh: In terms of products, we plan to launch new products based on the current user base and position ourselves as a wallet service provider—the Coin98 Service Cloud (CWS concept), similar to Amazon Web Services (AWS). The platform will publicly offer the products and services that Coin98 has built, including wallet solutions, RPC services, etc. This is also the core development strategy for the next few years.

In the next 1 to 2 years, if the market warms up, many Web2 brands will want to build their decentralized network applications. At that time, they will need a trusted partner to provide related services. In Web2, there is AWS providing the necessary tools to build applications, and we aim to become the AWS of the Web3 world.

7. ChainCatcher: According to Coin98's 2022 report, Vietnam has over 16.6 million cryptocurrency holders. Can you briefly outline the cryptocurrency market in Vietnam and its growth potential in the coming years?

Lê Thanh: Overall, the Vietnamese market aligns very well with the products we offer. Cryptocurrencies are classified as high-risk, high-reward investment products. Vietnam is a young country with a population of about 100 million, mostly young people, with the 18-34 age group making up the majority, which perfectly matches the target audience for cryptocurrencies.

In Vietnam, it is relatively difficult to rely solely on salary increases, especially for those wanting to buy houses. Therefore, young people generally look to some form of investment to earn money that can change their lives, and investing in cryptocurrency is a very good opportunity for them. Unlike real estate, which requires significant capital investment, or the stock market, which can be volatile, anyone can invest in cryptocurrency within their financial means, making it an affordable opportunity for young people in Vietnam to change their lives.

Although the current market is not as crazy as in a bull market and is in a bear market, with some people starting to incur losses and even opposing cryptocurrencies, many Vietnamese are still trading.

8. ChainCatcher: Reports predict that the scale of Vietnam's blockchain market will reach $2.5 billion by 2026, five times that of 2021. What types of projects do you think will achieve such growth, and what emerging trends and technologies will shape the future of Web3 in Vietnam?

Lê Thanh: We cannot create trends, but what the past few years have taught me is that you must stay in the market and update with the market, so you will know what will happen next. Only in this way can you ensure that where there is a new narrative, there you will be, and when opportunities arise, you can seize them.

I see many people spending a lot of time on cryptocurrencies, switching from one market to another, but it hasn't improved their lives. So for me, whether to seize trends is not important because it's too difficult; what matters most is to keep up with the market, stay relevant, and stay informed about what is happening in the market.

Even in a deep bear market, do not give up; this is what I learned in the last cycle. Many people joined the crypto industry early but left the market in 2019, only to return in 2021. Due to not knowing what was happening in the market, they could only choose to invest in some slow-growing old projects, then start incurring losses and leave the market again, creating a vicious cycle. Good opportunities do not just fall into your lap.

9. ChainCatcher: What is the official attitude and policy of the Vietnamese government towards cryptocurrencies? What do you see as the benefits and risks?

Lê Thanh: As far as I know, the only thing that cannot be done with cryptocurrencies in Vietnam is to use them as currency, such as using them to buy coffee or other goods and services in stores. But apart from that, Vietnam does not have a clear legal framework regarding cryptocurrencies. I believe the government is trying to develop a new framework that can support it. From interactions, the government is willing to listen to the opinions of builders like us and is trying to engage with partners in the market.

Currently, there is no clear policy on cryptocurrencies in Vietnam, and it may take a long time to have a formal regulatory report.

10. ChainCatcher: What are the major local cryptocurrency and blockchain communities in Vietnam? How does Coin98 interact with them?

Lê Thanh: There are many large crypto communities and media platforms in Vietnam. Currently, there are ThuanCapital, Tradecoin Vietnam, HC Capital, BlogTienAo, Coin68, Kyros Ventures, TK Ventures, Interlock, Margin ATM, and many self-organized communities. We are friendly to anyone in the crypto market and support them in co-building ecological development.

Additionally, most people in Vietnam prefer to communicate via Telegram, and recently, many have started using Twitter, with thousands of Vietnamese KOLs influencing in Vietnamese. These individuals are very skilled at building communities and interacting with community members, similar to DAO communities. We are also trying to collaborate with some universities to launch crypto technology training programs, although we haven't finalized the specific project name yet.

11. ChainCatcher: What is your impression of the Chinese digital currency market? What opportunities do you see?

Lê Thanh: Firstly, China is a very large market, and there are many opportunities here that we are very interested in. We just don't know how to enter this market; we currently have not established partnerships locally and have been unsure how to explore the market in the right way, which is something we are continuously exploring.

It is well known that China currently prohibits virtual currency trading, and cooperation must comply with legal regulations. However, the Chinese-speaking market outside of China is also a good opportunity, which we are very interested in, but at this moment, I cannot provide a very specific plan as we still need to conduct a lot of research and learning.