Produced | Odaily (ID: o-daily)
Produced | Odaily (ID: o-daily)
"During this period, Li Lin personally watched the project day and night, because Prime has very high requirements for project specifications." Weng Xiaoqi said.
Weng Xiaoqi is the CEO of Huobi Global, nicknamed "Qiye".
On March 20th, Huobi suddenly announced that Huobi Global will open the Huobi Prime listing channel (Huobi Prime) on March 26th (Singapore time), and at the same time launch the first project Top Network. Over the past few days, the three major domestic trading platforms have been scrambling to launch new trading channels. The launch of Prime has attracted much attention, and the Top Network project has quickly become the focus of hot discussions.
Although Huobi has repeatedly emphasized that the Prime model is not an IEO in its announcements, there are still many voices of doubt.
Is Prime providing a cash-out opportunity for early investors in the project? Is this model just to follow the trend and pull platform coins? How long can the popularity last?
There are as many as three rounds of Prime, the design of a complicated coin grabbing mechanism, how is the lock-up requirement of HT designed, and how to ensure its rationality? What is the next item of Prime, and what kind of item can be on Prime?
Faced with various questions, on March 21, Odaily conducted an exclusive interview with Weng Xiaoqi.
He responded positively to the above questions one by one, and revealed that they already have a lot of projects waiting to be selected, and the next project to be listed on Huobi Prime will be launched in 2 to 3 weeks.
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The following is the transcript of the interview:
The project is "difficult to negotiate" and needs to balance the interests of multiple parties
Q1：It is rumored that Huobi Prime (hereinafter referred to as "Prime") is personally operated by Li Lin. In the previous interview with Top Network, the founder also mentioned that Li Lin took the initiative to find them and spent a lot of time talking about the project. Is this true?
Qi Ye:Yes, Prime has very high standards in Huobi. Li Lin plays a very important role in Prime. He sees projects in person day and night. We have launched a blockchain asset evaluation system SMART Chain 2.0 to help us screen projects In the early stage, some items that do not meet the standards will be filtered out first, and finally sent to Li Lin. Dozens of projects have been studied in two or three weeks.
Q2：Does Prime have an evaluation system for screening projects? Which dimensions are more important? Which track projects do you value more?
Qiye:Yes, first use the SMART Chain 2.0 model to screen out projects that basically meet our standards, and then mainly consider the quality of the project from the following dimensions, which are also the dimensions set by Li Lin himself:
The project party has financial strength and does not come for financing: Unlike IEO, Prime’s positioning is not a financing platform, but early participants in the project community sell their initial shares at a low price and discount to our HT holders , Of course, this is also a good marketing opportunity for the project party, which is beneficial to promote the development of the entire project.
Feasibility of project landing: Many projects are unconstrained when they first come out, and the concept seems to be very powerful, but they are not feasible until they are about to land. This is also the biggest problem in the ICO era. The track we chose is mainly related to infrastructure, such as public chains, and it is not limited to public chains. We mainly hope that the projects have already had landing scenarios and have opportunities for commercial transformation.
The economic design and the structure of the token circulation are reasonable: if the design of the token model is reasonable, and at the same time the market value of the circulation at the current stage must match the development stage of the project itself, to put it bluntly, it is necessary to control the risk of centralized smashing. They are very afraid of being "cut".
The founding team has no history of doing evil: the projects we selected must not be dishonest, and the resume of the entire team is clean and beautiful.
Q3：Because the announcement of Prime also emphasizes providing an exit channel for "early participants". It is understood that TOP's investors, consultants, and foundations hold a very high proportion of tokens. Zapan, do you have any binding terms for them, and will you ask them to pay a certain deposit?
In addition, according to you, TOP is also offering a profit on the price of Prime. We have seen that TOP investors are actively cooperating in promoting Prime. How did you negotiate with them?
Qiye:There are corresponding protective measures, which belong to the confidentiality clause between us and the project party, which cannot be disclosed to the outside world, but these measures are relatively strict.
In addition, you are right, this is difficult to negotiate. We spent a lot of time to reach a balance and consensus in all aspects. TOP has many investors. It takes a long time to do a deep background investigation to balance the interests of all parties.
In essence, it is still relying on the influence of the Huobi platform to convince them. The project party also understands that this marketing opportunity is still rare. Judging from the current situation, this effect has indeed been achieved.
Q4：What is the cycle of the Prime project rollout?
Qiye:After we publicly announced Prime, a large number of projects came to us on our own initiative. We now have a lot of candidate projects. The pace of launching projects in the early stage may be faster. I have an exclusive news for you. We will launch the second project in two to three weeks. Prime items.
Q5：The first project of Prime has no participation threshold, and the second phase of the project requires an average holding amount of 500 HT in the first 30 days to participate. This means that users who basically want to participate in Prime still need to cover HT now?
Qiye:secondary title
Prime is not an IEO, even projects that have been listed will be considered
Q6：Why set a "tiered price limit period"? (TOP three-stage daily limit price: $0.00177, $0.00213, $0.00255), how are the prices designed for each stage? Will there be discussions with cornerstone investors?
Qiye:Yes, this is a process to help the market find a reasonable price, just like the stock market will have an opening price before the market opens every day. This opening price is determined by a group of pre-traders through initial buying and selling. It is relatively scientific and expressive There is a certain supply and demand relationship. Then there will be certain fluctuations on the basis of this price, which will not bring large fluctuations to the currency price.
If there is no such mechanism, there will be a situation where some friends will appear. After the project is launched, it will be raised several times and then suddenly be smashed down. This risk is too great.
So we set a fixed line from the beginning. The daily limit price is different from the first round to the third round. There will be a daily limit in each round. After the three rounds are over, the free trading period begins. Free trading starts with HT trading pairs. After a period of time (about half a day to a day), USDT and BTC trading pairs will be opened. When we officially start free trading, Korea Station will also officially list this currency.
Q7：The current IEO model is definitely not aimed at value investment. You just wait to sell it at the opening, and it has become a "running fast" game. What do you think?
Qi Ye:To a certain extent, friends and merchants have brought a bad head, which made everyone form this kind of cognition. After the token is launched, it should increase by 10 times. You can see that the price increase of the three purchase restriction stages we set is very large. small. What we hope more is to achieve a steady rise in the price of tokens. Its rise is actually directly proportional to the continuous release of benefits and the continuous value of the project. We will try our best to avoid it from skyrocketing.
Q8：Although the models are different, many people still think that Huobi Prime is a disguised IEO. Binance Launchpad is where users participate in crowdfunding through the exchange and directly trade with project parties; while Prime is directly open for transactions, and players trade with Top investment institutions and early stage investors. Investors, there is no essential difference between the two, what do you think?
Qiye:The two are essentially different. The IEO is like this. First, everyone has to go to a snap-up page. Players give money, and the project party takes the money away. The progress bar of the snap-up will be displayed on it. This is actually a transaction in the primary market. In a few days they will open the secondary market for trading. Therefore, IEO has these typical characteristics: project party financing; the concept of an independent primary market crowdfunding and public offering; non-continuous transactions, only one initial start-up party.
On the other hand, Prime directly opens secondary market transactions, and the initial start-up parties are multiple parties (early users, community members, and private equity investors), and the transactions are continuous.
But the problems we solve are the same as those of our friends, focusing on leading projects and empowering them. We are both leading exchanges, and we are launching both front and rear, so people often associate us together. But the DNA of the two is completely different.
Q9：If some items have been listed on other exchanges before, will Prime still consider them?
Qi Ye:Yes, as long as the dimensions of the screening items I just mentioned are met, they will be considered.
Q10：What role does Huobi Prime play in the entire Huobi ecosystem?
Qi Ye:Because Huobi started relatively early and gained the trust of a large number of early users. After a long period of precipitation, Huobi has a great advantage in big coins (BTC, ETH, EOS, etc.). However, the layout of Huobi on small coins is far from enough. The advantage of Binance is "to drive the eyeball effect with small coins".
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This mode is only suitable for top exchanges + top projects
Q11：Now there are some cases in the market where project parties, exchanges, and the media cooperate to pull the market to cut leeks. What do you think of this "industry flooding" problem?
Qi Ye:After being cut once or twice, everyone will no longer be deceived, and these exchanges will lose their credibility. So I personally judge that this model is only suitable for "top exchanges + top projects". Because the general top projects will not choose these "long tail" (small and medium-sized) exchanges, they can only attract some worse projects, and these projects do not bring such high attractiveness.
Q12：Many people say that this mode is not long-lasting, about two to three months at most, what do you think?
Qiye:In fact, this model is the same as everyone’s group buying. The team is a discount marketing strategy. For example, a restaurant is willing to lower the price to attract users. Let consumers taste the taste first, and give me a good review after eating. , or recommend some friends to bring my restaurant on fire. At the beginning, many people said that this model would not last for a long time, but it has continued for many years, and it is still very popular on Dianping, and many platforms have the "group shopping" function.
The essence of IEO is also a profit-sharing marketing model. According to this logic, how far it can go depends on how many good projects there are in the industry. If the projects selected by us and our friends are all rubbish projects, then within two or three months This mode is over. If these projects do pass on profits to users, then this model can continue.
Q13：Many people say that Binance Launchpad is very similar to "equity crowdfunding", and Prime is similar to the preferred stock subscription of A shares. They are all the same way of playing in the traditional financial circle. Do you agree with this statement?
Qiye:After all, traditional finance has existed for so many years, and its gameplay is a valuable experience left over from so many years of failure.
IPOs in the past have proven to be a valuable model. After we designed this model, we found that it was somewhat similar to the model of IPOs. We were more at ease in our hearts, because completely innovating a new model inevitably required some validation. cost.
Q14：Does the launch of Prime also put forward new requirements for the trading system, if many people come to grab it, are you afraid of problems?
Qiye:Yes, our past trading system has a peak design, adding a relatively safe buffer (buffer) to the average value of historical transactions. But Prime gathers top exchanges and top projects, which will attract a large number of investors to snap up the quota, which may exceed our original peak value, so we have done a lot of design at the bottom to ensure that when a large number of users come in When the system will not be paralyzed, this needs to be designed and measured several months in advance. Now the peak can accommodate millions of users.
Q15：Why the name "Prime"?
Qiye:I personally like steak very much. At the beginning, I was thinking about which words to use to represent the concept of "head project", and then I thought of the word "Prime" (Odaily Note: The US Department of Agriculture divides beef into 8 grades, the highest denoted by "Prime").
Q16：The last question, why do the outside world call you "Seven Lords"?
Qiye:There are some allusions in this. I have been a product manager since the beginning of my career. People are used to calling product managers "chief customer service" because we have to go to the community to solve users' problems.
When we were making the first product, we created a WeChat group, where many users exchanged questions, and I came out to answer them. Because my name is Weng Xiaoqi, I used the pseudonym "Xiaoqi" in the group at that time, and I thought it was more approachable, but I found that when I chatted with everyone in the group, no one paid attention to me. I wondered why everyone ignored me, did they think I had no right to speak, so I changed my name to "Qi Ye" at that time, and after the name change, everyone came to me, haha (laughing).
Later, many people also said that my name was a mouthful, but it was very convenient to be called "Qi Ye", so I have been using this name, and it is also to remember the original intention of making the first good product at that time.
