AMA Recap — Wanda Exchange x Wanda Community

Date: Oct 12, 2022

Venue: Wanda Exchange Community Channel

After a series of developments and months of rigorous business efforts, Wanda Exchange is finally back with its revised roadmap. A lot has changed during this period and a lot of new things have emerged that will contribute to the betterment of the ecosystem in the longer run. In order to address the queries and concerns of the community members, the founders hosted an AMA on Wanda’s community channel on Wednesday, October 12.

Mr. Diego, who is the co-founder and CMO of Wanda Exchange joined the AMA and shared some deep insight into the current business progress and expansion plans. So, without any further delay let’s dive straight into some quick glimpses from the AMA.

Q 1: What really happened in the first quarter of this year & what is the current status of the company?

Mr. Diego: Starting off as Crypto POS providers in Thailand, 2021 was a great year for the company, we accomplished some great things and emerged as the market leaders in Thailand. After establishing a great hold over the Thai market we decided to go for a global expansion starting with Europe. Some of our initial offerings in Europe were our revolutionary Crypto/Cash ATMs and our Crypto POS devices.

Things were going great until we faced a series of setbacks when the Thai SEC banned crypto transactions in Thailand and our partner “Goku Markets” got hacked resulting in the loss of market-making funds. This was the point when we decided to restructure our approach toward the business and decided to set up our own exchange in Europe through which we can operate our ATMs and POS devices.

Arranging the required infrastructure and licenses for the Europe business took a considerable amount of time. Our Exchange based in Lithuania is now in the final stages of its development and would be launched soon. So, the status of the company is that we are completely active behind the scenes and are ready to roll out big things very soon.

Q 2: It is good to know about the current progress can you share more about the Europe business and why exactly you set up an Exchange there?

Mr. Diego: That’s an interesting question and I also wanted to address this. Looking at the current level of blockchain adoption and government policies across various countries, the European continent is blockchain friendly and welcoming to the change.

Therefore, our key priority at the moment is to establish strong roots across Europe to build an active user base for Wanda’s new services. To operate in Europe we needed a partner Exchange to help us process the transactions on the crypto-to-FIAT conversion part.

We had some really rough experiences with our previous partners and concluded that for better operational mobility we need our own Exchange that can legally process such transactions. Therefore, we got to work and built the platform for our exchange and applied for the necessary licenses in the meantime.

Q 3: Is the new Exchange planned to be a competitor for traditional exchanges, and will it provide its users with exposure to derivative markets?

Mr. Diego: At the moment, our priority is to focus on things — one at a time. Currently, we don’t intend to act as a traditional Exchange competing with Binance or any other Exchange in Europe, it will just act as our intermediary to provide a platform for our POS and ATM services and basic Exchange services for our users.

However, in the future, we plan to launch Wanda Debit Cards and would surely consider enabling derivatives on the Exchange.

Q 4: Would you like to give more details about the company’s business model in Europe?

Mr. Diego: The company aims to provide an easy on-ramp to the crypto economy for small businesses and FIAT users. All of this will be done while making it easier for those who are seeking an off-ramp back into their local FIAT currency. The company’s solution is a complete package, where they do not just enable their merchants to accept payments in crypto, but also provide them with business opportunities and technical support.

In layman’s terms, the exchange plans to help small businesses and firms make an easy entry into the crypto economy by removing the technical barriers for them. This is achieved through Wanda’s sophisticated voucher system, via which retail customers can buy digital assets directly in cash. A similar reverse process can be applied if anyone wants to withdraw cash in exchange for digital assets. Wanda’s merchants can make huge profits by selling these vouchers and setting their own commission rates on them.

Q 5: Would you like to give more details about your recent partnerships and how you plan to harness them?

Mr. Diego: Through the past few months we have worked out some big strategic partnerships that will enable us to operate our business smoothly across Europe. Some of our recent partnerships include:

• Copper.co for custodial solution
• Incore Bank Switzerland for FIAT transfers
• Sumsub: AML/KYC partner
• Eon insurance covers funds in our custodial
• In2retail is our ATM partner

Currently, we are in the final stages of development for our Exchange and it is all set to be launched in the upcoming weeks. Once the Exchange goes LIVE, we have the required infrastructure and partnerships to scale to 5000 cash pick-up points by Q1’2023.

Q 6: How soon can we expect to see the initial version of the Exchange?

Mr. Diego: As mentioned earlier, the Exchange is now in the final stages of its development and is being tested at the moment. If things go as planned we can expect the Exchange to go LIVE in the upcoming 4–6 weeks.