“Bitcoin and the blockchain technologies which make the financial services independent from the governments, independent from regulators even and independent from banks as we know them, already started changing the world we live in. However, Bitcoin and the most sophisticated currencies have been until now a payment system and an investment system for the either very sophisticated people out there, with a very solid IT background, for the smart ones, or for the elite who has a lot of money and want to diversify their money portfolio with a new and exotic currency such as the Bitcoin.”

The Bitcoins are created by the so-called mining pool. This is a group of people with solid IT and technical background and expertise who create virtual wealth through complicated mathematical algorithms. Unlike Bitcoin, the OneCoin Company has a centralized system and mines the coins and trades these coins on its own servers.

In Ruzha Ignatova’s view, her company is working actively to turn its cryptocurrency into a real currency. So far, however, the OneCoins can be traded only at the company’s virtual casino. Currently, the main revenues of the company stem from the sale of educational packages. They cost between EUR 130 and EUR 12,500. Only 5% to 10% of the company’s customers are European nationals, because OneCoin mainly operates in Asia. It is interesting to note that OneCoin has a limited umber of coins that can be mined - up to 2.1 billion. Thus, according to Ruzha Ignatova, the currency can not depreciate. Unlike real money, however, this cryptocurrency and the ones circulating in the world web do not possess any of the characteristics of the real money: to be used as means of exchange, to be used as a standard of delayed consumption and to preserve value.

“We are still an emerging market. We focused our attention on Latin America, Asia and Africa. Africa is extremely interesting market, which is catching up now. And we can also speak about the small Asian countries.  A lot of people in these countries are under-banked, or are just forgotten by the big players. Why? Because they are poor, they have needs which do not attract the interest of the financial institutions, or simply because some of these people do not have proper documents. I was in countries, where everyone had a smart phone, but they did not have a proper ID card. So, how do these people bank? I was in Singapore and saw Indian people working very hard to support families in India. But how do these people send money to their loved ones? Many Filipinos are working in Dubai and are pushing the local economy. What do these people do? What they do is they either go to a bank to do a foreign exchange, or they go to money transfer companies and they pay very high fees. Why? Because the financial sector charges the poorest people the most. But if you are an affluent customer with a lot of money, the banks will fight for you. They will give you cards for free and do their best to make you happy. But the people are there, the mass customer, the ones who actually change the world and who are working for the economy, those people are underserved, under-banked and I believe that the crypto currencies can change their life.”

In Ruzha Ignatova’s words, the company, or the person who manage to make cryptocurrencies user-friendly and accessible to the markets which need them, and meet all financial regulations, would become very successful.

Several weeks ago the US financial regulators decided that the cryptoccurencies should be given the status of a commodity. Thus, they can be now treated as virtual gold. Ruzha Ignatova believes that the companies which deal with cryptocurrencies have a good future, because they are based on new technologies and on the Internet. “My vision is actually making cryptocurrency like the Euros, like the Dollars, that you can actually go and spend with your card” Ruzha Ignatova further says and adds that each system has its positive and negative sides. If someone is smart enough and have the knowledge to preserve his financial portfolio, he may opt for Bitcoins. Otherwise, people may choose companies like OneCoin which mine virtual coins on their behalf.

Since OneCoin uses a centralized system to create virtual money, investing in this cryptocurrency is mainly based on trust. “Those who trust us are more than welcome to join us. This is a very risky investment and people may win the Jackpot, or may not. Those who prefer higher security can invest in gold, or put their money in bank deposits”, says Ruzha Ignatova.

Some financial institutions have already issued warnings that investing in virtual currencies is a very risky business, because the virtual portfolios may be subject to hackers’ attack, or when the market of such currencies collapses and people demand real money for their virtual currencies, the companies may merely switch off their servers, which means that people would literally lose all their virtual money.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov