It’s been 7 months since the beginning of the NTUitive venture building program, where I was attached to the Virtual Asset Monitor team to build a compliance product for financial institutions to perform their AML duties for cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies have always been a favorite medium of exchange for criminals on the dark web, given its pseudo-anonymity properties. Furthermore, given the resurgence of cryptocurrencies as an alternative form of investment predominantly due to Bitcoin’s explosive increase in price, it seemed the perfect time for our startup to tackle this problem.
First and foremost, we researched on the current incumbents in the cryptocurrency AML space, and soon realized that the headstart they had and the funding they have on hand would make it almost impossible to compete with them. We had to find a way to stand out from the competition. We soon realized that the regulations for cryptocurrencies were always trying to play catchup with the new technologies that were being introduced into the scene. Therefore, we decided to work conjointly with the authorities, to show them that we had the tech for them to implement newer and more comprehensive regulations for the cryptocurrency scene. We had our first “Singapore-Netherlands cryptocurrency and digital assets” round-table in March, with several regulators and public prosecutors in attendance. The event was well received, and we look forward to hosting the next one.
Currently, as we look forward to building our prototype, we face the problem of being able to attract software developers to join our team. The short term solution to this would be to hire a third party development team from one of our neighboring countries, but that would not be a long term solution. The most probable solution would be to first attain external funding, which would then give us enough gunpowder in our arsenal to attract top software developers.
The journey has just begun, and I am glad to have been given the opportunity to join the NTUitive VB program. The program has been challenging so far, and hopefully I will be rewarded in the future.
