Despite Risks with Centralization, It is Key to Crypto's Growth - Unhashed #10

One of the most amazing things about the crypto market is that it stays live 24x7, 365 days a year. For traders, it's a blessing. There's no time restriction to when they can or cannot trade.

Of course, no trader, beginner or expert, can track the markets all the time, which means leaving out opportunities. That's something Shivam Tandon, the founder of TeraBlock, faced when he started trading cryptocurrencies in 2016. So, he created algorithms to automate his trades.

Those initial efforts led him to establish TeraBlock — a machine learning-enabled trade automation and asset management platform.

Let's see what Shivam Tandon has to offer to the crypto space and what's his take on the different aspects of cryptos and trading.

Q1: Welcome to Unhashed. What was the first thing about crypto that caught your attention and what things finally led you to build TeraBlock?

Answer: I was a serial entrepreneur and an experienced trader, so I started mining and trading cryptocurrencies towards the end of 2016. I was attracted to the nascent technology behind crypto and the ability to trade around the clock, thus I created fully automated algorithms to assist me with my trading.

This initial spark started my journey towards building TeraBlock. For those who don’t know, Terablock is a solution for people looking to enter the cryptocurrency ecosystem and easily manage their portfolio with the help of machine learning (ML) trade automation. In other words, we provide a user-friendly interface like Coinbase with the ability to manage and trade with high-end technology.

Q2. With the growing demand for crypto investments, there are numerous crypto-focused asset management platforms being launched. What differentiates TeraBlock from its competitors?

Answer:  When surveying the market, we found that while there are many crypto-focused platforms to trade on, there aren't many who provided tools to help new users manage their assets, automate their trading, and also become more comfortable navigating the crypto ecosystem. We are also not a fund that will simply hold your assets leaving them to the mercy of the market, but we give the power back to the users to be better wealth managers themselves.

We have two primary products—an automated index trader and an automated portfolio trader. Depending on our users’ level of comfort in trading, they can either select a predefined index based on parameters they desire or select their own assets in a simple-to-use, drag-and-drop interface. Once completed, TeraBlock’s proprietary ML trading algorithms will begin automated trading.

Q3: Being a centralized project in the blockchain space is considered to be a contradiction. Amidst this, how does TeraBlock place itself in the crypto market? How do you plan to demystify centralization in the crypto community and ensure that users can still trust the platform from a security perspective like they would any decentralized platform?

Answer: That is a great question! There is a clear growing distrust of centralization and this especially holds true in the crypto ecosystem. Despite the many issues with centralization, currently, it is still the key to a low-risk entry to the crypto ecosystem. The decentralized space is littered with bad actors scamming people of their money. Plus, the complexity of DeFi is beyond many people's comprehension, which hinders the growht of the DeFi and crypto space as a whole. In addition, we need better security in all regards.

TeraBlock, or other centralized projects, despite their centralization act as key to the adoption of cryptocurrencies and DeFi protocols. For most people who like easy, one-click options to invest in assets - like they do for stocks, mutual funds, and the likes - whether the crypto-experienced people like centralization or not is never a concern. Newbies look for ease and that's what centralization offers.

Of course, decentralization lies at the core of the blockchain and crypto space, and we will eventually reach there. But if tell people to go right from centralization to decentralization in one step, I don't think anyone would be able to comfortably do that.

This is why, centralization is key to crypto adoption. Once most people know what crypto is and its potential, we can then take them to the next phase and then the next and eventually reach where complete decentralization may be possible.

In regards to trust, Binance is one of the most trusted central entities in the crypto space. And we are partnering with Binance Cloud to bring the highest level of reliability, especially in terms of liquidity as well as utilizing their security and technology. We want to position ourselves to introduce as many people as we can to this growing industry so we can one day realize the dream of decentralization.

We also aim to add DeFi products to our platform so people from all walks of life, not necessarily from the crypto space, can experience first-hand what crypto and DeFi is all about. And after seeing the benefits of the technology, maybe, they will be more motivated to try out the actual decentralized version of this industry.

Q4: We know that both machine learning and automation are memory-intensive disciplines. How does TeraBlock integrate them with the volatility and diversity of the cryptomarkets? Please delve into this blend, keeping sustainability in mind.

Answer: This is a complicated topic when it comes to the environmental impact of memory-intensive disciplines. While we currently do not have the specific data for our trading algorithms in regards to ESG matters, we have built them to be the most efficient, especially when it comes to the volatility of the cryptomarkets. While many automated trading tools revolve around something called high-frequency trading, we have built our ML models to only trade when there is a significant change in market conditions.

Q5: The fear and greed index is largely used to measure the sentiment of the crypto market. Can you shed light on how the adoption of AI and its disciplines that are devoid of emotions can revolutionize this market?

Answer: As an experienced trader, I know how difficult it is to master the psychology of trading, especially when it comes to fear and greed. That is why trading with the assistance of ML trading algorithms has greatly benefited me and I want to bring this benefit to others.

Trading automation tools and management services can help many inexperienced traders keep their emotions at bay and manage their assets better against market volatility. This aspect of risk management is usually the hardest thing to master when it comes to trading. We believe such tools (as seen on TeraBlock) will empower people to manage their own wealth, without having to master the technical, fundamental, and emotional side of trading.

While this may still be far from actualization, I am curious how the market will evolve if humans no longer trade and it became totally dependent on the choices made by purely ML and AI-powered tools!

Q6: The crypto market is dynamic with constant innovation. Where do you see the automated trading experience headed towards?

Answer: These days, everything is becoming automated! I believe we are still in an early phase of trading automation, and trade automation platforms in the crypto space are well-positioned for the coming years. Tools that help every trade leverage the opportunities in the crypto market will eventually become commonplace. The rapidly spreading adoption of crypto and the demand from more people to invest in digital assets is just the beginning of it.

As it is today with stocks and other traditional assets, crypto too is en route to becoming a high-potential asset with great possibilities over the long-term. And there will certainly be a huge demand for automation tools that can help interested traders reap the benefits of the market without the need to dedicate multiple hours every day to it.

Disclaimer: The sole purpose of Unhashed is to unhash (decode) information about projects innovating using blockchain and cryptocurrencies and share it with the community. The writer does not have any vested interest in any of the projects covered herein. Not that this article shares any, but still, taking investment advice from strangers on the internet is not a wise thing to do.