Image source: The Man With The Cap. This interview has been republished according to the Creative Commons Writers License, and is the work of Jay-R Gatdula of The Man With The Cap

Unlike compensation scams, DNotes is money – digital money that can be saved, transferred, retrieved and spent at a later date. We had the chance to get in touch with Alan Yong, founder of DNotes, as he shares his expertise on digital currencies. Here is the summary of our talk below:

Hi, Alan. Mounting a cryptocurrency is difficult. What can you say are the challenges you’ve encountered and overcome in launching DNotes?

Starting a new business can often appear to be deceptively easy, especially in the case of cryptocurrency over the last couple of years. Bitcoin, being open source software, drastically reduced the barrier to entry, both in terms of time and cost. In most cases, a new Bitcoin alternative currency was created and launched in a week at less than the cost of a typical weekend family vacation. Being too easy to launch a new coin has turned out to be a very painful and costly adventure for the industry, resulting in business failures and lost of investment never seen in any other industries. It is looking like 90% of them will fail within three years as opposed to a more normal 35%.

Being a career entrepreneur who has experienced both success and failure in business, we spent over two months in research and strategic planning. In a new technology driven industry as massive and complex as Bitcoin, the first thing I recognized was that the first mover advantage Bitcoin had could actually be exploited by the second mover, if it could position itself correctly with multiple winning strategies.

Joining an industry rampant with hostile and destructive conducts, with low regards for trust, integrity and respect was among our biggest challenges. The challenge was to quickly develop a new culture of trust, integrity with mutual respect and cooperation for the mutual benefits of everyone and make it sustainable. It was done under strong leadership with clear and consistent messaging defining DNotes’ mission and the unique path it must take to distinctly differentiate itself from the others. This is a case of branding at its best. This is a case of using “TRUST” to overwhelm the competitors who have been misguided and over promoted Bitcoin as a “trustless” system.

What fueled your interest in bitcoin? Kindly give us a glimpse of your journey to get here.

Having been a pioneer and well regarded visionary in the early days of mobile computers, Dauphin DTR handheld computer, a direct competitor of the Apple Newton, I always have a keen interest to imagine how computing power could help alleviate some global problems if made available to billions of people worldwide. With great advances made in wireless communication we are already hyperconnected with super computing power at our finger tips anytime anywhere. When I finally decided to do some serious research on Bitcoin in the later part of 2013, I could not stop thinking that we finally have all the needed parts to help alleviate some significant global problems that had not been possible before.

It is estimated that by the year 2020 over 5 billion smart phones will be in use and there are 2.5 billion people worldwide today commonly referred to as the unbanked for not having a bank account or serviced by a bank. I am absolutely convinced that a stable digital currency with reliable long term appreciation in partnership with international charity organizations and the United Nations will soon have a viable option within our reach in a year or two. With two simple cell phones, or computers with an internet connection one can be setup to send and receive funds, thereby solving the unbanked problems. This alone has been my inspiration to work long and hard to position DNotes as a large scale global digital currency that can take full advantage all the superior feature of digital currency and Blockchain technology.

That’s insightful. What can you say is the edge of your business over your competitors? Can you give advantages of operating it?

DNotes is managed as a business but not controlled as a business, since it is not owned as an entity by a single individual or a group of individuals. It is owned, at will, by all of its stakeholders, making this a uniquely new challenge that has not confronted management professionals before. Any stakeholder can change ownership position anytime without notice. A strong community can be abandoned overnight and a strong leader can quit with little prior warning. We took all these challenges into consideration at the planning stage. Like all other crypto currencies, we recognize that it is important to have a strong community. We spent time studying other communities and found consistent patterns of destructive behaviors and common practices of announcing product launches prematurely often causing ferocious volatility to the price of their coins.

Like others, we believe in building a strong community. Beyond that, we are different in substance and in style. Central to our success is the commitment of never ending leadership with funding from a number of larger stakeholders. It is not dependent on open donation where proposed projects are announced in order to be funded. This allows us to fly under the radar until the projects are ready for launch. By not pricing in unknown projects in the works, it helps to keep the price of DNotes undervalued, an important contribution to its price stability, giving DNotes significant credibility. Strong leadership, along with clear and consistent messaging, help to cultivate a highly engaged and productive community working almost seamless to achieve long term goals that will be mutually beneficial to everyone.

What do you think hinders bitcoin from maintream adoption? What’s missing for it become a reliable and prominent form of payment?

Bitcoin has multiple structural problems as a reliable form of payment with no viable practical solutions. By design it a rather pure decentralized system which governs itself and corrects itself though at time it could be chaotic. While contrary to the philosophy of decentralization, in theory, if it can pool sufficient support from well financed interested parties, it can minimize the price volatility. With great leadership, support and respect from the industry coupled with more positive media support it can improve its chances to go mainstream.

High volatilities leading to immediate conversation into fiat currency at the time of the transaction coupled with other cost in hedging against currency loss totally defeats the low transaction cost. Essentially, unless the price volatility of Bitcoin does not present a currency loss risk most merchants will remain hesitant to adopt it as a form of payment. Fiat currency is used by everyone, irrespective of technical knowledge or skill-sets. A lack of multiple strategies to go far beyond the boundaries of its industry and the financial world is also preventing Bitcoin from going mainstream. Sensational negative headlines from the mainstream media have certainly not been helpful.

Finally, what can you say have been the greatest accomplishment or the best time you’ve had while operating your business since its inception? 

Our greatest accomplishment is being the most stable digital currency among over 500 digital currencies traded on various exchanges worldwide. It has been consistently on an uptrend, of higher highs and higher lows, starting at of around 200 Satoshi, when it was first traded a year ago to 5,000 Satoshi today. DNotes Bitcointalk forum is by far the most respected unmoderated, inspirational and productive forum, where trust and integrity out weight any personal and short term gain. It is the proud creator and sponsor of CryptoMoms to encourage women participation with a mission to close the gender gap. It is the innovator of cryptocurrency investment savings plan (CRISP) and creator of DNotesVault with free secure storage for DNotes with 100% guarantee funds with verifiable addresses.

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Alan Yong is the founder of DNotes. He is a strong supporter of women’s participation in the digital currency space by founding CryptoMoms.

About the author: Jay-R Gatdula is a disturbed websites manager, from the turbulent land of monitors and tall buildings, who writes about movies, food, travel, technology, relevant global news, spontaneous stuff, and all things that defy the prosaic. Meet him now; meet The Man with the Cap.