Trading high-risk, high-return crypto assets is not everyone’s cup of tea, especially for beginners who have little understanding of complex market dynamics. Yet, from the financial inclusion perspective, it’s important that anyone can access the upsides of emerging digital currency markets.
We recently had a chat with Zignaly Co-Founder and CFO Abdul Rafay Gadit to discuss the challenges and opportunities for mainstream crypto traders and investors.
A Conversation with Abdul Rafay Gadit of Zignaly
Hello Abdul, thanks for joining. Let’s start with your origin story and how Zignaly came about.
Sure. Thanks for having me.
I started in TradFi and worked as a corporate banker at Standard Chartered for six years. Then I got into crypto, the natural intersection of my biggest interests/passions — finance and tech.
To be honest, my time at centralized TradFi institutions and tech startups helped a lot. It laid the foundation for a deep understanding of market dynamics and user needs.
So, I could observe something pretty early in my crypto days. Most people were afraid of trading crypto due to its complexity. From connecting wallets to managing volatility, it was too much for the average user.
We launched Zignaly in 2018 to fix this and democratize crypto trading. Everyone, not just the elites, must have a viable means to financial freedom. That’s why we offer a range of simple but powerful trading tools for beginners and pros.
Awesome. Tell us about how Zignaly’s thesis evolved over time. Also, what are the major milestones you have achieved?
We realized that growing is adapting. The sooner you identify your limitations and start working on them, the better.
Initially, our main and only focus was making crypto trading easier and safer for the masses. Thus, we were a copy-trading platform where you could basically mirror the winning strategies of pro traders. You got the profits; they got a fee—it seemed like a win-win.
However, this approach had downsides, like slippage. Plus, the entry barriers were high since users had to match the trader’s account type and maintain a minimum balance.
We implemented a unique profit-sharing model to solve this problem. You can delegate funds to listed traders based on their Z-Score and get 70% of the profits. It aligns incentives and ensures identical results with minimal hassle, costs, and risks.
In addition to this shift in approach, we launched the $ZIG token in 2021. We’re dedicated to community empowerment and decentralization.
Others include partnerships with industry leaders like Binance, ByBit, Evmos, and others. We were among the first two firms to receive a Category II license from the Financial Services Conduct Authority (FSCA) in South Africa.
That’s great. What sets your platform apart from its competition?
We don’t extract fixed fees from users. You only pay a very small percentage of your profits. We call it the success fees; as the name suggests, it’s a no-gain-no-pay approach. So, users have a high risk-reward ratio and bear minimal costs.
Likewise, our profit-sharing model ensures that the professionals — whom users follow — earn profits based on the returns they generate for their followers. This incentivizes them to optimize for performance and adopt strategies that maximize gains and minimizes risks.
Besides these, we offer extensive resources to help users make well-informed decisions. From educational content and webinars to prompt customer support, we ensure everyone has the knowledge to succeed.
You often stress the importance of community for Zignaly. Tell us a bit about that.
Community is everything. It’s the ultimate source of value and validation.
If you look at crypto’s history, only projects with strong community backing have survived and thrived. The reason is obvious, though we often miss it.
Bitcoin and the entire industry that followed were premised on grassroots empowerment. Decentralization, cryptography, and everything else are means to truly user-centric financial systems.
That’s why developing tools for widespread financial freedom and broad access to existing and emerging asset classes is our priority at Zignaly.
We actively engage the community through social media, forums, AMAs, webinars, etc., to help users gain deeper insights into the market and our platform.
Perfect! To wrap up, what’s next for Zignaly and crypto?
In general, we’re constantly expanding our platform’s abilities and reach, such as integrating new and more advanced tools, partnering with promising innovators, and refining the profit-sharing model.
More specifically, we’re building ZIGChain. It’ll be a game-changer for fund management, wealth creation, and accessibility.
Developers can build cutting-edge wealth-generation protocols on this Layer-1 blockchain. Fund managers can use it to deploy on-chain strategies and novel financial products. The community will gain easy and secure access to a wider range of asset classes, such as Real-World Assets, NFTs, Liquid Staking Tokens, etc.
It’s the next big leap toward financial inclusion, and we’re bringing the community along. By the end of this year, we aim to achieve a $10 billion TVL and $100+ million monthly transactions.
Leveling the playing field is the endgame for Zignaly and ZIGChain. So that anyone can tap into this fast-emerging industry and transform their lives for the better.
But while we’re building the tools to make life easier for newcomers, I’d advise them to learn and follow the best practices. Those who combine self-education and knowledge with our tools and services will rule the future.
