To celebrate Moonstake’s first anniversary, we’ve conducted an interview with our Founder, Mr. Mitsuru Tezuka, to talk about Moonstake’s past achievements and future business development, as well as discuss the blockchain industry.
Interview video link: https://youtu.be/mAT0q_mLulE
The interview was moderated by Shogo Ishida, Senior Advisor at Moonstake. Please see the summary below.
Mr. Ishida: Can you tell us how Moonstake was found?
Mr. Tezuka: Having been in the crypto business for 10 years now, I want to create a horizontal connection as a business while interacting with various people and projects in the crypto industry and community. When proof of stake began to attract attention in recent years, we started the business to create a wallet with staking power for multiple coins. This is a good opportunity to utilize our technical strength and expertise in the industry to meet the demands of the crypto community in the world.
Mr. Ishida: Please share about Moonstake’s 2020 business development.
Mr. Tezuka: When we started Moonstake Wallet in 2020, we wanted to raise awareness of staking. We decided to partner with projects that are connected in the industry and help them utilize staking in order to increase the liquidity of their own token. We are actively working to improve Moonstake’s UI/UX to differentiate ourselves from competitors in the market. With more tokens available on Moonstake, everyone can freely stake without any limitation.
Mr. Ishida: In early 2021, Moonstake was ranked 8th as best staking validator in the world in staking volume. How did Moonstake achieve this result?
Mr. Tezuka: I believe that our active development over the past year is starting to bear fruit and help us achieve industry leading position. We were also supported by the market that was soaring throughout the industry from the end of the year to the first quarter of 2021. I think that this achievement was an opportunity to increase the recognition of Moonstake in the industry. Recently, we have been interacting with our competitors a lot and discussing the possibility of collaborating with them in the future.
Mr. Ishida: Moonstake announced its entry into the DeFi space. What kind of development can we expect from Moonstake in the future?
Mr. Tezuka: Our advantage is having a strong staking wallet that offers support for various blockchain products and DeFi services. Moonstake had considered partnering with other projects to penetrate DeFi. However, the market has yet to reach maturity, as there are not as many well-established projects still. This is why we decided to enter DeFi as a formal project ourselves and take on the challenges of this new frontier.
Mr. Ishida: In the DeFi area, we launched a project called Muse Finance. As its founder, I would like to utilize the assets of Staking, based on the premise of working together with Moonstake. From a user’s perspective, we think it is very important to have more options for financial services by providing access to lending and DEX while having more ways to earn staking rewards. The DeFi market has expanded 66 times last year, so it is definitely an area with extreme growth potential. In this market, Moonstake would like to consider developing services that will allow us to take advantage of the achievements we have made in 2020.
Mr. Ishida: What are your thoughts on the industry in the next year and the next three years?
Mr. Tezuka: I understand that the market is busy in 2021, but personally it is not what I’m focused on. I believe it is more important how much blockchain technology is advancing the connection with society rather than price changes. For now, I think there are cases where blockchain services are implemented in the supply chain and in governance. If this part is realized, I expect that liquidity will increase in line with actual demand and become even greater than the liquidity that is currently centered on investment.
Mr. Ishida: What is Moonstake’s business outlook?
Mr. Tezuka: Currently, no specific product has penetrated the crypto wallet business in Japan. I think it’s a difficult business to conduct on its own. With Moonstake Wallet, we will actively introduce staking and DeFi services that enable customers to grow their assets. In the future, we hope to gain market share as a user-friendly wallet provides liquidity to various assets in the digital payment domain.
Mr. Ishida: What is the meaning of Moonstake to you, Mr. Tezuka?
Mr. Tezuka: Right now we believe that a wallet with ultimate UI/UX is indispensable. In Japan, there is a strong culture of traditional cash payment, but looking at the financial infrastructures in less developed countries, I believe that the existence of digital currencies is very valuable. Currently, we are positioning Moonstake Wallet mainly in Asia. But in the future, I would like to reach into the field of digital payments, which is accelerating worldwide.
Mr. Ishida: Last question, do you have any message for our users?
Mr. Tezuka: We would like to thank all of our users for choosing Moonstake Wallet. Our motto is to actively listen to users’ opinions and suggestions and upgrade our product accordingly. This way, we can continue to improve our service to make it easier for you to use. Together, we can create a better service and the best staking wallet! Thank you for supporting Moonstake and please stay tuned for more updates from us.
About Moonstake
Moonstake was recently established to develop a staking pool protocol to satisfy increasing demands in regional and global blockchain markets. Moonstake develops a staking pool protocol and provides business services through partners and companies.
Moonstake aims to be the largest staking pool network in Asia by providing an active environment for crypto asset holders. Establishing a clear partnership roadmap with Moonstake represents another significant milestone for continuing to strengthen ties with leading platforms across Asia’s burgeoning Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) ecosystem. Partnership has been announced with Emurgo, Ontology and NEO to boost staking adoption, Binarystar, Japan’s biggest blockchain hub, OIO Holdings Limited (SGX: OIO), a Singapore Catalist-Listed company. Industry’s reputed advisors, such as Lisk and Lawrence Lim of RAMP DEFI support Moonstake’s innovative journey.
With a full-scale operation launched in August 2020, we expanded our business and as of now, our total staking assets exceeded over USD 900 Million. https://www.moonstake.io/
