Visionary Finance had the ability to interview Shilpa Mitra, Co-Founder at ShufflUP. ShufflUp is based out of Estonia and focuses on sophisticated crypto trading algorithms. The ultimate goal is to take advantage of “Arbitrage” that exists within the many crypto exchanges right now.
Shilpa Mitra Background/Experience
Shilpa explained that her and the team at ShufflUP come from extensive data driven backgrounds. Shilpa started her education in Electric Engineering and expressed a lot of interest in data, research and development. During her studies she had a lot of experience in health related research, specifically cancer and other diseases. This research exposed her to huge data sets and data analysis. In 2016 Shilpa had a lot of interest in the cryptocurrency space and began researching all the Whitepapers. While learning about the different cryptocurrencies in circulation she began understanding the inefficiencies in trading. During data processing she realized there were drawbacks to actively trading cryptocurrency and that she could monetize this. This is how the idea of ShufflUP evolved.
What is ShufflUP?
ShufflUP began in 2017 and focuses on sophisticated crypto trading algorithms. There are huge price differences between exchanges and ShufflUP monetizes on that. What this is called is “Trading Arbitrage”. Arbitrage is basically taking advantage of price differences of the same cryptocurrency on different exchanges. An example would be Bitcoin trading for $3,900 on Binance and $4,000 on Bittrex Exchange. The ShufflUP algorithm would purchase Bitcoin for $3,900 on Binance and sell it on Bittrex for a $100 profit. Without algorithm technology, it’s very difficult for the average retail investor to do this on their own.
Current Growth Stage
ShufflUP is still in the Beta testing phase and started with creating a information protocol. What this does is show all the arbitrage opportunities between all the different exchanges. Shilpa mentioned they had a ton of positive feedback, but no way for the interested parties to take advantage. In August 2018 they capitalized on this feedback by creating a machine learning beta that would essentially invest a certain amount of your bitcoin (0.025 BTC minimum) in the market and take advantage of arbitrate for the user. Shilpa mentioned that January 21st of this year this beta will go into live production. Right now the platform will not be available for United States residents, but they are trying to implement this for the US in the long term.
What Separates ShufflUP From Competitors?
Shilpa mentioned their approach is what separates them. She mentioned their platform currently has 1,000+ registered users and the ultimate goal is to serve the population that is neglected. According to Shilpa she stated that 11.1 million Bitcoin is sitting idol right now which represents around 83% of the current circulation. She mentioned that many “HODLs” do not understand trading or how many crypto wallets operate. ShufflUP is targeting this market and helping them deploy the Bitcoin they hold. The platform also targets smaller retail who have small amounts of BTC as the minimum needed to deploy in the algo is 0.025 BTC.
Regulation Barriers
Regulation has been one of the biggest barriers in Crypto/Blockchain to date. Shilpa understands this and believes Regulation is necessary to scale. ShufflUP is based out of Estonia which is the first country to regulate Cryptocurrency. Shilpa mentioned they are in the process of applying for licenses (specifically wallet licensing and exchange licensing).
Thoughts on Crypto Going Into 2019
Obviously 2018 was a rough year for crypto all together. Many prices declined drastically but Shilpa saw it as a positive movement. She mentioned that price change was bound to happen in 2017 and 2018 and it was driven by “speculation”. She saw it as a positive thing because it gave the industry the ability to weed out projects that were not creating utility. She thinks there will be a lot more institutional adoption in 2019 as regulation/clarity moves forward. Shilpa did not have a short term price target on Bitcoin because she thinks long term. She did state that longer term, she thought Bitcoin would return and potentially surpass 20K levels.
ShufflUP Achievements and Goals For 2019
Shilpa shared with us that ShufflUP was recently invited to the “European Start Up Yard” based out of Prague where it had great success. ShufflUP went up against 256 other Finance startups and was ranked in the Top 10 for “Top teams in Blockchain Finance Technology”. Going into 2019, they plan on launching 2 other strategies for their platform and going into live production. They also think creating their own token will enhance transparency on their platform. They plan on creating their own token in 3rd quarter of this year but do not plan on going through the ICO stage. They also plan on continuing to work with Regulators so they can successfully scale as a company.
This is a Press Release and does not reflect the opinions or views of anybody at Visionary Finance. This is not investment, trading or gambling advice. Always conduct your own independent research. We are not endorsing any of the activities at ShufflUP explained in the post above.