Billium is one of the crypto exchanges that has recently disrupted the crypto trading space with its unique copy trading system that has attracted the interest of thousands of users in recent months.
To understand more about their mission and developments, we caught up with Ilia Angelov — Ceo of Billium and asked him a few questions.
Q: Can you please tell us about your background?
A: I am a 36-year-old professional trader with about 20 years of trading stocks. From a tender age, I have always nursed the ambition of managing and interpreting risks. Thus, trading stock while growing up was a natural progression for me. My relationship with the market has a long and complicated history; I courted failures and ducked losses on several occasions before a breakout hit. In trying out how to impact the world, I leveraged my financial expertise and experience to start a large telegram channel teaching people about trading. It would form an exotic flavor upon which my motivation to employ an unorthodox approach to trading is based. My existence is a testament to the value of an interactive approach to the financial market and my knack for finding and executing revolutionary ideas.
Q: Please shed some light on how you discovered crypto?
A: Simply growing my telegram channel and trading journey to a breakthrough represents a feat of ingenuity and endurance. At first, there was no need for me to diversify. I have a thriving community of traders doing fantastic work to benefit humanity. I was opposed to the possibility of trading crypto. This made me a strong crypto-skeptic in its first few years. I stood against and criticized it. Like many veterans in the market, “How can it be an asset if it’s not backed by anything” I told myself. Unlike shares, there is nothing behind cryptocurrency. “It’s a scam,” I concluded. As fear and doubt curdled into enthusiasm and fascination, my subscribers kept encouraging me to read more about crypto. About a year and a half ago, I developed a fascination with cryptocurrency, finding it more intellectually and economically stimulating than stocks. Fortunately for me, I entered cryptocurrency at a dreadful and perfect time. I joined at a time when speculators were leaving the industry for builders, real and genuine builders that are passionate about the technology. (Laughing) We are willing to endure this pain and see what will come out of this volatile market
Q: Tell us more about Billium and what the Billium team is trying to achieve?
A: My interest in cryptocurrency eventually became an obsession when I realized the opportunities in trading and exchanging parts of cryptocurrency. While I appreciate the current crypto exchange and trading platforms, I also believe there is room for improvement. The more I read about the market, the more my trading instincts hit overdrive. I saw a system with many hallmarks for growth – either in its vague and complex onboarding process, inadequate crypto education to support newbies, and low incentives to motivate successful traders. After moments of reflection, I adopted the main idea behind Billium from stock brokers. I am from Russia, where auto-following is a reasonably popular strategy among brokers. Typically, it allows new traders to connect to an experienced investor, and all his transactions will be replicated on your account. This is lacking in the current market, and you will agree with me that others have spotted this inefficiency but turned a blind eye. With hands-on experience, the Billium team has created a crypto exchange platform with crypto trading as its main feature.
Q: How and why do you think Billium is different?
A: As I said, copy trading isn’t new in cryptocurrency, but it’s still complex for ordinary users to navigate, especially if they are beginners. Billium is built on a tripartite of purposes; security, performance, and community. Security is the pillar of our offerings. We want to protect our customers’ assets and assure them of safety. We have designed a platform that will earn their trust. I think that’s most important in today’s crypto world. Another thing that differentiates us from any other players is performance. We have introduced a catalog of offerings that will help even an ordinary trader on the street. Among these are a highly sophisticated API for trading robots and advanced algorithms, high-frequency trading and scalping techniques, and reliable order execution. In the future, we plan to release our native token, $BILT, and acquire a European license. Of course, people can argue that security and performance can’t co-exist, but both are our top priorities at Billium. Another important consideration is our growing and thriving community. It’s insane! We have created a community with common values and goals that align, with our team members and advisors cutting across different geographies and experience.
Q: What are your thoughts about the future of trading and copy trading in particular?
A: In the next couple of years, virtually everything in the world will be tokenized. This opens up an opportunity for trading, which is why we are building Billium. Given the reports that about 90% of traders lose money in the market, copy trading is starting to be the trader’s alternative to successful trading. With all the volatility in the market, it is worth mentioning that automation is increasingly behaving more maturely. I believe that investors will adopt the auto-following mechanisms of the stock market to trade crypto. Automation and copy trading are attractive as they allow traders and investors to copy the winning strategies of successful traders while mitigating risk and losses. This ability to auto-trade amplifies the innate goal of cryptocurrency – to create financial freedom regardless of people’s background and race- and will help professional traders to confine their digital asset trading to a winnable limit. We are seeing an explosion of developers and entrepreneurs who are innovating and building tools that take advantage of computing power: you can write codes that enable trading just like best traders do. As software is eating the market, automation and copy trading will eat the world of crypto.
Q: How is Billium aiming to attract mainstream users that are skeptical about cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology?
A: Often people are skeptical because they think that cryptocurrencies are a manipulative tool where mainly large players earn money and the majority lose money. We must debunk misconceptions and myths about cryptocurrency at the local, regional, and global levels. This is what will bring mainstream adoption. It’s centered around providing access to financial education, not creating more millionaires. I am connected to the local actors and institutional traders. Crypto education starts and ends with education. This is why education occupies the center stage of our mission at Billium. Influential people want to keep everything centralized, but mass adoption will happen when people are equipped and exposed to the limitless opportunities with cryptocurrency. People don’t understand projects. They do not know anything about technical analysis, so their experience or their friend’s experience is often unsuccessful. We offer them not to understand but to trust professionals.
Q: In your opinion, what are the benefits of automating trading process? Do you see any use case(s) that haven’t been experimented with?
A: Today, we see a trend toward automating all routine processes; the same is true in trading. Algorithms work better than humans because they are devoid of emotions. In the future, Neural networks will trade, not people. When people can trade and execute specific rules through a programmable command, then diversification will grow. It allows traders to spread risks over different instruments while building a hedge against losses. In milliseconds, computers can execute and monitor trading opportunities across different markets. This reduces emotions and ensures traders have the time to stick to their plans.
Q: As an experienced financial expert, what efficient risk mitigation strategies would you recommend for automated trading?
A: People talk about minimizing risks but only focus on stop-loss and take-profit. In the real world of crypto, it doesn’t work that way. The first thing is to plan your trades. It is a critical but overlooked efficient risk mitigation strategy because it allows traders to make more money with their trades. Planning your trade will also make it easier to calculate your expected return. All these puts together are essential mitigation strategies by top traders.
Q: How does Billium aim to remain a major player in the highly competitive market and retain its share as the leader in the copy trading niche?
A: It is difficult for a startup to compete with large companies that have been on the market for many years, so we try to focus on a high level of service for our community. Despite their presence in the market, I believe we can improve the ecosystem, and this is where Billium comes in. Our array of services will be instrumental in unlocking the full potential of crypto and its use cases. This exciting promise has started taking shape as we have become an essential primitive with strong traction in the media, attracting capable talents. I am impressed by our technical capabilities, conviction, and the team’s ability to innovate.
Q: It has been an amazing moment with you, Ilia. What is your conclusion regarding Crypto exchange, copy, and social trading?
A: I believe that the future belongs to copy trading and automated trading.