Luis Buenaventura Joins GCash for GCrypto Growth
Former YGG Philippines country manager Luis Buenaventura confirmed on social media that he joined GCash to lead GCrypto, the cryptocurrency arm of the country’s most popular e-wallet GCash, a mobile payment service owned by Globe Fintech Innovations, Inc. or Mynt.
In an official statement through his Facebook account, Luis Buenaventura confirmed on November 6, 2023, that it was his first week as GCash’s new head of cryptocurrencies, and his primary focus will be to grow the GCrypto service within the GCash super app.
In the Facebook post, which is part of his regular Cryptoday episode on social media and other platforms, he said he will not focus on any forward plans or roadmaps for GCrypto. Still, it is instead a reflection on the growth of crypto in the Philippines and why he took this job.
Luis Buenaventura Joins GCrypto Story
According to the veteran cryptocurrency and Web3 educator in the Philippines, when he started working in crypto in 2014, the global market cap was a measly $10 billion. He revealed that crypto meetups were lucky to see 30 attendees, and most of those attendees were the employees of the crypto companies sponsoring the event.
During the early days of crypto in the Philippines, Ethereum didn’t exist yet, and second-order concepts like NFTs, Play-to-Earn, and Web3 were several years away.
Projects didn’t need to trumpet their “community-building efforts” because the community was all we had. Everyone, from the developers to the media platforms to the end-users, was part of the community, and your membership was assumed as soon as you installed Mycelium.
Luis Buenaventura also revealed that during the early days of crypto, Bitfinex was the most significant exchange in the world, and KYC was a recommendation, not a requirement.
Early attempts to introduce crypto in the Philippines were implemented like the Bitcoin ATM in downtown Makati, a Bitpay-like merchant payments solution, Bitcoin transfer over SMS, a remittance solution settled via Bitcoin, and they even had a social platform where creators could earn crypto by posting their JPEGs.
In 2014, the largest trading volumes were on LocalBitcoins, although CoinsPH represented the most significant footprint in app-based exchange. Still, the majority was happening in person and over the counter.
LocalBitcoins’ dominance was challenged by Paxful in 2018, which would later be eclipsed by Binance’s P2P marketplace in 2020. Neither LocalBitcoins nor Paxful survived this recent crypto winter.
In 2019, the Philippines saw the rise of NFTs and Web3 games. NFTs were auctioned for millions of dollars, with bids from crypto-wealthy investors without art or art collection background. On the gaming side, standalone Web3 games like Axie Infinity had market caps that were almost as large as the entire game publisher Electronic Arts. Buenaventura noted that it was a textbook example of “irrational exuberance,” for much of the pandemic, this exuberance reverberated throughout social and mainstream media.
GCash Historic Growth
During the heights of the Axie Infinity game, GCash experienced a historic growth spurt that would triple its user base, which now stands at over 80M installs. Filipinos are more and more accustomed to digital money.
For a while, it seemed like Filipinos might be ready for crypto as well; however, by 2022, the crypto industry was in a state of decline, with high-profile collapses like Luna, 3AC, and FTX, followed by the shuttering of crypto-friendly banks like Silvergate and Silicon Valley Bank that causes the pendulum into swinging in opposite directions.
Truth About Crypto
According to Luis Buenaventura, crypto wasn’t dead somewhere in the middle, but it wasn’t doing great either. If you bought any crypto in 2021, you’d be deeply in the red on your investment, but Luis Buenaventura still believes crypto is the best long-term investment you can make, apart from land.
On an entire 4-year cycle, a simple, consistent cost-averaging investment strategy will outperform 99% of all amateur traders because there are 3x as many bear months as bull months. Unfortunately, that fundamental truth has been forgotten in a sea of airdrops, whitelists, and bounties.
Instead of diligently saving, newbies burn themselves out gambling with 100x leverage, allowing alpha-signal pseudo-gurus and aping into shitcoin projects that are just using them as exit liquidity.
Luis Buenaventura Joins GCash. Where Are They Now?
As of 2023, GCash facilitates over 25M transactions daily, powering the businesses of over 5M merchants, and has become a household name. Although the GCrypto app is still in its infancy, Luis Buenaventura believes it represents the single most important gateway to cryptocurrencies for Filipinos.
Not only is GCash installed on the phones of nearly everyone in the country, but over the years, it has transformed into a hub for all financial instruments. The question is no longer whether Filipinos are comfortable keeping their money with GCash but how else they can optimize their funds while there.
Luis Buenaventura’s Encouraging Words for Crypto Users
According to the new head of GCrypo, Luis Buenaventura, someone who has been building toward mainstream crypto adoption since 2014, this represents the opportunity of a lifetime.
With calamitous levels of inflation and an economic recession on the horizon, it’s never been more important to save money, and diversifying into various cryptocurrencies is one of the best ways to do that.
Fundamentally, Buenaventura thinks it’s an issue of mindset: Filipinos need to start thinking about crypto as a long-term savings alternative instead of a get-rich-quick scheme. He doesn’t know how long this mental shift will take or if it’s possible, but one thing is certain: they’ll be GCash that they go to first, according to Luis Buenaventura.
Note: Luis Buenaventura Joins GCash first published on Facebook and appeared on PhilNews.xyz
Source: Cryptoday by Luis Buenaventura
Disclaimer: PhilNews.xyz articles and their external content are not financial advice but are only used for educational purposes. Always Do Your Own Research (DYOR) first. The team serves to deliver unbiased news with less intrusive ads.
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