What’s it like interning at a crypto exchange?
By: Rebecca Mqamelo
Tags: Thoughts, Intern, Blockchain, Crypto

When I told friends and family that I was going to work for a crypto company during the summer of my college freshman year, I got a few puzzled looks and questions along the lines of, “You mean, like, bitcoin?” I spent an incredible two months in Tokyo interning at Quoine, where I worked with Corporate Planning, Business Development, and People and Culture.

So, what does one actually do?

Here’s a quick summary of my general tasks as an intern rotating between teams:

Corporate Planning: This department defines the strategies that employees take to meet the company’s goals. I helped out with data analysis and forecasting to set measurable targets — for example, in user retention. Our team would do a basic gap analysis of other teams and then consult them on how they could improve their work. I enjoyed this role because it involved translating numbers and performance into actionable strategic items, and it gave me a high-level understanding of how all the different teams fit together.

Business Development: This was by far the most “outward” facing work I did. I focused on ICO Mission Control, which is Quoine’s end-to-end solution for companies wanting to launch their ICO and get listed on Quoine’s crypto exchange. An ICO (short for Initial Coin Offering) is the equivalent of an IPO in the crypto world. Depending on the type of token being issued, it allows developers to gain access to capital without having to part with the equity of their company, and ICO participants are able to easily invest in new and exciting projects. I assisted with UI design, content creation, screening potential clients and sourcing partnerships.

Filming a demo video for ICO Mission Control with one of my colleagues

People & Culture: One of the challenges of working at such a fast growing and diverse startup (as I explain below) is managing communication and people’s’ understanding of the company vision. I started Quoine’s first internal newsletter which went out each week to all 300+ employees. I got to interview everyone from the CXO’s to the newest interns, and was very fortunate to spend time talking to so many people in different areas of the company.

“The Week”, Quoine’s internal newsletter

Highlights

The launch of Liquid, Quoine’s all-in-one crypto platform. I got to be in the thick of the chaos that precedes any product launch. Liquid is the bridge between crypto and fiat and is a massive step towards achieving Quoine’s vision of providing liquidity in the non-liquid crypto economy.

Tradition meets disruption. If you don’t know much about Quoine, here’s what you should know: it’s a blockchain-based crypto company that is disrupting financial services in every way, but unlike finding predominantly twenty-something bros in their jeans and hoodies, you’re more likely to bump into ex-Goldman Sachs VPs, Soft Bank veterans, and other highly successful individuals who gave up prominent positions in just about every big financial services company you can think of. The financial and technical expertise at Quoine is extremely impressive. It was a huge privilege for me to work alongside managers with decades of experience and to see how everyone, even the kids straight out of college (or still in it, like me), worked so collaboratively to make things happen.

Challenges

Adjusting to Japanese work culture. Before moving to Tokyo, I lived in San Francisco for eight months, where “work” can mean anything ranging from stepping into the office, to sipping coffee at a cafe all day, to pulling out your laptop while still in bed. Although Quoine espouses many of the characteristics of a typical Silicon Valley startup, the influence of the Japanese work ethic cannot be missed. I was initially shocked to see that my colleagues would stay at the office until 10 pm and be back again the next morning at 8 am, but I soon realized that for many people, putting in the long hours is part of their passion for the company. They do it not because they’re forced to, but because they believe in what they’re doing and know that it takes hard work to produce good results.

Communication in a large, multicultural company. More than anything, this was actually a highlight. What made it a challenge was learning to navigate communication among diverse groups of people spread all over the world. The company was (and still is) growing so fast, that we literally had new people joining every day. Managing people’s sense of purpose is imperative in any organization. When I started interviewing employees for Quoine’s internal newsletter, I was able to share the vision of various Heads of Department, who themselves were new additions to the company and needed to garner people’s faith and buy-in so they could effectively lead from the front. What I learned here is that it doesn’t matter how good you are at your job; the people around you need to understand your approach before they can help you bring your goals to fruition.

My time at Quoine taught me so much about the crypto industry. I learned volumes about what it takes to be successful, from marketing to business strategy to internal organization. A year ago, I didn’t even know what “blockchain” or “cryptocurrency” even meant. My journey started out of pure curiosity and now, a couple of meetups, conferences, and hackathons later, I’m seriously considering this as a career path. Almost everyone who works at Quoine on the crypto side of things has a similar story, which is a testament to the fact that this is one of the most accessible industries in the world. If you can contribute value, you deserve to be a part of the team.

While the crypto industry is still struggling to recover after the hype of 2017, companies like Quoine are paving the way for the future of financial services. Quoine is regulated by the Japan Financial Services Agency and with this honor comes great responsibility. In the words of Rei Tanaka, Quoine’s head of Compliance and Regulation, “We’re not just a tech company, we’re a fintech company. We deal in financial services where we are being asked to manage people’s hard-earned money. There needs to be a basic set of discipline that comes with this.”

Quoine’s approach to business sometimes comes at a cost in the short term (such as Quoine’s commitment to 100% cold wallet storage, which means withdrawals are processed manually) but it’s the long term that is in sight. As one fan put it, “Quoine is to crypto right now what Apple was to tech in the early 2000s”. I have no doubt that we can expect great things both now and in the future, and I am incredibly proud to have participated in that process.