How I Built A $280M Crypto Investment Platform
Note: This business is no longer running. It was started in 2018 and ended in 2023. Reason for closure: Acquired.
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?
My name is Iakov Levin, and I am the Founder and CEO of Midas.Investments, a digital assets investment platform featuring structured passive-income products.
Our target audience is people who have discovered cryptocurrency and want to use it to build an additional long-term source of income — but are not ready to spend a lot of time and risk capital on it yet.
Seeing the demand for this kind of product, we first came up with the idea of our platform. It helps transparently manage investor capital by offering a wide array of innovative digital asset products (e.g., DeFi), providing yield for their stability, and covering the basic financial needs of our clients. This is what Midas is about: bridging the gap between a common user and new financial technologies.
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
The first thing that shaped what I am doing now is that my family was rather poor as I grew up. I remember that nagging feeling: I didn't want to live like my parents, who worked 12 hours a day, fatigued with endless attempts to survive. I decided I’d build a different life, not as a wage-earner but as an entrepreneur.
Maybe it’s a reflection of my childhood trauma, but the idea of having a passive income has always been rather compelling to me. I wanted to build a business that democratizes the money-making process, allowing people to do what they love rather than trying to make ends meet.
Second, as a student, we had start-up sections at our university. We pitched ideas and created projects on paper to compete for a grant. My team came second, and then we parted ways. Still, this experience made me believe I could create something from scratch, gather a team, and get the funding.
After that, I went through a trial-and-error stage when I attempted to create different kinds of startups. At the age of 20, I got into speed-reading and tried to build an app for that. My goal was to improve the existing methodology for a more efficient learning process. I spent a lot of time with my team back then on building the app, but, in the end, the thing didn't take off. Still, I got the invaluable experience of managing the team and following through with the development, marketing, design, and methodology.
And lastly, in 2017, I first got into crypto. Later the same year, my father, who had also invested all of his savings in Bitcoin at $3,000, had his wallet compromised, and all of his funds were stolen. This pushed me to look for new ways to make money in cryptocurrency.
Your company will highly depend on its founder. Your strengths will become the company's strengths — and the same about your weaknesses. To level these out, you must hire people to back you and work closely with them so you can create products and services that will be in demand
Take us through the process of designing your first product and services.
During my crypto research, I stumbled upon the nascent market of staking and masternodes. For those not too familiar with the concept, a masternode is a type of node - i.e. a device - that makes up a decentralized network. While full nodes store a copy of the blockchain, confirm transactions and add new blocks to the chain, masternodes only do verification and perform some governance functions, such as voting. Creating and maintaining a masternode is costly, so operators get a part of block rewards in return for their work.
After several months of studying and capitalizing on the new trend, I decided to start my own company in this sector. The idea was to find a solution to one of the key issues of this market: back then, most people wishing to start their masternode didn’t have enough funds to do so.
As I had already had some experience with the niche, I decided to find a way to lower the entry barrier to the niche. My idea was to leverage masternodes staking pools as a working tool anyone could use to start making money and be able to quit anytime easily. It was revolutionary at the time, as one could reinvest capital and get a compound interest rate on their investments.
In just six months, we became a major player in this niche and reached $500k AUM. Gradually, we started building our platform to automate everything we used to do manually: collection and distribution of funds, rewards, and accounting. We also started to build our community — and, again, kept learning through mistakes and crises.
Describe the process of launching the business.
Midas was first launched on the 29th of October, 2018. Back then, users were able to deposit, withdraw and manage their assets in a few simple clicks via a smooth UI. That functionality formed the foundation of the platform Midas is today.
We had no issues with viability, but back then, our team was small, and our development was quite slow. Still, we rolled out many various features and created pivots (e.g., trading bots, Lock-in token investment products, InstantBuy, Burnout launch, BTC interest, etc.). For several years, we worked on developing a technology platform, then an exchange, then an investment platform. Through launching different products, we gradually built our algorithmic and investment departments, where our employees create algorithms, earn upsides, and manage risks.
In August of 2021, we dropped 8 to 10 features, deciding to focus on a single product: the fixed interest rate. Users would invest in this product, and we’d earn a yield on DeFi while managing all the risks. When we removed all the bugs and hurdles, we grew exponentially from $20M AUM in September 2021 to $200 AUM in September 2022. In cryptocurrency equivalent, that's an even more significant growth of about x25 - and all that during a falling market!
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
We used several tactics simultaneously to attract customers. First, we published information about our platform on aggregator sites that collected information about similar platforms. Also, we used performance marketing services (advertising on crypto-sites and social networks). And, of course, we launched a referral program, where our partners would receive 10% funds of the users' deposits attracted through their referral link.
Moreover, Midas had rates x2-x3 of the average market during the product launch stage and had already had a history as a master node service. It was two of our main competitive advantages, that let us gather an even larger audience base.
Strong community and transparency are the two most significant factors in customer retention — and both are key to building a cryptocurrency investment business. Overall, we have survived for so long because of our community-centric nature. As a founder, I'm constantly connecting with community members, syncing with them on their requests, and reaching out through podcasts and streams. Then, we publish transparent investment reports in which we share how we manage the assets, how the market affects the yield, and how we create risk frameworks — all to boost user trust in our project and what we do.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
We currently have a large volume of internal transactions and swaps. Even in a stagnant market, our key new product, CeDeFi strategies, still shows considerable growth. These strategies combine the accessibility of CeFi platforms and the innovations of DeFi. They are structured investment products that let people invest, knowing where the money is going and how it is allocated — while having a complete risk methodology for each strategy. We are trying to reinvent traditional finance within the DeFi landscape.
Our short-term goal is to create a bridge between innovation in cryptocurrency and democratized wealth between the users without the hassle of liquidity and asset management. Our long-term goal is the creation of a wealth generation platform of the future that would encompass the most state-of-art technologies of modern finance. Also, we set the goal to multiply our AUM during the next bull cycle.
We plan to launch a mobile app and a lending service. And on top of that, we are currently improving our investment division and hiring the best people in the industry to create risk-adjusted investment strategies.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
My key takeout was that the business's success correlates very strongly with the founder's inner state and mindset. This means the amount of tension the founder can tolerate, the amount of information they can perceive in a non-judgmental way, and the vastness of the network they can create around them.
Then, it’s essential to see the market clearly, so we can get better insights into the user demand and what kind of a product we can create to bring value to the market. Many people see creating a business as fighting a battle with the market, but it is more like riding its waves. I see many projects that try to go against the tide, disregard the market context, or create something that only the founders know the value of. At the same time, there's nothing better than just keeping open communication with your audience by asking questions and heeding their feedback.
And lastly, we should solve one problem at a time — especially in the period of high uncertainty we are in right now.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
One of the main tools we use is Discord. As I mentioned before, building a strong community is key to our success, and this is where all the buzz is happening.
Discord is an excellent ecosystem for community building and development, so it's where our internal and external communities are based.
The well-designed system of servers, levels and roles, community conferences, and weekly voice reports help connect with the end user and boost their engagement in our project and the level of our team's transparency. We have dedicated servers to discuss every aspect of our products, market news, ask questions to the team or simply discuss life outside crypto. Ultimately, we see Discord as the perfect place for new users to get acquainted with our products before deciding to make any platform investments. Anyone is free to check out our server and join in the fun.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
I enjoy Naval Ravikant podcast and also Andrew Huberman's podcast on exploring oneself through science. On top of that, I found multiple benefits in meditation. It taught me to observe the world around me, so I could see it without judgment.
Of the books, I highly recommend Ken Wilber's A Brief History of Everything and "Tao Te Ching" by Laozi. I believe these books allow one to adopt a more comprehensive view of the world and help business owners create order amid chaos and uncertainty (unknown user needs, changes in the market, etc.).
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
Act — and interact with the world — as much as you can. It's okay if something doesn't work out. The main thing is to find your inner core and stay confident that you will be able to create the right product for your users.
This path is beautiful in itself. Not because of success stories or getting reach, but because of the opportunity to become the best version of yourself — and keep growing, to do things you had never thought you'd be able to do.
Your company will highly depend on its founder. Your strengths will become the company's strengths — and the same about your weaknesses. To level these out, you must hire people to back you and work closely with them so you can create products and services that will be in demand.
In addition, listen to the user feedback, which they will most often share when they are unhappy with something. It’s important to stay responsive to what they say. All the brightest ideas come through synthesizing information from the outside, not from within, as many think.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
We are always looking for people with an investment background (hedge funds, asset management) and a deep understanding of mathematics and physics (not necessarily cryptocurrency). If that sounds like you, please do contact us (drop a line at [email protected]). Besides that, we are also looking to reinforce our C-board.
Where can we go to learn more?
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
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