Ruby Chen's Fairyland of Crypto and the Metaverse

Tokyo, spring of 2017, the BitKan leadership team led by Ruby Chen decided to engage in a grand experiment of sorts: exploring the practical day-to-day use of Bitcoin, under the backdrop that when Japan became the first country to recognise cryptocurrencies as a legal payment method that year. Founded in 2012, BitKan is a leading one-stop cryptocurrency exchange based out of Singapore and Japan, with its aggregated liquidity generated across 8 of the world's major crypto exchanges, which allows its users to trade over 1,200 types of coins.

Ruby and her team's three-day experimental adventure took the crypto world by storm, documented in a video titled Living on Bitcoin in Tokyo. As avant-garde as the term "metaverse" itself, Ruby had a curiosity and passion towards futuristic notions and technologies since young. "Some think that the metaverse is nothing more than just a remote idea. In fact, the development of new technologies often undergo a sudden growth spurt. They could prevail and popularise at a pace that's far beyond our imagination," says Ruby, whose eyes sparkle with excitement when talking about crypto and the metaverse.

"It is not a top- down initiative driven by governments; to the contrary, it is a bottom-up progress driven by the grassroot economy that would further shape the crypto industry to the next level."

The metaverse and cryptocurrency are concepts that go hand- in- hand – virtual worlds have a wide range of products which need virtual money to spend in them. The metaverse needs encryption – the technological foundation of crypto – to function correctly. "In the metaverse, every one of us will have a unique digital identity and a unique encrypted wallet address – which we'll call a 'digital resident identity card'. Imagine a virtual world where you order anything that you need from anywhere on Earth. The payment process is completed almost instantly and the order arrives within seconds. Further advancement of hardware development including virtual reality, augmented reality and logistics is the prerequisite to fully achieve the real metaverse. Just thinking about it makes you feel excited", contemplates Ruby, on a future without boundaries.

To Truly Understand the Crypto Revolution

Before entering the crypto sector, Ruby worked in the legal profession. An undeniable crypto veteran and expert, Ruby describes the emergence of cryptocurrency as a "new value system" that goes far beyond what the current financial system has to offer.

"The future of the economic system needs crypto, rather than crypto overtaking the current financial system. It's a symbiotic relationship," explains Ruby. "Take Tesla for example, it is revolutionary not just because it makes better car components or lowers fuel consumption. Tesla has fundamentally reshaped the way societies consume energy. That's what makes it revolutionary. And this is what crypto brings to the table. It's a brand- new value system that tremendously enables faster and simpler global transactions."

Ruby believes that it is inevitable for a cryptocurrency, whether it be Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency, to take over and become the world's currency. When global economics, logistics and information technology reach the next level of maturity, payment and settlement by digital currencies will dominate. "Costs for the current cross-border transaction are rather high, and the existing

global payment and settlement system simply cannot handle the entire globe's payment needs if we all require one-minute delivery."

Bright Futures for Wonder Women

As a millennial woman, Ruby is optimistic about women's contribution of their talent and expertise in this field, which is still male-dominated. "Obtaining information nowadays is really convenient given how developed the Internet has become, and access to knowledge around crypto is barrier-free." Taking herself as an example, Ruby does not consider one gender as having an advantage over the other. "There's no fundamental difference between a male and a female in crypto, as this is not an industry where physical strength is the winning factor. Instead, hard work and creativity are crucial."

During her seven-year voyage in crypto, Ruby feels fortunate enough to have encountered plenty of brilliant females, be they gaming experts, tech- savvies or entrepreneurs. "Females are bellwethers of an industry, with the level of women's participation being an indicator of how widely a field is accepted by the general public. When we see a great deal of gender diversity in an industry, it is a sign that this industry is going to prosper."

Before relocating to Singapore, Ruby was a lawyer in China's Hubei Province. Lifestyle drastically differs in these two places. "I was always stressed and had no holidays when I worked in China. After moving to Singapore, I started to enjoy life more". That is not to say that working in crypto is an easy job, but Ruby is able to strike a work-life balance by hiking and surfing with friends on weekends.