Singapore-based crypto-derivatives exchange Phemex celebrates its 2nd anniversary this November. After an eventful couple of years for the platform, Phemex is raising a toast to its community with its Choose Your Reality event. With 2 BTC in prizes going out to those who come up with the most heartfelt birthday wishes, this anniversary is certainly going to be memorable.

Phemex has maintained its dedicated stance towards its users, and this has enabled the platform to create a thriving community surrounding its products. To celebrate their impressive lineup of products and services, as well as their growth over the last two years, the exchange is inviting participants to wish them a happy birthday. Through its ‘Dream With Phemex’ campaign, Phemex is also asking users to talk about their dreams and aspirations and to double down on its commitment to its community, Phemex is making a few special winners’ dreams come to life.

The firm’s user-first mentality is rooted deep within its mission. Jack Tao, Phemex’s CEO and founder, was a veteran on Wall Street, having worked with Morgan Stanley for over a decade while observing the inner workings of the traditional financial system. He quickly noticed the large divide between how wealthy players and retail investors were served, and by founding Phemex he hoped to shift this attitude in favour of the people.

With his team of ex-Morgan Stanley executives, Phemex launched their platform in 2019 to bring change to how retail investors were treated. They created a platform where no one was favoured because no one was discriminated against. From just three contract pairs, the platform has grown to host over 40 spot pairs and 39 contract pairs, while consistently ranking among the top 10 derivatives exchanges by volume. Phemex is now one of the most most popular derivatives exchanges in the world, with nearly 2 million traders actively engaging with the platform globally.

Phemex’s ‘People Are Priority’ Approach

Phemex approaches community feedback with an eagerness to improve, encouraging its users to speak up on issues they face on the platform. According to Phemex, a happy community is an engaged community, and with the number of events and competitions they’ve conducted over the last two years, its community is certainly engaged.

Soon after its 2019 launch, Phemex blew up across social media when they released an image puzzle containing the private key to a Bitcoin wallet with 2.1 BTC. The giveaway quickly viral, successfully achieving their goal of spreading awareness about private-key self custody.

In May last year, Phemex introduced, “The Era of Zero” to its premium members, announcing all spot trading fees would be negated on the exchange. Near the start of this year, Phemex also launched its Earn Crypto platform, facilitating its community to earn interest of 8.5% APY on deposits worth upto 1.5 million USDT.

However, engaging a community is about more than just giveaways and humouring feature implementation requests — it’s about cultivating a sense of camaraderie — something Phemex is quite the master at. Over one thousand traders took part in Phemex’s first ever NFT launch, minted and sold on OpenSea for $100,000 (44 ETH at the time). The art piece contained the deposit addresses of the event’s participants, and the sale’s proceeds were split between them evenly.

Globally, businesses are adopting blockchain to make improvements to their capital efficiency, but adoption from more mainstream users is still years away. Current generation DApps are still clunky and require a deeper understanding of the technology, but as education around blockchain continues to improve, adoption should follow suit. To encourage users to learn about digital assets and the technology supporting them, Phemex launched its Learn and Earn platform this year, offering rewards for completing courses including trading bonuses and cryptocurrencies.

Additionally, the exchange developed its own academy portal containing more than 400 in-depth write-ups articles on crypto and blockchain related topics.

Digitizing Society

2021 will go down in history as the year everyone started talking about the metaverse, but this concept has been in and out of public discourse for decades. The metaverse represents an evolved form of social media technology, blurring the lines between physical and digital interactions, and Phemex believes this is where we’re headed.

Phemex’s goal is to help transition society towards this digital future where people can redefine themselves in the blink of an eye, and achieve anything they can image. Recently in Dubai, at the World Blockchain Summit, Jack Tao spoke about the infancy of the metaverse narrative, and how NFTs could help the concept develop further as we move into the future of socio-digital economies.

Over 1500 renowned blockchain experts in from across the globe were in attendance when Jack said, “NFTs are here to stay, not because some have been sold for millions of dollars, but because millions have been sold for some dollars. Digital collectables are not only the playground of crypto-whales; they are spreading in the direction of mass distribution.”

He also stated that no one could predict what the metaverse will look like, because like the Internet, it wouldn’t be built from any one entity’s ideas. “The metaverse won’t be constructed by a handful of centralized conglomerates — it’ll be assembled by billions of people,” he added.

NFTs have pleasantly surprised the blockchain community in different ways over the last couple of years. Be it through direct utility or platforms finding unique ways to put them to work, the idea of digital ownership is slowly solidifying itself in the public’s eyes. With the accelerated growth of sub-industries within the blockchain space like GameFi, we’re only seeing a thin slice of what NFTs will eventually evolve into.

Phemex loves working with experimental tech, even launching its own GameFi product in celebration of their first anniversary. The Singapore-based exchange is constantly looking for new avenues to give its users a taste of the future, and hope for how DLT will transform society.

This November, Phemex isn’t just celebrating its 2nd birthday — it’s celebrating a dedication to quality, the spirit of distributed control, and its devotion to its community, pushing people to break through the limitations of centralized money, and break free into an era of digital freedom.