Eduards is the CEO and owner of How2Agency. Formerly European Business Development Manager for Lloyds Bank in Gibraltar and a senior manager at Parex Bank and Parex Asset Management, Eduards is currently CEO and owner of How2Agency based in Gibraltar as well as Adviser to the Board of the Signet Bank. He has a Masters in Economics, Banking and Finance and 14 years experience in finance and capital markets. He has been involved in crypto assets since 2014 and launched the How2Coin consultancy project in 2017 in Gibraltar, the first jurisdiction with comprehensive regulations for blockchain-based businesses.
Have you ever suffered from scams in your life?
Not me personally, but lots of my clients suffered from projects like Onecoin, Bitconnect, Prodeum, and others.
What inspired you to team up with CryptoPolice?
During my 14 years career in financial industry I have seen a lot of financial pyramids, ponzi schemes, etc. When I have identified my client is dealing with such project, I have strongly advised not to invest any money there. People thank me later for that when they see project disappearing. That idea of offering protection from scammers in unregulated market — one thing needed here. It is very close to own personal initiative of educating people about markets and potential scams. The more I study this market the more I see “wild west” approach and unethical behavior in various projects. Overregulation is bad, like in banking nowadays, but no regulation or oversight at all creates chaos and gives freedom to criminals and scam artists to do whatever they like to do and benefit from uneducated masses. You would think that now with so much information available online it is not possible to screw people, as everything comes to light very quickly. But actually it is quite opposite, internet is full of various scams and even when other people identify it, normal folks don’t do their research and fall in traps. Even doing research in many cases doesn’t help, as major scams are becoming more sophisticated and hard to spot even for trained eye. This is why I got so excited about Cryptopolice project — at least some help is coming!
What is the role of community in the fight against scams and fraud?
Community based is the best solution — in unregulated market you have to be responsible for your choices and only community can help and be quick in reacting, compared to institutional or government regulation, which is slow and incompetent. It is a well known fact that urban communities with neighbours watch or community watch are much safer than those without it. Safer even that those under security surveillance. The more eyes and brains you have, the more chance you have to spot and identify the offender. Then it is up to police to catch them and up to court to decide if guilty.
What are your thoughts on the future of online security and evolution of scams?
More and more protection is needed in different fields online as scammers become more and more sophisticated with their methods with the development of technology (spy bots, cloning, phishing, hacking, etc, not to mention financial scams). Online security has to keep up with the technology developments. The more advanced technology gets it can always be used for good or for bad purposes. Cryptopolice has a huge challenge to keep up with the developments, however due to community watch principle based on blockchain, CryptoPolice has more chances to succeed than any other private company with own team of officers, or government institution with its limited resources and capabilities.
How visionary is CryptoPolice project in your opinion?
It is good to focus on crypto segment for now, as famous “cryptomillionaire” James Althucher says 90% of coins out there are scams. This is without other issues mentioned above. I see huge potential for application of the idea and technology of Cryptopolice in other fields as well, such as integration of the tool in the banks for their compliance, in regulating bodies, etc to ease client preventing and ongoing monitoring, as well as for further expansion into other fields like e-commerce (for example ads in facebook for some goods 90% cheaper than usual — definitely scam) and others. It would be good add on to existing Antivirus and browser protection tools in the market which warns you when you visit suspicious website.