This in-depth conversation features KY, the founder of QuBitDEX, a seasoned professional with a background spanning traditional finance, AI, and cryptocurrency, who previously served as one of the early core architects of Tether (USDT). After navigating four industry cycles and witnessing the collapse of FTX, KY was driven by a sense of "responsibility" to solve the core pain point of user asset security, leading him to establish QuBitDEX.

QuBitDEX aims to build a next-generation financial infrastructure that merges the millisecond-level performance of a centralized exchange (CEX) with the asset sovereignty and security of a decentralized exchange (DEX). To achieve this, the team has not only developed a proprietary high-performance Layer-1 blockchain called QuBitChain but has also integrated native support for Zero-Knowledge (ZK) technology from the ground up to address issues of performance, cost, and transaction privacy.

KY emphasizes that QuBitDEX's key differentiator is its deep integration of an AI engine from day one, designed to help users upgrade from "trading faster" to "trading smarter" by providing intelligent routing and decision-support tools. The team is composed of top-tier industry talent, including a veteran trading system provider, a quantitative finance expert, and the former CEO of a top-tier CEX, bringing profound technical and market experience.

Regarding ecosystem development, QuBitDEX will focus on its perpetual contracts DEX while steadily introducing diverse assets like RWAs to serve a global investor base. The product is now live for testing, and a points-based airdrop program based on "Proof-of-Contribution" has been launched to reward early community participants. KY believes that with the alignment of technology, market demand, and the team—a perfect storm of "the right time, the right place, and the right people"—now is the optimal moment to redefine decentralized trading.

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QuBitDEX founder KuoYeh Shen (KY) is a true builder in the crypto world. As one of the core architects during the foundational stage of the stablecoin USDT and a former advisor to Bitfinex where he was deeply involved in its trading system and clearing design, his influence is significant. He is not only a trading systems expert but also a thought leader spanning finance, AI, and blockchain. KY is pursuing his Ph.D. at Tsinghua University, dedicating his profound theoretical knowledge and practical experience to QuBitDEX to redefine the future of decentralized trading.

In this issue, MetaEra's Akon Red invites KY for an in-depth conversation to understand his dynamic personal journey, his unique insights into the crypto market, and how QuBitDEX is building a brand-new platform that merges the efficiency of centralized exchanges with the security of decentralization through technological innovation, ecosystem synergy, and compliant development.

An exceptional journey: From the creation of USDT to the founding of QuBitDEX

Akon Red: Hello KY, it is a great honor to have you with us. Before we delve into the founding of QuBitDEX, could you please introduce yourself to our readers?

KY: Hello everyone, I am KY, the founder of QuBitDEX. I hold master's degrees in computer science, mechanical engineering, and finance. I began my career in the financial industry right after graduation, with my first job at Taiwan's largest investment bank. There, I was responsible for the asset pricing of financial derivatives, foreign exchange derivatives pricing, and algorithmic forex trading. This experience allowed me to quickly grasp the complexities of the financial markets, and my time in the foreign exchange market, in particular, laid a solid foundation for my future entry into the cryptocurrency field. I held the highest position under the general manager.

Later, I was drawn to the concepts of crypto technology and blockchain and became involved in the construction of the crypto industry from its early days. I was deeply involved in the founding stages of USDT as an early preparatory participant of Tether and also served as an advisor to Bitfinex, which was the largest USD crypto trading platform at the time. You could say I was a practitioner in the wild west era of the cryptocurrency industry.

During my doctoral studies in computer science at Tsinghua University, I served as the president of the Tsinghua University Blockchain Association (TIBA). In this role, I facilitated discussions with industry leaders such as Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood at the "Tsinghua Grand Lecture Hall."

Before founding QuBitDEX, I managed an early-stage venture capital fund focused on cryptocurrency.

These experiences, combined with my research focus on the intersection of AI and blockchain, have led all my thoughts to converge on a single point: we must use the most cutting-edge and reliable technology to build a next-generation financial infrastructure that truly belongs to the users, one where they no longer need to worry about the security of their assets. This is the original intention behind my founding of QuBitDEX.

Motivation for Founding QuBitDEX: Why Choose the DEX Track Among Many?

Akon Red: KY, your background is very unique, spanning traditional finance, AI, and blockchain, and you were an early architect of industry-level infrastructure like USDT. After experiencing multiple industry cycles, many might choose to take a step back and focus on investing or advising, but you chose to step into the arena yourself to lead the creation of QuBitDEX. We are very curious, what drove you to make this decision?

KY: For me, founding QuBitDEX feels more like a "responsibility." Having come all the way from traditional finance, I personally witnessed the 2008 financial crisis and saw the fragility of centralized systems. Later, I threw myself into the crypto world with passion, participating deeply in early projects like USDT. But the collapse of FTX made me fully realize that as long as users' assets are not 100% under their own control, the so-called 'crypto' is just a castle in the air. User asset security is the cornerstone of the entire industry's development and its biggest pain point right now. This is a problem I must solve.

In the world of blockchain, there are many exciting tracks, but the exchange is the center of value discovery and liquidity—it's the heart of the entire ecosystem. Looking at the industry's development, the exchange business model has proven to be the most successful and has the healthiest cash flow. It's not just a business; it's a strategic high ground that everyone is fighting for, the entry point for all future financial innovation. We believe that whoever can solve the trading problem in a decentralized, secure, and efficient way will define the infrastructure of the next generation of finance.

The reason I chose now is because the stars have aligned—the timing, the conditions, and the people are all right. Technologically, high-performance public chains, ZK, AI, and other technologies have only truly matured today, enough to support our vision. In the market, the lesson of FTX has provided the most profound user education, and the demand for asset sovereignty has reached an unprecedented high. As for the team, we are fortunate to have gathered a group of top talent who share a common belief in this mission. So now is the perfect moment to launch after accumulating deep experience.

The Birth of QuBitDEX: Assembling a Top-Tier Industry Team

Akon Red: Building a high-performance L1 public chain and a complex trading application on top of it is a massive undertaking. What kind of team is behind QuBitDEX?

KY: Great question. The creation of QuBitDEX originates from our team's unique "genes and culture." We are not a team of pure tech geeks, nor are we a team with a purely financial background, but a deep fusion of the two.

We have a profound understanding of the industry, having lived through several bull and bear cycles. This gives the exchange we're building a different growth ceiling, and the diverse genetic makeup of the QuBitDEX team provides clear-cut advantages. The exchange business model is mature and highly contested. We also emphasize a community-first culture, where users not only get a great product but can also co-create it with the team. The strength of the community is a core competitive advantage.

Regarding feasibility: We are focused on demonstrating our team's strong execution ability to achieve a market cold start with limited resources. Our experience of navigating over four industry cycles and successfully creating multiple crypto trading platforms gives us the confidence to build QuBitDEX.

The core roles of the team are structured as follows: At the technical architecture level, our Head of Technology is a highly senior 'trading matching engine system provider' in the industry. The company he founded provided the underlying trading system code for hundreds of trading platforms, including Bitget. The essence of trading is finance, and QuBitDEX's Head of Finance is a senior quantitative finance expert with over 18 years of experience. Like Wintermute, Jump, and Kronos, he is a designated liquidity market maker for well-known crypto trading platforms. Our Head of Business Development was a core shareholder and CEO of a top-ranked global centralized trading platform, leading the team from 0 to 1 and ultimately to a successful full acquisition. Every member of our team has reached the pinnacle in their past roles, but it is precisely because of this that we see the ceiling of the old paradigm so clearly.

Technical Vision: Reshaping the DEX Paradigm with ZK

Akon Red: Merging the efficiency of a CEX with the security of a DEX. This is arguably the "Holy Grail" of the industry. Could you give us a deep dive into this?

KY: You're absolutely right, it truly is the "Holy Grail." Our slogan is, "A trading experience like a centralized exchange, with the security and sovereignty of a decentralized exchange." I believe users shouldn't have to make a painful trade-off between the two. We rely on two key technologies: our self-developed L1 blockchain and Zero-Knowledge (ZK) proofs.

We have constantly been thinking about how to ensure the security of user assets while providing a silky-smooth trading experience. The team worked backward and concluded that we must build a dedicated expressway from the ground up. To find a dynamic balance between decentralization and performance, our strategy is:

1. Bootstrap the L1 with a high-frequency application: We will concentrate all resources on perfecting the perpetual contracts DEX application. Trading itself brings the most authentic users, volume, and cash flow, making it the first and most powerful engine to drive the entire ecosystem's flywheel.

2. Technologically, we avoid "reinventing the wheel": Our L1 is designed with high composability and openness. Our "Global Liquidity Network" will proactively aggregate liquidity from the entire market. Once we set the stage and get the show running, it will naturally attract more developers and users.

3. Commercially, we maintain focus: We know our resources are limited, so we will be extremely focused in the early stages. The goal of QuBitDEX is not to be a "do-everything" public chain, but one with a clear advantage in "trading performance and a real user base." By nailing this one use case perfectly, we will earn the market's trust, and success will follow naturally.

By building our own high-performance public chain, we have native support for ZK smart contracts on the L1 from day one. This allows us to significantly increase TPS and simultaneously solve two major problems of previous-generation DEX platforms:

1. Performance and Cost: High fees and interaction latency will become a thing of the past.

2. Privacy Protection: ZK also solves a deeper problem: privacy. Once the positions of high-leverage traders are public, they can become "prey" for the market. ZK technology can provide privacy protection for these trades while ensuring that every transaction is executed correctly. Vitalik and CZ are forward-thinking and have both guided the industry toward the importance of ZK. What we are doing is turning this industry consensus into a fully engineered and productized reality.

Akon Red: How will QuBitDEX stand out? What unique value will it bring to users?

KY: We have great respect for the industry pioneers. They have proven with their outstanding products that high-performance DEXs are the future of the market. QuBitDEX's goal is to build upon this foundation and provide users with higher-dimensional value. I believe the next stage of competition for DEXs will upgrade from the dimension of pure "speed" to "intelligence."

The biggest difference with QuBitDEX is that we have deeply integrated an AI engine into our architecture from day one. For users, this means we are offering not just a tool for trade execution, but a "brain" for decision support.

• On the trade execution level, our AI smart routing can help users automatically find the optimal trading path across the entire market.

• On the trade decision level, we will gradually introduce features based on AI, such as on-chain data interpretation and market anomaly warnings. Our goal is to lower the barrier for ordinary users to obtain Alpha (excess returns).

You can think of it this way: while other DEXs are still focused on helping users "trade faster," we want to help users "trade smarter." We provide not just tools, but "empowerment through AI wisdom." This is our unique value.

Akon Red: You mentioned that QuBitDEX will introduce diversified crypto assets, which is still a frontier exploration in the current crypto market. Does this mean the platform will serve a broader range of global investors?

KY: Yes, I firmly believe that the diversification of crypto assets is the bridge that connects global investors, and the trend of bringing trillions of dollars in assets on-chain is irreversible. The architecture of QuBitDEX's self-developed L1 is specifically designed to handle complex assets.

QuBitDEX's asset strategy is one of steady progress. In battle, you must prioritize stability; we don't fight unprepared battles and only act after thorough research.

Our operating philosophy is "doing the right things + doing things right." We cannot make mistakes, we don't chase small profits, and we don't look for clever tricks. We are down-to-earth and take solid, steady steps.

I believe that to create a great cryptocurrency trading platform, one must follow this principle of "long-term value orientation." This sounds very simple, but very few people actually do it. The vast majority in the industry are speculation-driven and profit-driven. As a platform, we must follow a business model that, like water, "benefits all things without competing."

RWAs (Real-World Assets), which have been much discussed recently, are an asset class we recognize and align with our value of serving a broader global investor base.

Ecosystem and Community: Points System and Long-Term Development

Akon Red: We've heard that QuBitDEX's product is already live for testing, which is undoubtedly exciting news. Can you share if it's still a good time to get involved?

KY: Yes, our product is already launching in phases! All narratives are now moving into the execution phase.

We have all witnessed how excellent industry pioneers like Uniswap, DYdX, and Hyperliquid have created immense value for their early users through well-designed airdrop programs. This is also a goal we aspire to.

Our airdrop mechanism is based on the principle of "Proof-of-Contribution," not just "Proof-of-Capital" or a "zero-sum game." From the moment we go live, all contribution activities by early participants on the platform will be recorded by the system and will serve as an important basis for future airdrop eligibility and weighting. I sincerely invite all friends to experience QuBitDEX's product and provide your valuable suggestions and feedback.