This screenplay describes an entrepreneur, who has successfully donned various roles since the very beginning of his career. Abhishek Gopal is a salesman, a visionary, an innovator, and a solutions-man amongst his peers with an innate skill to deconstruct and overcome challenges with ridiculous ease. He leads a young, versatille team of crypto-hustlers at ThroughBit, along with co-founders and industry powerhouses Mohamed Roshan and Anandaprabhu Rajendran.
In 2009, a 22 year old Abhishek co-founded an advertising agency with a few of his friends with the aim of indulging in content creation and ended-up pivoting to sell ad-space for various publications before calling it quits. “Being happy failing early”, he took what he learnt realizing his potential to bring more value, and began toiling to realize his entrepreneurial aspirations. Abhishek’s varied career included co-founding 3 more startups, and notable stints at a Genset OEM, Radio Mirchi, and a cryptocurrency exchange. In March of 2016, Abhishek co-founded India’s first multi-currency cryptocurrency exchange, ThroughBit.
ThroughBit, based out of Bangalore was launched on the heels of a last-minute pivot to meet the evolving market demands. Soon after the launch significant ancillary service providers were forced to terminate their services to the industry. A few months later, financial services were barred from offering their services to cryptocurrency related entities. Combined with the ambiguity surrounding domestic regulations Abhishek has steered ThroughBit through its latest pivot, this time in their modus operandi.To overcome their reliance on banking services, ThroughBit, an OTC exchange up until now is set to launch its global crypto-crypto orderbook exchange. “We set out with a vision to build a suite of viable solutions leveraging on Blockchain technology. Cryptocurrencies are the point-of-entry for the layperson into the industry and we believe there is still a lot of work to be done to streamline that avenue before we can set out to fulfill our vision. Building on our experience with the OTC, we have decided to step into the global markets with a revamped ThroughBit”, says Abhishek.
Coming from the school of thought that puts hard work and hustle as paramount, he says, “At ThroughBit, we have always spoken about how the motivation to work is work itself. Showing up every day is the fundamental action to set yourself up for success.” Speaking about the cryptocurrency & Blockchain domain, and his role as a part of the executive team at ThroughBit, Abhishek says, “It is exciting to be a part of an industry that is undergoing micro-innovations at an alarmingly fast pace. Decisions made by every stakeholder in the system have a cascading effect that is felt across the entire ecosystem and that is exciting and motivates me. I love the decision making authority the job comes with- handling challenges in an industry with no precedence and contributing to shaping the industry itself.”
ThroughBit has managed to hold its own in a tumultuous market, as a bootstrapped startup. “We had a fantastic run with our OTC platform, and are grateful for the feedback we have received from users. We have taken the position that we would like to focus on organic growth and not skimp on the value-proposition that we can offer to every individual entering the ThroughBit ecosystem. As you can imagine, this means we are leaving a lot of money on the table but it leaves us in pole position to continue to deliver at the highest standards. The industry is void of regulations and our organic growth allows us to be flexible and cope with regulatory concerns and market movements to ensure our users are well taken care of.”, says Abhishek.
Under the leadership’s guidance, and sheer determination and exemplary expertise of the team, the company has come a long way growing from two to seventeen employees, as of today. He believes that there isn’t enough weight behind the industry, “Most of the tall voices in the industry are those of people that have gained prominence because of the industry itself – the ones that have built up indisputable reputation in other industries have only been lying on the fringe.” To add to this, there aren’t many cryptocurrency or Blockchain-based products for consumers to use. It’s a matter of time before all of these happen and ThroughBit intends to be at the helm of it.
“For the next few months, we are just putting our heads down and going about our jobs. We are testing out our feature-rich crypto-crypto order book exchange offering over 100 trading pairs and are excited to be expanding to new markets. We expect to do a public demo towards the end of February 2019.
Source :-The 30 Young and Dynamic Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2019
Abhishek Gopal: Captaining the Digital Currency A-Team
