Q&A with Crypto-Economy advisor Oleg Belousov
Oleg Belousov is BitDegree’s crypto-economy advisor and the founder of Nexchange.io, an online cryptocurrency exchange.
An advocate of online learning, self-taught programmer Oleg believes that BitDegree’s revolutionary approach to education will primarily address the current issue of a general lack of comprehensive online education courses.
He will be using his knowledge as a programmer, his interest in cryptocurrency economics, plus his experience as a recruiter to tailor the course, which he hopes will unite cryptocurrency users and BitDegree students.
Read on to discover Oleg’s plans for the BitDegree smart contract course, the recruitment issues BitDegree can solve, and future collaborations between BitDegree and Nexchange.
Why did you decide to join BitDegree as Cryptocurrency Advisor?
I joined BitDegree for three reasons. Firstly, when I was teaching myself to be a programmer using online courses, I noticed that there was a general lack of quality online education. Whilst there has been a massive improvement in this type of educational content since my student years, online education is not yet at the point where it can replace a physical classroom. It should be, and I believe BitDegree can push things far enough to achieve this.
Secondly, I have experience as a hiring manager for startups. I was exposed to the fact that university graduates who come fresh into the I.T. and tech job market from their studies do not have the right qualifications to do the job, and it will take their employer a year or more to train them with the right skills to do the job. I believe that BitDegree’s approach will make the recruitment process more efficient, and much cheaper.
Thirdly, BitDegree cuts out the need to use recruitment agencies. In my experience, they are relatively expensive and not always effective.
By using blockchain, BitDegree cuts out these intermediaries and allows employers to connect directly with students/potential employees. In fact, previous companies who have used this approach in different areas are long-time unicorns such as eBay, AirBnB, and Uber.
In short, I joined BitDegree because changes everything in terms of what it teaches, how students learn, and how I.T. and tech companies recruit.
How will your experience of founding Nexchange.io benefit BitDegree?
Nexchange is a platform for exchanging cryptocurrencies, and BitDegree is a cryptography-based liquid asset. The smart contract course we are developing with BitDegree is about using the ethereum currency (ether/ETH) to create smart contracts. The course will allow students to become investors and investors to become students. This approach will be mutually beneficial to all, because it will allow Nexchange and BitDegree to exchange users.
Nexchange believes that the right way to encourage the use of cryptocurrencies is through education, and I think there is no better way than having them as an asset people can use to make money from or trade with. BitDegree with its token-based reward system does this, and it is a very exciting approach for users.
Whilst BitDegree and Nexchange operate at different ends of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, I actually believe that what we do is very closely aligned. In addition to having Nexchange users as BitDegree students, and BitDegree students as Nexchange users, we can also transfer knowledge between our two parties.
You are the creator of BitDegree’s upcoming Smart Contract course: what can we expect from it?
The smart contract course we are developing with BitDegree will attract two types of users:
The first is the user who trades cryptocurrencies and invests in token sales, and is curious about learning more about how things learn under the hood, while those users reach BitDegree mainly in their pursuit for ROI, they can know enjoy the added value of learning how things really work, and that is quite exciting!
The second is the person who came to BitDegree for education purposes. However, after taking our comprehensive Smart Contract Development course, they might actually gain enough confidence to participate in the ecosystem in an economic sense. I find this possible consequence extremely favorable for BitDegree and the whole ecosystem alike.
I believe that it provides exceptional educational value through quality course content, and serves as a great entry point to our financial and educational ecosystem.
What sparked your interest in cryptocurrencies?
For me, cryptocurrencies represent freedom, and this freedom is achieved by using two rules: firstly, compensation is given exclusively through value creation, whether that be mining, staking, or any other way. Second, ownership of the cryptocurrency is established cryptographically, and is not disputable.
Meanwhile, traditional civil and financial systems rely mostly on personal networks, institutions and many other subjective factors which are prone to bias and manipulation. In my opinion, the future lies in making all of these proof-of-fact based via cryptography.
I believe that cryptocurrencies are where business and science meet. This is because in the crypto world, what you claim to be true needs to be backed up by facts. Facts cannot be argued, and they cannot be changed.
Cryptocurrencies are a peer-to-peer system, which means they remove the middleman from any transaction. This can be applied to many other areas of the financial and banking sectors, as well as I.T. and tech, and even governments.
How do you see cryptocurrencies being used in educational platforms over the next decade?
Since cryptocurrencies have no middleman, they can save individuals vast sums of money. Just look at what Uber and AirBnB have achieved for society! There have been millions of dollars saved by removing the intermediary, and I am certain that this economic model can be applied to education in the future. It is happening now with BitDegree!
Do you see cryptocurrencies becoming strong and viable alternatives to FIAT currencies in the future?
Yes, of course! If we look through history, there is a technical revolution of some sort every couple of hundred years.
The very much canonical values that society believes in change, and I believe — in terms of economics and finance — this next wave of change will come sooner than we think in the form of mass cryptocurrency and blockchain adoption.
How do you see the future between Nexchange and BitDegree developing?
First of all, we believe in BitDegree’s ambition to revolutionize education, and Nexchange will be the first exchange to list BitDegree tokens (BDG). With that said, I am certain that Nexchange and BitDegree will not be limited to one sphere of business-collaboration. As Nexchange grows, the need to recruit new talent emerges, and I see no better long-term way of securing access to a unique talent pool than the solution offered by BitDegree. I would much rather invest my money in education than in the hands of a recruitment agency, and I believe that many industry giants share the same preference.
Nexchange is not just a cryptocurrency exchange. It is also an ecosystem, and a one-stop crypto shop. We try to keep things centralized and to a minimum. We also have a mining pool, offer merging solutions, and provide white labelling. In the future, we are looking to become the first able broker in the cryptocurrency field.
In Q4 2017, Electronic Arts co-founder, Jeff Burton, the founder of the revolutionary Steve JobsSchool, Maurice de Hond, Stanford PhD and gamification expert, Dr. James K. Scarborough, plus former Coursera senior manager, Roberto Santana, joined the BitDegree advisory board.
Further advisors with experience in international technology, business, and education who have joined BitDegree will be announced in due course.
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