Eliran Ouzan: I was a web designer at 12, then earning money from websites aged 15
Jillian Godsil meets CryptoHub founder Eliran Ouzan – an entrepreneur who believes crypto is 10 years behind Web2.
At the start of our conversation, Eliran Ouzan makes two key observations. The first is that when he found Web3 he loved the sense of community, the real ability to be able to connect with a project and moreover react with it.
“Supporters of Web3 projects can make a real difference to the project – their voice is heard,” he points out.
“They can communicate directly with the founders and in some cases vote directly on the direction of the project. This is not possible in Web2. For example, I might think Facebook is awesome but if I hold shares (unless I hold like a lot) I am not going to have any impact on the way the company is run.”
The second observation is that while the technology is tremendous the marketing is not.
“Web3 began as a technically inspired philosophy with the emphasis on the tech. Even after 13 years and the growing momentum, the marketing is still way behind traditional Web2 companies.”
In part, that might be explaining because of the money involved, the sometimes insane amounts of money raised, created, shared and on occasion dumped. Access to vast money can make people lazy. They can seize on one or two core ideas – the original idea on the back of a beer mat – and use that to excite the community, raise money and then try and figure out how to spend it.
It’s akin to the One Coin Ponzi scheme that still rumbles on in parts of the world despite its widespread discreditation, the disappearance of the founder with arrest warrants on her head, and the popularity of the BBC podcast covering the rise and fall of Ruja Ignatova, otherwise branded the Crypto Queen. The author of the podcast Jamie Barlett confessed that the podcast’s popularity had even encouraged a new rise of the scam. It beggars belief except that the core of One Coin is the same as Bitcoin, but without the money – the belief in financial security for all.
So, Ouzan’s observations are quite accurate. He feels that crypto’s time has come but it needs a hand with genuine marketing and that is where he comes in. In fact, his timing is impeccable with the summer of centralised crashes, rug pulls and bad actors. If the data is not there, then people can rug-pull. Bring in data and people can make informed decisions.
To give some background, Ouzan took to computers early on as a 12-year-old where he started out as a web designer. By the age of 15 he was doing freelance work and had two successful websites that generated him significant passive income.
“It didn’t turn me into Lambo man,” he says in a reference to the one thing crypto bros supposedly buy once they have secured their first half million. “I reinvested the money back into my business.
“I focused on learning internet marketing, SEO and PPC and some coding. I even worked for Google for a year, remotely mostly.”
He was just 23 years old when he founded Moonshot, a marketing affiliate company. It now employs hundreds of employees in Israel and abroad, generating millions of dollars in revenue every year. His next biggest success was to found Exon media which today stands as the biggest affiliate company for Amazon. His success can be founded on the twin principles of algorithms and big data. If it can be measured, then it can be understood.
Next stop crypto. When Ouzan makes a decision, he puts his passion behind it. He began crypto trading with a close friend Shlomi Bazel, who is also the CTO of Coinscan, a CryptoHub company. He spent 12 hours a day working on his trades.
“But I soon began to see that crypto is about ten years behind Web2 in terms of data, access to accurate data and good marketing. Retail users trading crypto were not getting access to good data, despite the open transparent vision of this sector.”
Ouzan reverts back now to the community aspect that initially attracted him to the sector.
“In crypto when you buy a token you become part of a community. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people are attracted to a token but it’s not just for money – they do everything in their power to promote the project. But to help (both the project and yourself) you need accurate data and that’s where the idea of Coinscan came from.”
Coinscan is the first company of CryptoHub and is a very fast, secure charting platform. Ouzan bootstrapped the company so far to the tune of $7 million mostly spent on hiring the top developers. He’s not in a rush but he is looking for other investors who can bring something other than just money to the table.
What sets Coinscan apart from other charting websites that display the prices of tokens is first of all its speed. Coinscan gathers transactional data directly from the memepool making it the only website to show pending transactions in real time as well as developer transactions. It currently delivers data on ERC 20 tokens but will cover all tokens in time.
“And we show all the changes and analytics in real time. We can even connect the social platforms of each token for example connecting every Telegram channel for each token, gathering real time feeds to the website.”
What this delivers is a comprehensive view of all transactions including any possibly suspicious activity by the developers or owners of the token contract. Aside from tackling possibly malicious behaviour, it covers all the data needed by newbies and experienced traders in one screen in a user-friendly fashion.
“We want to provide all relevant data on one platform but also explain the meaning behind the data so that newbies can make sense of what they are watching. When I was trading I had between seven or eight screens open at the same time – with Coinscan it’s all there on the one screen.”
Ouzan’s vision is to combine his Web2 marketing, most specifically in SEO and PPC, into Web3.
“People are relying on influencers shilling projects rather than data. We want to give them data – fast, accurate and easy to understand data.”
Back to the investor question and Ouzan’s preference is for a hands-on, crypto investor who can bring more than just investment to the table. Second up would be a fintech fund and while he would not refuse money from a non techie fund, he’s not in a mad hurry to take it either.
Coinscan is live now but Ouzan had not pushed it. It attracts about 100,000 visitors a month through organic traffic.
“I’m waiting until I’m 100% happy with the site before we push the marketing button. The crypto market conditions also advise caution.”
History can only guide us but it’s most likely that when Ouzan pushes the button we’ll all know about it. In the interim, you can visit the site – coinscan.com – or you can reach Ouzan directly on Telegram at his nickname @Snopel.