Kryptografen took a trip to Fornebu, outside Oslo, where the Norwegian Block Exchange (NBX) headquarters are located. The company has worked quietly and under the radar for some time, but is currently in the process of opening its trading platform to the general public. In other words; They are bout to roll out a new Norwegian “Fiat to Crypto” trading platform.
Killer App
Managing Director Stig Kjos-Mathisen and Director of Product and Business Development Øyvind Pedersen Jr. are unanimous in why they are now launching the new Norwegian crypto exchange:
– Our “killer app” is to make it easy and safe to buy cryptocurrencies, with a quick transfer from a regular bank account. Norwegians lack a serious market player that allows them to trade the largest crypto products with Norwegian kroner. We have invested significantly in building a platform where safety and compliance are taken care of.
The situation today is that the market for cryptocurrency in Norway and the rest of the Nordic region goes through small local resellers or large foreign institutions. There has not yet been a market-leading ”Fiat On-Ramp” service in the Nordic countries, where you can, for example, transfer money from Norwegian bank to Norwegian bank with immediate settlement.
Other Ambitions
NBX has built a crypto exchange from scratch, and it is now open to test users on their first product in the market. Yet, NBX has ambitions beyond this.
Director of Product and Business Development Øyvind Pedersen Jr. says that since the crypto market is new and immature, they have to ensure good basic services that will win over consumers.
– We also see global payments and basic financial products as very exciting. Basic financial services such as savings, staking and decentralized financial products (DeFi) are applications that will lead to significant adoption of crypto and blockchain technology if done correctly.
According to Øyvind Pedersen Jr, there are also great opportunities in trade, especially in payments:
– There will be significant savings for the trade and services industry by switching to payments and settlements using blockchain technology as an infrastructure. This does not mean that you only have to use Bitcoin or Ether as a means of payment, but traditional currency is also possible. The only difference is that these are funds where the value is locked against traditional currency even if blockchain infrastructure is used. For the end user, it will be experienced as the same or even better given a good user experience.
Collaboration with the airline Norwegian
NBX has a close cooperation with the airline, Norwegian. Norwegian has over 40 million travelers a year.
– We have good customer insight and distribution. This allows us to market our service to relevant customers. Specifically, we will use Norwegian Rewards’ CashPoints system to reward users of the trading platform.
Customers of the airline Norwegian earn CashPoints when they buy flights, book hotels and rent cars or use Bank Norwegian’s debit card. In the future, they can fill up CashPoints by trading on the Norwegian Block Exchange.
– If you trade a lot and often on NBX you can earn CashPoints for flights and other goods. We do this to ensure good liquidity at an early stage, tells Pedersen.
Closed Beta and Trading Competition
NBX opens its platform for the first pool of beta testers during the time of this articles publishing. These users are given a certain amount of play money, in the form of BTC, ETH and USDC. To stimulate active use in the beginning, and NBX gets the platform tested properly, they are giving away flights as prizes in a trading competition. There is no cost to attend, but users are encouraged to report bugs and deficiencies.
The trading competition is divided into three different categories: The user with the best return, the user with the most trades and the user best feedback on mistakes and shortcomings. The prizes include trips to New York with Norwegian Holidays.
(https://nbx.com/login/signup, you can learn more and sign up by clicking this link)
Must Expand Quickly
NBX opens up its first market in Norway, but they plan on reaching other Nordic countries, then eventually global.
– We will go out of beta and open up to full functionality as soon as we feel comfortable and open up to the market internationally, Pedersen concludes.