It might sound like a fictional story from a cartoon or drama, but it is actually a true tale. Just five years ago, there was an engineering student who was still trying to determine what to do with his life. However, he eventually became one of the most successful individuals in the global blockchain market.
Nowadays, financial giants such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group and Moody’s are eager to collaborate with him. Moreover, his social media updates are followed daily by hundreds of thousands of investors all over the world.
Ju Ki-Young, who was born in 1992, serves as the CEO of CryptoQuant, a blockchain data analytics company that has gained rapid prominence. He first rose to prominence in May 2022 by being the first to identify irregularities leading up to the Terra-Luna crash.
Just six months later, he accurately foresaw the potential bankruptcy of FTX, the world’s third-largest coin exchange. His accurate predictions, based on on-chain data technology, have transformed investments in the volatile cryptocurrency market, leading to the rapid growth of his company.
CryptoQuant was founded in April 2019 by alumni of Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), which is one of the top universities in S. Korea. The company offers services that collect vast amounts of data and provide insights through computer algorithms.
When Ju established CryptoQuant, the cryptocurrency market was rife with speculation and unregulated information. Ju envisioned that CryptoQuant’s analytical technology would be indispensable for governments and financial authorities, particularly in tracking cyber financial crimes.
In fact, in 2019, CryptoQuant made a significant contribution to the investigation of the so-called ‘Nth Room Case’, a sexual exploitation scandal on Telegram led by Cho Ju-bin and others. At the time, Cho and his associates were paid in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which CryptoQuant was able to track and provide to police as transactions were made from e-wallets.
Ju predicts that Bitcoin’s price will rise in 2024. The recent surge in Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies, driven by expectations of a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) approval in Jan. 2024, has created a sense of optimism.
However, Ju remains cautious about the impact of a Bitcoin ETF, given the unpredictability of such developments. He explained that the effect of the ETF launch cannot be determined by objective data and numbers. Nonetheless, he is confident that the price of Bitcoin will be higher in a year’s time due to the declining supply and rising mining costs.
Ju stated, “It currently costs $18,900 to mine one bitcoin, but by the time the halving occurs, the cost will have doubled to $37,000.” He further explained that as the supply price of new bitcoins increases, the price of existing bitcoins, which have become scarce, will also experience strong upward pressure.
