Alex Liu is the cofounder of MaiCoin, Taiwan’s largest digital asset trading group. His systems-level perspective on the cryptocurrency industry is shaped by years spent operating within the financial ecosystems across the Pacific.

Before founding MaiCoin in 2013, Liu held engineering and marketing roles at Hitachi, Samsung, Siemens, Atheros, and Qualcomm, living and working across Silicon Valley, South Korea, and China. The experience gave him early exposure to how technology platforms scale — and how they evolve across different regulatory environments.

At MaiCoin, Liu was early to identify an opportunity to build cryptocurrency trading platforms and blockchain-based financial infrastructure across Chinese-speaking markets. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University, where he was a Mayfield Fellow. Outside his professional work, Liu maintains a strong interest in economic and geopolitical issues and is a committed triathlete — a pursuit he says reflects the patience and endurance the industry demands.

TOPICS Associate Editor Alex Myslinski met with Liu in late January to discuss the state of play for digital assets in Taiwan, what it means to maintain trust in a volatile industry, and how global instability shapes long-term strategy. An abridged version of their conversation follows.

What lead you to cofound MaiCoin?

Two major events occurred after I graduated from Stanford in 2002, which disrupted my image of a comfortable life and solidified my worldview. The first was the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. I remember thinking during my walk home from work that night a bad omen for the world order had appeared of a future where global superpowers like Russia and China would be unburdened by any rules operating outside of their self interest.

The second event in 2008, which also marked my departure from the U.S., was the financial crisis. Coincidentally, the crisis led to the birth of Bitcoin, which years later I found myself reading the source code of — about 30,000 lines.

It clicked in me that the world was much more chaotic than I had considered. At the same time, the world was much more distributed and more fair. The release of Bitcoin’s source code by its group of anonymous developers embodied that sense of anything goes and anyone can participate.

That introduction to decentralization is where MaiCoin could trace its roots.

Crypto companies globally have at times struggled to balance innovation with tightening regulations after several high-profile failures. In Taiwan, where authorities are moving toward stricter oversight, does staying closely aligned with regulators help — or create new risks?

Close alignment absolutely helps, but it requires caution. Becoming too closely aligned with regulators risks regulatory capture — a situation where firms become so focused on satisfying regulators that innovation and customer outcomes suffer. When institutions grow overly beholden to regulators, priorities can shift from delivering strong services to simply avoiding regulatory scrutiny. At MaiCoin, we work to maintain a balance between regulatory compliance, innovation, and customer outcomes. These three elements can coexist.

Investors increasingly compare crypto’s trajectory to AI’s rapid adoption cycle. Is crypto experiencing the same kind of exponential growth as AI?

Most major technological shifts happen slowly at first and then all at once. The internet began as a small Defense Department network in the 1970s before taking off in the mid-1990s with the rise of the commercial web. That two-decade transition now feels distant compared with the current pace of change, which can seem to accelerate almost overnight.

Crypto feels similar. It has been around for just over 10 years and has gone through cycles of hype, scandals, and skepticism. But we’ve reached a stage where its basic validity is no longer the central debate.

You can see that also in the space of stablecoins — digital tokens designed to maintain a fixed value, typically pegged to a currency — where the real dispute is no longer about usefulness, but about who captures the economic upside. When incumbents start negotiating over revenue rather than legitimacy, it signals that a technology is entering the mainstream.

What does that look like in Taiwan right now?

Taiwan is entering a comparable phase. The last decade focused on whether Bitcoin was a fraud or an environmental liability for Taiwanese society. Now the questions are more practical. For example, whether Taiwan should develop a stablecoin that’s tied to the Taiwan dollar, how digital tokens — blockchain-based units representing currencies or assets — should be regulated, and what this means for existing financial intermediaries such as banks, brokers, and payment providers.

As these systems mature, they begin to challenge established fee structures and business models. That can benefit consumers through lower costs and greater efficiency but disrupts incumbents. Progress often comes down to that trade-off.

Crypto here isn’t following the same visible exponential curve as AI. It’s more of a long diffusion process punctuated by bursts of rapid change — and we’re likely entering one of those bursts now.

What does a healthy, deeply integrated blockchain ecosystem look like?

It should be almost invisible. If something is deeply integrated, you shouldn’t have to understand the underlying mechanics.

When you use the internet, you don’t think about TCP/IP or server architecture — it just works. The same should be true about crypto. A healthy ecosystem means people can transact, store value, or transfer funds without worrying about technical hurdles like managing digital access keys, paying blockchain transaction fees, or deciding who safeguards assets.

User experience is critical to this process. If the process feels complicated, confusing, or risky — especially if people worry about losing money by making a mistake — they won’t adopt it.

True integration happens when a technology becomes part of the financial plumbing. It no longer announces itself or requires evangelism — it simply delivers greater efficiency, transparency, or lowers costs.

In that sense, success can be defined as the moment people start using it without necessarily thinking of it as crypto at all.

What makes Taiwan particularly interesting for this kind of infrastructure?

Taiwan has a strong technology base — the engineers are world-class, and the semiconductor industry is globally competitive — so there’s no shortage of technical capability.

At the same time, Taiwan is small enough that regulatory discussions can move relatively quickly. You can actually have direct conversations with policymakers.

In terms of decentralized finance (DeFi), the conversation tends to be more pragmatic and less ideological here. In some places decentralized finance is framed as a rebellion against traditional finance. In Taiwan it’s more about how new systems fit within the existing framework.

People are open to innovation but wary of instability. Taiwan sits somewhere in between the U.S., where the debate can be polarized, and China, where the regulatory environment is very different. That combination creates room to experiment — but with guardrails.

With crypto markets heavily influenced by global capital flows and U.S. monetary policy, how does geopolitical instability factor into MaiCoin’s strategy in Taiwan?

If the U.S. pulls back or becomes distracted — by a prolonged conflict elsewhere, for example — the effects ripple outward. Even domestic turmoil in a major power rarely remains contained, influencing markets, alliances, and global investor confidence. The consequences of that kind of instability can take years, even decades, to play out, eventually surfacing in unpredictable ways if governments fail to address the issue.

Our focus is not on trying to predict every geopolitical development. It’s on avoiding the kinds of structural weaknesses that make financial systems vulnerable during crises and operating responsibly within our sphere of influence.

Why might there be resistance to blockchain technology and DeFi?

Blockchain systems promise lower fees and more transparency, and some traditional financial players could see their business models challenged. If you benefit disproportionately from the existing system, there’s little incentive to change it.

Blockchain systems function more like public infrastructure, built on open access and shared benefit, but also shared accountability — and not everyone wants that. Some incumbents have built business models around opacity or high margins, and a more transparent or lower-cost system can feel threatening.

That kind of resistance is natural. It doesn’t necessarily mean bad faith — sometimes the incentives just don’t line up. There’s also comfort in the status quo.

Is there room for these systems to evolve in ways that undermine their original intent?

There’s always a risk — that’s true of any open system. Decentralization doesn’t automatically guarantee democracy. It equally depends on participation, transparency, and incentives.

If governance tokens — digital voting rights that allow holders to influence how a platform operates — concentrate in a few hands, you can end up with something that looks decentralized but isn’t. This situation touches on how bad actors transform in developing financial systems. Crypto doesn’t create or inflate that risk — it just makes certain activities faster or more visible. The outcome ultimately depends on governance design and whether participants stay engaged.

How does being a triathlete shape your approach to work?

Endurance sports teach you patience. You don’t win a triathlon in the first mile — it comes down to pacing and avoiding burnout. That mindset carries over into how I think about building a company. We’re not trying to maximize short-term gains at the expense of long-term viability.

The same discipline applies in both contexts. If you cut corners in training, you might see short-term improvement, but eventually you pay for it. The same is true in business.

Continuity is about showing up consistently — not just when markets are strong. In crypto, there are bull markets where everyone looks like a genius and downturns where it’s tempting to retreat. Endurance means staying committed through both.

For MaiCoin, that has meant focusing on endurance and resilience even when chasing rapid expansion appears to be leaving us in the dust. The goal isn’t to sprint — it’s to build something that lasts.

Mirroring our objective to build an organization that can withstand cycles and continue operating long after its founders, we are the title sponsor for the international IRONMAN triathlon in Kenting. We want to enrich the community around triathletes, experienced ones and beginners, to help prepare them to break their personal bests.

What else influences your approach to leadership?

I try to create an environment where people feel that they have ownership. If everything depends on one person, that’s not a resilient organization.

For me, leadership is about setting direction and then trusting people to execute within that framework. In a fast-moving industry like crypto, teams need to be able to make decisions without waiting for permission every small step of the way.

At the same time, there has to be clarity around values and boundaries. Just because something is technically possible doesn’t mean it’s strategically wise.

Markets fluctuate. Narratives change. What shouldn’t change is how you treat customers and employees, and how you manage risk. If you maintain that consistency, the organization can outlast individual cycles.

Is there anything aside from sports that helps you decompress?

I read quite a bit — mostly history and economics. Zooming out to look at different eras and crises reminds me that volatility isn’t new — it just feels overwhelming when you’re living through it.

I also spend time with family. That’s grounding. It’s a reminder that markets and systems matter, but they’re not everything.

For me, decompression is less about escaping and more about perspective. If you maintain perspective, you make better decisions. If you lose it, you start reacting to noise.