Safles CEO Abhimanyu Kashyap on Creating Frictionless Experiences
Safles CEO, Abhimanyu Kashyap explains the company's benefits for crypto users and developers.
According to recent statistics, cryptocurrencies are being bought, sold and traded in 2021 at an astonishing rate.
Research shows that in Q1 of 2021 a total of 367,536 transactions were conducted in Bitcoin alone, while forecasts determine that the global blockchain market will go up to $23.3 billion by 2023.
From this data, it is clear that cryptocurrency and blockchains will become an integral part of our society as we approach the latter part of this decade, and that mass adoption is seemingly inevitable.
The blockchain has inspired a revolution in data storage and data sharing philosophies. And from here this can only lead to new and more advanced technology for the management of our wallets, keys and heightened security protocols.
A user engaging with a variety of cryptos now needs to have different Web3 accounts in order to access decentralised applications across multiple networks.
Further, in order to store many assets users need to remember many keys. One protocol, Safle has come up with a one stop solution for storing, managing and transferring assets on multiple blockchains.
It makes the process of bridging native assets across multiple chains simpler. For example, bridging the Ethereum chain to Polygon, whereby you can conduct your ETH native tokens on Matic, which proves to be around 10000x cheaper, and also much faster, than transferring ETH across Ethereum Network.
Attracting users and mass adoption are major inhibitors for any blockchain project. Safle seems to address exactly these challenges and therefore making it simpler for users to use Dapps across Web3.
We spoke to Safles CEO, Abhimanyu Kashyap, one of the earliest adopters of the blockchain, to understand the evolving needs of a user as we head into 2022.
Hi Abhimanyu, can you tell us a bit about your background and what led you onto the blockchain？
As a self taught technologist I spent my early years studying and learning Blockchain. While pursuing Msc in Nottingham, I got introduced to Bitcoin and became an early RAM miner in Oct 2011 and supported SlushPool till late 2012.
After getting a Masters in Communications from Nottingham, I went on to build and market the fastest loan engine (Moneyloji) in India, and am now focusing my energies in building infra. tools for the decentralised modern web.
The tech stack was built with just one dream, to streamline the crypto sphere. I believe people should get back whats rightfully theirs – Data, Wealth, Privacy and Security.
I have been building communities for nurturing adoption of blockchain technology in and around the Indian subcontinent since 2016.
Since the inception of bitcoin and crypto exchanges, there have been many cases where the exchange has been compromised and users lost their funds. In order to move ahead with the decentralised finance space, Ethereum and other smart contract supportive blockchains, have created such diverse solutions for automated market making and other money market protocols, in order to reduce the threat to users funds with custodians.
Safle started with the vision to give the right of funds, identity and developer tools to the ones wanting to move to blockchain without any further compromises.
What features does the Safle wallet contain for identity and key management？
Safle is a multi blockchain, non-custodial wallet that puts it ahead of most of its competitors. SafleID is a self sovereign identity infrastructure that allows one human readable name for resolving public addresses of multiple blockchains.
SafleID users can then generate as many wallets inside the Safle vault.
The wallet as i mentioned is non custodial, so the key security majorly sits on the users device, rather than with us.
However, Safle has also built a secure key management mechanism called Safle Vault which has 6 layers of encryption to contain the keys no matter which platform the user is on.
The vault uses a native keyring based mechanism which generates keys using the same HD path and is encrypted using a PIN which is not stored anywhere, it just stores the hash to match checksum at the time of decryption.
The PIN encrypted vault is then securitised using the users password which encrypts the PIN encrypted vault on the client.
Further, on the mobile app this PIN is also stored via biometric authentication which makes it easier for users to use the signing mechanism. On top of that, there are proper internal audits in place for the entire system.
Infrastructure is deployed on VLANs to maintain security. We are undergoing external audits and will publish reports as they are out. We believe in building in public, and we abide by the ethos of open source development.
How about your token, what rights does it bestow upon the user？
There are multiple utilities where $SAFLE can be used for Porting SafleID, paying transaction fees, developer tooling services like onboarding users (keyless), node infrastructure and API requests.
It can also be used as a governance token which will be used as 1-1 voting stake in the Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO) governing, regulating and progressing the entire Safle ecosystem.
Voters can make decisions on SafleID, Safle Vault, Safle Keyless and Safle DAO.
You recently had a successful funding round, can you enlighten us about that？
Safle raised seed round funding from Draper Dragon Fund, Woodstock Fund, JD Kanani and Sandeep Nailwal (founders of Polygon/MATIC) and other prominent investors in the blockchain space.
The highly distributed seed round is in advance of Safles soon-to-be-launched $SAFLE token, a multi-utility governance token for the Safle ecosystem.
The seed raise will facilitate Safles vision of creating frictionless experiences for users and developers aiming to access and build within the decentralized ecosystem.
The Safle user touchpoint will encompass a web application, browser extension and phone application, paving way for the retail users and developers in the ecosystem to engage and interact with the world of crypto and blockchains like never before.
What do you have in the pipeline for Safle？
In the immediate future (Q4 2021), Safle is launching its multi-utility governance token and a multi-chain browser extension wallet and new version for the web application.
Lots of exciting things in the pipeline that I wish I could reveal right now!
We are building on multiple blockchains at the same time, developing wallet and nodee infrastructure from ground up with the support of strategic partners from Ethereum, Matic, Harmony, Avalanche, Tezos, Cosmos, Velas, Solana and other blockchains supporting smart contract frameworks.
Final Word
As the crypto industry evolves at a blistering pace, new technologies must be developed to support this industry, from security, to enhanced functionality, to making the users experience smoother and more seamless.
Safle is one such product developed to enhance the user experience, and undoubtedly we will say many more over the coming year.
