MyEtherWallet CEO talks about the future of crypto self-custody
In the third episode of Hashing It Out podcast series, Cointelegraph’s Elisha Owusu Akyaw discusses the future of noncustodial cryptocurrency wallets with Kosala Hemachandra, CEO of MyEtherWallet.
Recent issues with centralized platforms have put the spotlight on decentralized applications (DApps), and self-custody — where users keep their funds completely under their responsibility — has become a major trend.
MyEtherWallet is one of the oldest noncustodial wallets with a focus on the Ethereum blockchain. According to Kosala Hemachandra, the wallet went live just two weeks after the Ethereum mainnet launch. The CEO of MyEtherWallet explains that they chose to make a decentralized wallet because they believed it was the only proper way to interact with blockchain technology.
Hemachandra explains that MyEtherWallet started as a hobby project, which became more demanding since there were no examples to look at during its development. The developer had to write new Ethereum libraries in javascript.
The need to build a foundation of codebases that could accelerate growth in the Ethereum landscape was the reason why the team opted to make the code open source. What’s more, the open-source nature of the code allows the platform to have more eyes on its codebase to prevent potential vulnerabilities.
Despite growing competition, MyEtherWallet has over 3 million monthly users who are mainly from the United States and Japan. To catch up with the likes of MetaMask, the decentralized wallet is adding support for more blockchain networks and recently launched a multichain browser extension. Hemachandra also pointed out that the first two weeks after the FTX saga brought in many new users looking for decentralized alternatives to store
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