⚡ Why Ledger's Update Is Concerning, Web3's Bloomberg Terminal, and more!
Discover the latest and greatest Crypto & Web3 Tools
💡 Intro
As the biggest hardware wallet by usage, Ledger’s launch of “Ledger Recover” today has major impact for both Ledger and non Ledger users.
A more detailed breakdown of the products is below in our Products section, but here’s an explanation of why so many people are angry:
The Quick Facts You Should Know
Ledger just launched “Ledger Recovery”, which allows you to split your seed phrase into encrypted key parts (only if you opt in).
Those parts are sent to Ledger (the company) and trusted “parties” that you designate. You also need to KYC with Ledger.
Then: in case a recovery is needed, Ledger verifies you using your KYC and takes the encrypted key parts from the designated parties, thus reforming your seedphrase.
👉 That means your seedphrase can be reconstructed by outside parties.
Why Is This a Problem
People expect Ledger / hardware wallets to not have access to their seedphrase. That’s the reason many people bought Ledgers in the first place.
The CEO of Binance sums it up:
Should You Be Worried
In our opinion: yes.
From the tech side: you *most likely* would not have to worry about the feature being backdoored / abused, if you don’t opt into it. But as we all know, “most likely” is not good enough when we’re talking about crypto security.
In general: this signifies a pivot from Ledger’s long standing “your credentials are safe with us and will never be exported” to “we’re building features that export your secrets”.
Will they add more features like this and around KYC? Likely.
Also remember that Ledger is HQ’d in France and this just passed today:
What Are The Benefits
The tradeoff for security is convenience. Seedphrases and credentials are a major blocker to crypto adoption, as they’re hard for people to manage.
For the general public, many of whom don’t interact with crypto right now: this feature provides way more good than harm (think of how many people will forget their seedphrase, likely tons).
Why Is Ledger Doing This
Ledger raised $108M in late March and needs to court this demographic into being users (the service is ~10 dollars a month).
For them to justify their valuation, they need growth in general of users, hence features like this.
In our opinion: this is a great feature that will do more good than harm for many crypto users! And it’ll help grow the crypto market overall.
We just wish Ledger didn’t require this as a firmware update passed along to both users who opted in and those who didn’t opt in.
People who value security > convience should not be pushed into making the opposite tradeoff. And the firmware update being passed to both groups of users does this.
Super League / $23.8M — Super League Gaming (Nasdaq: SLGG), a prominent metaverse gaming platform publisher, successfully completed two private financings, raising a total of around $23.8 million between November 2022 and May 2023. — NFTgators
Soluna Computing / $14M — Soluna Computing, a prominent green data center developer, has secured a $14 million investment partnership with Navitas Global for its Project Dorothy 1B data center in Texas. The agreement comprises a $2M loan to finalize construction and a $12 million equity investment. — CoinDesk
Lifeform / Undisclosed — Lifeform, a virtual avatar application ecosystem, recently concluded its B round of financing, spearheaded by IDG Capital, resulting in an approximate valuation of $300 million. — Tweet
Getaverse / Undisclosed — YBB has invested in Getaverse, a blockchain credit system, to support the expansion of its DID platform. — Tweet
CryptoHub / $6M —CryptoHub, a company specializing in crypto trading tools and innovations, has raised $6 million in funding, with $3 million coming from Tectona. — CTech
Hourglass / $4.2M — Hourglass, a protocol dedicated to offering a robust infrastructure for Time-Bound Tokens (TBTs), has secured $4.2 million in a seed round led by Electric Capital. Notable investors in this round include Coinbase Ventures, Circle Ventures, Tribe Capital, and others. — CoinDesk
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Airstack
"Instantly integrate on-chain and off-chain data into any application"
Type of Product: Web3 Dev Tools
Purpose of Tool: Airstack is a developer platform that offers web3 data APIs for integrating on-chain and off-chain data into any application. It provides GraphQL queries that combine data from multiple sources and enables developers to easily connect their applications to the web3 ecosystem. Airstack also offers identity APIs that map addresses and transactions across various sources, including ENS, Farcaster, Lens, Dapps, and Marketplaces.
GraphQL APIs: With Airstack, developers can get the exact data they need in easy-to-integrate formats without requiring a back-end.
AI automation: Developers can query with natural language without requiring any code to get started.
Complex made easy: Airstack enables developers to query across multiple projects, wallets, and blockchains, and combine on-chain and off-chain data in a single response.
Identity APIs: Airstack maps addresses and transactions across various sources, including ENS, Farcaster, Lens, Dapps, and Marketplaces.
Snapshots: Developers can query historical data, balances, and transfers within the time range or length of holding.
Collaboration built-in: Airstack offers a public marketplace of queries and APIs that developers can browse, remix, or fork from.
Team / Funding / Backers / Other Info: On October 21, 2022, Airstack secured $3 million in pre-seed funding from a number of high-profile investors. These included Animal Ventures, Warburg Serres, Polygon, Genblock, Fenbushi, Resolute Ventures, WW Ventures, Tensai Capital, and more.
Jason Goldberg and his four cofounders, Deepesh Nath, Sarvesh Jain, Ignas Peciura, and Vysakh Nair, founded Airstack in May 2022 and quickly began building a prototype of Airstack.
Ledger Recover
“Recover your keys using your identity"
Type of Product: Security
Purpose of Tool: Ledger Recover is a key recovery service that helps users in restoring their private keys in case they lose access to their Secret Recovery Phrase. It is an ID-based service that provides a secure backup for the Secret Recovery Phrase, ensuring that the user never gets locked out of their wallet.
Identity-based key recovery: Users can restore their private keys using their verified identity. The service verifies the user's identity using their ID document and a selfie recording.
Secure backup for the Secret Recovery Phrase: Ledger Nano X duplicates the Secret Recovery Phrase and encrypts the duplicate, which becomes the backup for the Secret Recovery Phrase.
Fragmented backup: The backup is fragmented into three pieces, each secured independently by Ledger, Coincover, and a third provider. This ensures that the backup is secure and cannot be accessed by unauthorized entities.
Self-custody secured by identity: The user's identity becomes the key to their wallet, ensuring that only they can start the recovery process, which is ensured using double ID verification.
Ledger produces crypto hardware wallets that require their app, Ledger Live, to function. The app enables users to interact with their hardware wallet on a computer.
Team / Funding / Backers / Other Info: Just today: LEDGER, founded in 2014 in Paris, is the world leader in Critical Digital Asset security and utility, with over 6 million devices sold to consumers in 200 countries and 10+ languages. Its products include hardware wallets, a companion app, a secure-minting and first-sale distribution platform, and an enterprise solution.
Freeport
“The future of fine art collecting"
Type of Product: NFT Art Investing
Purpose of Tool: Freeport is a platform and community gallery for tokenized fine art that aims to provide a unique and meaningful ownership experience for its investors. Here are some of the features of Freeport:
A digital gallery that allows investors to display their art alongside other digital assets in their wallet.
Built on the Ethereum blockchain, which enables Freeport to offer lending against the art via smart contracts and the ability for investors to display art in the metaverse.
Freeport selects and obtains fine pieces of art that are usually inaccessible to the public and offers shares in that entity to the public.
Shares are represented by tokens on the blockchain, and users can gain exposure to the underlying asset without the need for a blockchain wallet or any previous blockchain experience.
Freeport follows SEC-compliant process to ensure the safety and security of its investors' assets.
Through Freeport, art investors can have a true sense of ownership of their investments while also gaining access to unique and exclusive pieces of fine art. As the platform matures and grows, Freeport aims to provide even more opportunities for its investors to make the most of their investments in the world of fine art.
Team / Funding / Backers / Other Info: On May 15th, 23, Jane Holzer, often referred to as "Baby Jane Holzer," a former celebrity and muse to Andy Warhol, is providing people with a chance to own a part of a Warhol print, for as low as $200. This is all through Freeport, a platform that launched recently with four different Warhol prints on offer. Minimum buy-in is 10 shares, ranging from $198 to $781, varying based on the Warhol.
BlockBeat
"The Ultimate Crypto Terminal”
Type of Product: Web3 Bloomberg Terminal
Purpose of Tool: Currently on its Waitlist phase, BlockBeat allows investors and traders to stay up to date on the rapidly evolving world of blockchain and cryptocurrency. Its Terminal provides a one-stop-shop for real-time news, sentiment analytics, A.I. enriched data, and more. BlockBeat enables market participants to make informed decisions in the digital asset space.
News: BlockBeat curates timely and insightful news articles from major sources and crypto-native news sites. These articles are summarized using AI for quick digesting, and each is tagged with a sentiment rating from 1-10.
Watchlists: The platform provides low latency aggregated real-time prices on all coins across major liquid exchanges. Watchlists allow users to quickly see basic pricing data and filter the feed to only show news related to their chosen coins.
Alerts and Custom Feeds: Users can set up custom alerts via notification sounds, email, and text. They can also customize the feed to filter for specific news sources or sub-sources, and save presets for easy switching.
Tagging: The tagging mechanism tags articles with coins, people, companies, and more. It also tags articles as "breaking" or "important" to ensure users are aware of important news.
Asset Profiles: In-depth profiles on all top crypto assets provide news specific to each asset, as well as information on how price was affected by each news piece.
Link to product | Link to TFC listing
Artemis | Analysis | Link to product
PIP | Community Tool | Link to product
Plaid Wallet Onboard | Crypto Wallet | Link to product
Kleoverse | Web3 Jobs | Link to product
Exponential DeFi | DeFi | Link to product
Sygma | Technical Product Lead | Link to position
O(1) Labs | Senior Technical Product Manager - Mina Protocol | Link to position
Talisman | UI/UX Product Designer | Link to position
WalletConnect | Full-Stack Data Engineer | Link to position
Nethermind | Internship Program | Link to position
Bluesky | Web Developer | Link to position
Glassnode | CRM Manager | Link to position
MetaMask | Product Designer - Portfolio, Assets, and NFTs | Link to position
Obol Labs | Technical Customer Success Manager | Link to position
Status | Activist Copywriter | Link to position
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Disclaimer: None of this is to be deemed legal or financial advice of any kind. Always DYOR!