From the NFT boom to Dogecoin’s rise, it’s clear the public is captivated by the world of crypto, especially younger generations. Yet, barriers to entry in the crypto space still remain high for new users.
Crucially, blockchain applications largely remain the realm of tech-savvy early adopters who are able to navigate their complexities and rapid evolution. That means we’re still just scraping the surface of disruptive potential in decentralized finance, or DeFi, which covers all the different financial services offered on public blockchains.
Blocto is taking this problem head on. It has created an end-to-end platform for crypto that helps people tap into the vast possibilities created by blockchain without needing to master the technology. Blocto offers a portal, a wallet and an exchange, as well as tools for developers to design and integrate new apps across different blockchains. The result is an entire ecosystem built to connect new and seasoned crypto users and developers alike—think of Blocto as the crypto version of the video game distribution platform Steam. Blocto has integrated with projects such as Vault by CNN, MotoGP Ignition, Dark Country, Enemy Metal, Versus, VIV3 and more.
The Nuts & Bolts
Problem
Blockchain technology is already showing it can impact many industries, but mass adoption is still a work in progress. Certainly, there are platforms like Coinbase helping beginners buy and sell digital currencies, but there’s so much more to crypto than trading Bitcoin.
DeFi has the opportunity to revolutionize financial services through decentralized apps, or dApps, which allow users to borrow, lend, trade assets and more. As the foundation of DeFi, dApps are programs that exist and run on a public blockchain rather than a centralized server, meaning they can’t be owned or censored. But realizing the potential in dApps means attracting users without technical backgrounds.
A big problem is user experience. Getting deeper into crypto and exploring dApps can be a bewildering experience for the uninitiated, full of complex app interfaces and strange jargon. New users also have to get various cryptocurrencies in order to use different dApps, while also contending with different transaction fee models.
Meanwhile, developers need tools to smooth the creation and distribution of dApps to wider audiences. But few wallets or exchanges also offer a comprehensive software development toolkit (SDK) to help developers roll out dApps to a waiting audience.
Solution
Blocto was built with a couple goals in mind: making it simple for average users to easily access blockchain applications and simultaneously making it simpler for developers to build good dApps. That combo brings together two key ingredients needed to spur mass adoption of crypto.
Simplicity is a core feature: its app features a collection of tutorials and educational content that make using dApps more intuitive. It also helps simplify transactions with a flexible fee model, where users rely on Blocto points to pay for fees across blockchains.
Meanwhile, Blocto’s SDK is tailored to help developers build dApps with relative ease. Its SDK allows dApps developers to integrate payments and enhance user experience across dApps by mitigating fees, facilitating cross-blockchain interaction and offering a universal asset management function, all from a single account.
Crucially, Blocto is also plugged into and growing alongside rising blockchain ecosystems. The startup is partnered with Flow, the blockchain behind the famous collectibles dApp NBA Top Shot.
Getting to know Blocto
Blocto’s founders have been involved in the crypto space for more than five years. They have a strong belief in blockchain’s future and have a vision to build a more user-friendly product to enable mass adoption.
CEO Hsuan Lee and COO Edwin Yen have both worked together previously at Cobinhood, a startup that launched a zero-fee crypto exchange in Taiwan, as well as its sister company Dexon, which focused on dApps. They helped build a top-10 crypto exchange in three months, and a high-performance native blockchain with 10,000+ transactions per second and development tools back in 2018.
Lee also has experience at Yahoo and Agoda, while Yen, as a blockchain ecosystem architect, has helped bring corporations onto blockchain and also worked at Schneider Electric. Both founders graduated from National Taiwan University, a top school in Taiwan.
Why now?
Despite volatility, the crypto market has hit records in 2021 as big financial industry players take the space seriously and more key changes are set to come.
DeFi has enjoyed unprecedented growth in 2021 and is now a $100 billion sector. Decentralized exchange volumes reached $163 billion as of May 2021, growing by roughly 135x in a year. Then there’s NFTs, a market that grew 1,785% in a three month period as artists and celebrities jumped aboard the trend. Overall, the global digital asset management market hit $3.8 billion in 2020 and should exhibit strong growth through at least 2026.
At the same time, many centralized exchanges have been eying DeFi wallets, as Binance did in 2018 when it acquired Trust Wallet.
The future of Blocto
As a leading wallet and exchange on Flow—one of the most promising new chain ecosystems—Blocto is poised to win more of the dApps market. It’s currently working to attract new crypto users and build out more tools and services for dApps developers.
With an end-to-end solution, we look forward to seeing Blocto penetrate other new chain ecosystems, such as Solana and BSC and more. We believe its strong founding team has the potential to build an influential cross-chain ecosystem platform, positioning Blocto to thrive and help fuel mass adoption of blockchain technology.
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You can learn more about Blocto at: https://blocto.portto.io/en/
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