Crypto addresses likely to get less complicated

  • By Harrison Cole

  • February 8, 2019
  • 2:26 am BST

Crypto wallets including KeepKey, Mycelium, MyCrypto and others may have a brand-new feature by the end of this year. The Foundation for Interwallet Operability (FIO) is a consortium of blockchain wallets, payment providers and exchanges who have recognized that many users feel that the complexity of crypto addresses is off-putting and stands in the way of wider acceptance for digital tokens.

CFD traders interested in cryptocurrencies will be eager to know more about this latest development which could allow users to assign themselves a username and domain instead of having the current style of long and confusing addresses. The aim of the initiative is to help boost cryptocurrency and blockchain popularity in a wider audience and at the same time reduce the risks and inconvenience involved in both sending and receiving crypto assets as they stand at the present time.

String theory

Wallet addresses for cryptocurrencies consist of strings of letters and numbers that appear random and are confusing and essentially impossible to remember. This means that destinations can be easily mistaken and funds and assets sent to the wrong place.

As blockchain does not allow refunds, a feature built in to prevent double spending, this also means that even a small mistake can lead to a costly mistake which can involve an irretrievable loss of funds. Risk could be reduced significantly if the FIO Protocol for assigning names and domains to wallet addresses is widely adopted. Essentially, a user would be able to choose their own address name and it could be as simple or as complicated as required, much in the same way that an email or web domain currently works.

The FIO

The Foundation for Interwallet Operability currently has seven members. Cryptocurrency wallets include KeepKey, MyCrypto, BRD, Edge and Mycelium in addition to the ShapeShift and Coinomi cryptocurrency exchanges. The protocol has already been integrated into the BRD wallet to demonstrate the process in action.

Founder and CEO of Dapix Inc, David Gold, was an angel investor and board member for several technology companies before taking the helm of the venture backed company that is now launching the FIO and its protocol.

Gold explains how FIO is different from previous attempts to solve the wallet address problem. “FIO coming to the market is quite unlike a lot of crypto projects in that it is not being built in a vacuum. It’s being built with other industry players from the beginning”, Gold says.

“At the end of the day, FIO Protocol is a beta B2C model. It’s the wallets and exchanges that leverage the software kits and the APIs to integrate the Protocol into their own products. The consumers end up using it through the wallet or exchange that has decided to do so. That’s why we have decided to build it from the ground up with deep involvement from the industry”, he adds.

Three elements

Initially the protocol will feature three main elements, namely FIO Addresses, FIO Workflow and FIO Data. The latter two will give users the ability to request payment securely from one wallet to another and the ability to attach to transaction cross chain metadata.

Gold says: “The FIO Protocol will even be able to do things like refunds, which are really important in ecommerce, but they’re very challenging with today’s setup.”

Recurring payment options will facilitate subscription models as the FIO way of doing things will allow a recurring request for payment from one wallet directly to another.

Security and privacy

Gold goes on to say that FIO have said that the protocol must not negatively impact on the security or privacy of a user.

“Currently, the biggest obstacle is the chicken and egg problem. You have to have a lot of wallets and exchanges integrating the Protocol for it to be valuable, but also to have a Protocol that people can actually use”, he notes. “We’ve cracked that problem by forming the Foundation for Interwallet Operability from the beginning with key industry leaders.”

Opt out

If there is anyone out there who actually likes the current address system of nonsense combinations of characters, they can rest assured that they will be able to opt out of using FIO. Gold likens this to being able to find an online website by using the IP address instead of a domain name.

With the protocol in beta mode, community involvement on a tester level will take place. The time frame for this is expected to be the end of Q3 or Q4 of this year. With that in mind, FIO may be available for use by customers in the near future according to Gold.

“We anticipate launching the mainnet in beta this year. Initially it will go into a closed beta, then into an open beta. We’ll continue to add wallets and exchanges, you’ll continue to see an ongoing stream of demo videos coming out. There will be more and more wallets, exchanges and even crypto payment processors joining the Foundation this year. We will eventually release the full whitepaper to the community beyond the closed group that can see it today.”

Forex implications

For CFD forex traders, such a significant development can only be good news. Any moves by the industry to simplify actually using digital coins can only lead to a wider acceptance and therefore larger volumes of transactions. When this occurs, the effect on crypto forex markets will be noticeable, and that’s very interesting news indeed for contract for difference traders.