Echooo founders on the future of AI and crypto

How did you first get into the Web3 world of cryptocurrencies, decentralised finance, and non-fungible tokens?

Chances are, you had to go through an arduous process of learning about blockchain technology, how cryptocurrencies worked, and how to trade them.

To get started, you had to create a wallet, and link that wallet to different exchanges in order to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, and, if you got into the space during its early stages, you might have lived with the omnipresent fear that your hard-earned tokens could be made inaccessible with the simple loss of your private key.

These were the issues that Echooo’s founders faced- and what inspired them to do something about the problem.

As they noted, “Even the most renowned EOA wallet (Metamask) has a high entry barrier for newcomers. Without the most basic understanding of blockchain technology, it is also confusing for newcomers to understand some basic concepts such as the importance of ‘private keys’ and ‘helper words’.”

To solve this problem, Echooo’s founders sought a novel approach- to create a wallet that was user-friendly, and one that could onboard Web2 natives to the Web3 space.

A new understanding of security

Many of us might understand security in opposition to the concept of truly owning the assets you claim to control, as opposed to having assets controlled by centralised organisations like banks.

But, as Echooo’s founders explain, there is another dimension to security if we do not rely on centralised organisations to keep records of ledgers and balances.

“The core concept of the Web3.0 era is decentralization, but behind the decentralization, the purpose is actually to protect the security of user assets;

But it is not "safe". In various situations, such as forgetting where to put the handwritten paper, accidentally touching the water and blurring the handwriting, although the user's assets are still on the chain, they will never be used.

Although the concept does conform to the logic behind "decentralization": users are responsible for their own assets, and the loss of mnemonics is their own problem, but I always feel that with the development of technology today, there should be more convenient ways to help users protect assets.”

As such, the founders endeavoured to create a wallet that adhered to the principle of decentralisation, but would offer users some recourse in the case that they happened to lose their private keys.

The solution that they arrived at was to create a recovery mechanism through multi-signature and social recovery mechanisms.

Yet, they were aware that in the market for wallets, there was likely to be stiff competition for their product- after all, wallets are everywhere: metamask, coinbase, and many others have all created wallets, and they would need to do more than simply offering a new product that many of their competitors already had.

However, Echooo’s founders remain optimistic on the future prospects of the market: “Many people see that there are plenty of companies building wallets, and say that competition is fierce, resulting in a ‘red ocean strategy’ of outperforming rivals to grab a greater share of existing demand.

But if so many companies are still building wallets, then evidently there is some aspect that users want that is not being met. This represents an opportunity that we can capitalise on. So from this perspective, we can still consider a ‘blue ocean strategy’ in order to expand the market instead of competing directly.”

Turning a vision into reality

But this was, naturally, easier said than done- plenty of other wallets also claim to have unique features. So what makes Echooo special? Their design philosophy.

“Strictly speaking, Echooo’s product has no advantages. In fact, no product has any advantage because of the Web3 world’s open-source and transparent nature. When a protocol standard comes out, everyone can quickly follow it.”

Instead, Echooo’s founders point to the ideas around which they have organised their company and its products as their strongest selling point- that their products should be developed with a user-first mentality, with long-term usage in mind, and that in order to remain relevant, the company should have a keen understanding of the industry and be able to accurately judge trends both in the past, present, and future.

As such, Echooo doesn’t start by creating a product- instead, it starts by first developing a community and understanding what features matter to the community. In addition, Echooo does not put profits at the core of its business. Instead, the founders believe that by building up the product, and giving users a good experience, users will naturally come, and the business model can then be built according to what best suits the userbase.

To that end, they are also planning to create and roll out more features for Echooo- including tools that will help users better make decisions. They are also looking to implement a gasless capability for the chain, and through the use of their unique AI, reduce transaction costs as a whole.

Of course, security remains a key concern for Echooo- and they have already implemented a social recovery mechanism for their hybrid wallet.

The future of AI and crypto

While wallets may be their focus for now, Echooo’s founders also believe that the Web3 world will continue to develop beyond its current form.

In addition, they do not see the development of a wallet or any other projects as something specific to finance or fintech- instead, they believe that the Web3 world will eventually also integrate other fields like sociology in order to develop.

“The industry will continue to reshuffle as it develops, and better companies will survive crypto winters now and in the future. With time, the industry will become more robust. New fields will emerge to meet the needs of different users- and it will not just be the financial sector that is served by blockchain technology.

Users will come to the space when there are applications to meet their needs, and this is a question that the industry will need to continuously consider, even as Web3 moves out of the financial field and into other industries.”

In the meantime, however, Echooo’s founders feel that the experience of ‘seamlessly entering web3’ is something that can be achieved soon- and that new uses can be found for new technologies.

“Personally, I’m optimistic about the fields that already have a sort of ‘social consensus’- where users already have certain habits and expectations, such as in games, or in NFTs. I hope that these innovations can go beyond just being small pictures and art collections, but also become more related to the physical world, through combination with e-commerce for example.”