https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/57n44b/jaxx_decentral_introduction_and_how_we_are/Hey there Monero peeps. I wanted to take the time to introduce Decentral, Jaxx (and myself) to the Monero community.
As some of you may know, last week Jaxx became closer involved with your community as we both announced Monero is iOS approved as well as our future plans for XMR wallet support across all 9 platforms that Jaxx supports. iOS mobile & iPad, Android mobile & tablet, Chrome & Firefox extensions and Mac / PC / Linux desktop.
Jaxx has been in the works for over a year and a half now and officially launched this past June. In a nutshell, the vision for Jaxx is to create a default blockchain interface that's made for the masses (including those non-technical folk like my Dad) that allows everyone to manage and be in full control or their digital assets, and done in a way that brings together and provides support for the global decentralized tech / blockchain communities we admire for providing choice and value to the world.
To achieve our vision we're shooting to:
- Be chain & platform agnostic - currently 7 tokens & available on 9 different platforms
- Provide a similar experience across every device - need a wallet? d/l Jaxx, no need to find out how the user will be using it first or which platform or device they have
- Offer a simple, single, one-time back system - 12 words you can write down once and can be used to derive all keys for ALL tokens, identity systems, messaging systems we integrate with now and in the future
- Be Extremely lightweight - we're just a few mb, no need to d/l the entire blockchain or even a SPV client
- Allow users to be in full control of their keys & identity & communications - meaning we never want to take custodianship or have access to customer keys or funds, identity etc.
- Be design-led and user experience driven - provide awesome user experiences, ie single screen design with everything you need on the main interface
- Provide hardware support to enhance security - upcoming product Jaxx Ice Cube & support for other hardware solutions
Never require users to provide ANY personal information (including emails)
- Offer best in industry customer support - targeting 3 hour response times, and personal support via other channels for more delicate situations
- Remove as many friction points as possible - we hate forcing passwords and usernames for starters
- Ensure self-sufficiency by creating our own backend infrastructure for the communities / tokens we're supporting (nodes, relays, apis)
- Ensure self-sufficiency by monetizing via various avenues - as afterall, we are a business first and people need to live, and right now, to live people need to be paid.
- Offer visible and auditable code why not allowing for easy distribution of cloned maliciously copies of our products - code is available on our website and directly be inspecting the extension and android versions.
- Partner with 3rd parties to allow for direct integrations into Jaxx. ie Shapeshift, Coinbase, many others to come.
- Avoid situations where we would need to be regulated. ie since we don't hold customer funds or keys we aren't regulated. Meaning we can push off all kyc / aml work to our integration partners and focus on expanding Jaxx globally without worrying about regional rules and compliance.
Decentral is the parent company of Jaxx and is also a decentralized tech hub located in downtown Toronto. We are currently a team of around 20 full-time and contract staff. Decentral opened on New Year's day 2014 to provide a space where enthusiasts of decentralized tech could meet, work, and create cool shit. Since opening we believe Decentral has made some huge strides. We're proud to be the birthplace of The Decentral Project, Ethereum, Kryptokit, Rushwallet, Ethereumwallet.com, Jaxx, Decentral.tv, Decentral Consulting, Cointalk, C4, the world's 2nd Bitcoin ATM & Toronto's first (which is still running strong btw). We're also the first home to the Bitcoin Alliance of Canada, Toronto Ethereum Meetup, Toronto Bitcoin Meetup, & Toronto Techno Crypto. As well, our client list includes Toronto Stock Exchange, RBC Bank, Deloitte and many other small and large enterprise clients and start-ups.
To date Decentral has hosted over 115 events including The Canadian Bitcoin Expo 2014 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre & associated Hackathon where Amir Taaki's Dark Market (Open Bazaar) emerged. Along the way we have educated many thousands on the positive and potential benefits blockchain and decentralized technologies provide. We are approachable, visible, and community and business oriented. All traits we recognize to be very important the space we are in, and especially important in the blockchain wallet space, as let's face it, even though we don't "hold" customer funds, we are still responsible for the software they rely on to manage said funds, and in the future, we're hoping their entire digital lives.
Decentral has learned a lot developing wallets over the past 3 years. in 2013 we first emerged as Kryptokit, launching the first ever chrome extension bitcoin wallet. About a month later just as Kryptokit was taking flight, Vitalik Buterin showed be the whitepaper for Ethereum, I dropped everything and spent the next 12 months founding that project, while doing minimal work in the wallet space except for pushing out Rushwallet.com, our html5 bitcoin wallet that works across many different platforms and devices.
So, how will Jaxx be helping to build our the Monero ecosystem? Aside from XMR wallet support we are also building our also creating the full infrastructure and redundancy systems for tokens we carry. The ultimate plan in the future is for individual users to run and tap into their own nodes should they wish to do so. The more control can be pushed off to the individual / user, and the less you have to rely on us the better, we say.
This new Monero infrastructure we're developing, the first part of it which should be deployed when we launch is designed to source data from our multiple nodes as well as any others available. (in a round-robin fashion) and select the best most accurate info to display and use for sending transactions. We're also determining how this infrastructure can be used to assist the entire Monero ecosystem as the complete structure containing nodes, apis, and relay system is unique and unlike anything available right now for Monero. We developed this massive infrastructure project which is and will be available for all our supported tokens because we realized what was currently available (a miss-match of token specific services) wasn't allowing us to add new token support efficiently and synchronously.
Now a bit about myself. I am the CEO and founder of Decentral & Jaxx, co-founder of Ethereum and have lived in Toronto all my life. I've been an entrepreneur and design junkie for 20 years. Prior to full-time blockchain (2012) I owned a geothermal drilling company doing commercial projects for Ikea. I've been in tech all my life building computers since age 8 (1984), on BBSes since the 1200 baud modem days (late 80's), designing website in the early 90's. I invested in Bitcoin (2012), Litecoin (2013) and Ethereum (2013). I currently hold all three as well as Monero and Dash and ETC and am looking to expand my portfolio with some of the new groundbreaking technologies Decentral has been identifying. All projects I've done in this space are self-funded (aside from Ethereum of course, although I did bootstrap a large portion of the project before the crowdsale). I own 100% own my current projects and believe efficiencies and leadership are paramount to providing great products and services for the public.
Earlier this year I became (part-time) Chief Digital Officer at the Toronto Stock Exchange, (a position I've just resigned from) in order to focus full efforts on Jaxx and the soon to be announced new project. This role at TSX and work with others industry clients has really given myself and Decentral an inside on how the current systems operates. From these engagements we've realized we have an amazing team at Decentral that's able to map out current processes and industries (whether it be municipal services, health care systems, banking infrastructure, etc.) and provide roadmaps for how these systems can be modernized using technologies such as bitcoin and other disruptive (and usually) decentralized tech.
My personal goal it to provide products and choices that enables individuals to take control of their lives. I'm a voluntarist, meaning I believe all interactions between individuals and groups should be voluntary and uncoerced, and believe diplomacy and short-term sacrifices can lead to much greater longer term gains and execution of grand plans. I'm also a huge proponent of privacy and security.
Regarding Jaxx, Jaxx.io is our official site. There you'll find it a great resources ie FAQ and knowledge base and it's also the best way to get support for any of our products. Regarding support, Annie Lee leads that department and will be sure to help you with any tickets submitted once we launch our XMR integration. If you'd like to discuss potential business opportunities or integrations feel free to drop Rico Nassir a line at
[email protected].
Please always make sure you downloading our products from trusted official app stores or from our SSL locked site Jaxx. We control the distribution of Jaxx tightly as to do our best to ensure there aren't malicious versions floating around the web or on app stores (more about this in a future post)
That's it for now as this has taken up half a Saturday to put together. One last thing I want to mention is how great it is to work with the Decentral and Jaxx team every day in our office in Toronto. We've got some rockstars in the house and nothing beats direct interaction on a daily basis with the team and this is why we are as efficient as we are, and why I believe as we grow we will continue to maintain our efficiencies and continue to push out great products and services.
Looking forward to working much closer with the Monero community. We've penciled in XMR release for early November. Keep in mind though, "penciled".
Cheers!
Anthony Diiorio
Founder & CEO - Jaxx & Decentral
[email protected]+1-888-650-3796 - Skype: a.diiorio
Decentral -
Jaxx