Webacy looks to make DeFi and self custody safer with Arbitrum integration
The startup is mainly interested in improving self custody wallets by providing tailored security solutions
Soraya Plaithong/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks
DeFi security provider Webacy announced it would integrate with Arbitrum last week. This will grant Arbitrum’s nearly 12 million distinct addresses access to Webacy’s “wallet watch” tool.
This tool, which founder and CEO Maika Isogawa says is the company’s most popular, gives users real time notifications through SMS or email for things like inbound and outbound transactions, approvals, trades and airdrops.
Keeping up with everything going on in one’s crypto wallet can be a challenging prospect, Isogawa told Blockworks. Improving self custodial wallets is a key reason why she and her team introduced Webacy a little over two years ago.
“One of the biggest things in the space right now that is preventing people from coming is safety and lack of education,” Isogawa said. “We build tools that don’t exist in the self custody space to help keep you safe. Things like monitoring, things like understanding risk, things like taking action if something does go wrong.”
Webacy is a non-custodial security suite that integrates with a user’s chosen wallet, such as Metamask, Coinbase Wallet, and others of a similar product type.
She further clarified that Webacy doesn’t touch customers’ keys nor has access to people’s wallets. Rather, Webacy gives clients the tools to safeguard their wallet on their own.
And while Webacy’s services are not offered natively through any of the crypto wallets themselves, that’s something Isogawa aspires to get done at some point in the future.
For now, Webacy’s three layer suite of protection is available through desktop or a mobile browser. There are another two layers besides monitoring.
One is the ability to assess the level of risk present in one’s wallet. All a user has to do is input their wallet address or even an address of a friend or colleague that they’re aware of, and Webacy will spit out what’s called a “risk score.”
On the risk dashboard, Isogawa explained that questionable transactions will be flagged, making it clear who to steer clear from.
But making an assessment of risk really isn’t enough to protect a user if their wallet is compromised. The panic button is Webacy’s last-ditch means to wall off assets a user thinks could be or could soon be under control by a malicious third party.
It works like this, according to Webacy’s docs: a user deploys a smart contract with pre-approvals, determining which assets in their wallet will be ported over to a backup wallet under certain conditions, such as loss of access or in the event of suspicious activity. With Webacy’s notification system, the users would be notified of anything fishy and could simply press the panic button in an attempt to secure their coins. Through smart contracts, the user’s assets would be immediately transferred to the other wallet, so long as the suspicious transaction has not yet been confirmed.
Isogawa said that users have told her that they’ve hit the panic button to save themselves from a “dumb” trade or just to be safe after accidentally clicking a phishing link.
Similar to the panic button, Webacy’s crypto will — as in the Web3 version of a real-life document willing your assets to your chosen beneficiaries after your death — operates through smart contracts.
And once the proverbial dead man switch is flipped, your crypto will be transferred to whichever wallet or collection of wallets was specified on your will.
Isogawa’s final takeaway was that people are after convenience, something self custodial wallets aren’t yet known for.
She wants to merge convenience with safety, adding that she wants to follow in the footsteps of NortonLifeLock, a consumer security company that booked $3.3 billion in revenue last year.
“I think that there’s room for a safety company to dominate Web3 and crypto, and I think we’re up there,” Isogawa said.
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