Hey RileyJames,
Thanks a lot for your message! Any chance we could plan a short remote coffee chat? I would love to learn about that use case :) my email address is in my profile.
Thanks for your question, this is completely valid.
I think there are two axis to this :
1. Typical wallets, as in end-user “tools”, are B2C in essence and most crypto users are used to not pay a penny for a wallet. Meemaw is a “wallet-as-a-service”, meaning that it helps companies deploy wallets for their users. It’s a B2B service. I think you got that but just wanted to make extra sure. For a company with the right use case, having a way for mainstream users to own digital assets without struggling to understand how this all works is really valuable. Think banks letting their users own some crypto, Starbucks with their loyalty program, Reddit with their NFTs, etc.
2. Why now? Well, to be honest, it’s just because I did not find any alternative that I trusted for the long term, when building that first project I mentioned. I was really looking for an open-source and easily self-hostable project to give me the confidence that, worst case scenario, I could make it work even if company XYZ disappears or raises their prices or removes features... I probably felt the same as you do. I ended up building what is now Meemaw, trying to find ways to make it more resilient for everyone involved: if Meemaw disappears, companies using it should not be at risk; if those companies disappear, their users should not be at risk. It’s never perfect of course, but I think Meemaw will be vastly superior on that front.
I hope this was clear enough, let me know if it wasn't :)
Hey Derek, thanks for your message. Well, as far as I understand, there are at least two massive differences:
- Gridlock is a wallet for end-users directly. Meemaw is a so-called "wallet-as-a-service", allowing developers to deploy wallets for their users, within their app. The experience is for each developer to define.
- Meemaw is open-source and designed to reduce risks on many counts: going from cloud to self-hosting and vice versa will be super easy, there will be open-sourced tools for end users to recover their wallet even if the company (whether Meemaw or developers using it) goes down, etc
Happy to discuss further if you feel like I misunderstood what Gridlock does!
The problem is that all the effort is still on the developer to actually build a user interface, while Gridlock already has it built. Additionally, any company can build on the Gridlock storage network using the SDK. It's secure MPC without the work of bringing that to the user and explaining it. In a clear way.
Upon checking your profile, I noticed that you’re related to Gridlock. Adding a disclaimer to your original comment would’ve been more appropriate in my opinion.
Also, having your product open-sourced and/or audited increases trustworthiness. You mentioned going open-source and being audited in 2021 but neither happened as far as I can find. That’s fine, just different than OP’s project.
On the flip side, I noticed this Q&A from your docs that I think is at least re-assuring:
“What happens to my assets if Gridlock shuts down?
Should Gridlock ever become unavailable, you are still safe and protected! The built-in Eject Feature allows you to access your crypto independently without Gridlock. This is the definition of self-custody where you are in full control!”
PS. I’m not the target audience for these type of products. I stay away from most crypto stuff. I just stumbled upon this thread and wanted to share my thoughts :)
