Talking Wallets With PM Alex Jupiter

Airdrops have undoubtedly changed the course of development for many blockchain-based projects and the companies behind them. The examples are numerous, but one team that hasn’t yet released a token and is long anticipated to do so is MetaMask.

MetaMask is by far the largest self-custody cryptocurrency wallet with over 30 million users and has played an integral role in shaping the face of decentralized finance as we know it today.

For quite some time now, the project has been rumored to be considering its own token, with many users seemingly believing that it will airdrop it to the community a la Uniswap style. But there might be more to the story.

In this episode, CryptoPotato is joined by senior product manager/owner at MetaMask – Alex Jupiter, who talks at length on the topics of safeguarding your crypto, digital identities, what the team has been up to, and of course – the coveted MetaMask token.

How to Keep Your Crypto Safe

Security has been at the forefront of cryptocurrency discussions for as long as Bitcoin has existed. The idea of being able to take complete control of your finances seems alluring at first but is much more challenging in reality.

In fact, the nature of blockchain-based technology makes it so that, at least for the time being, recovering your crypto if you’ve fallen victim to a scam or if you’ve lost your recovery phrase is close to, if not completely impossible.

And our industry has become a playground for hackers. CryptoPotato recently reported that North Korean hackers stole a whopping $1.7 billion worth of cryptocurrencies in 2022 alone. In general, a little over $3.8 billion was stolen during that year, with the vast majority of it being in the field of DeFi.

The ability to properly store your crypto is of paramount importance. Speaking on the matter, Jupiter gave some important tips, especially if you are new to space, on how to keep your keys safe:

First of all, always keep your keys offline. Do not take a screenshot of your secret recovery phrase which can then get backed up to your iCloud, do not write it on your notes, inside your computer, which can be stolen, and also – if you lose access to your computer, you also lose access to your secret recovery phrase. Always keep it offline and, ideally – keep your secret recovery phrase in a hardware wallet as well.

For some additional safety, make sure to check out our 9 tips for securing your Bitcoin and crypto wallets.

But that’s not the entirety of the challenge.

There’s also a lot of work that needs to be done in regard to educating people in terms of when they’re signing transactions.

We see a lot of people who are sent a link to a fake website, and they don’t quite realize what they’re doing. They sign a transaction, and then all their assets are gone to that malicious smart contract. There’s a lot of work that we all need to do in that area. At MetaMask, we have a team that’s focused on improving the user experience on transactions.

Jupiter also says that through MetaMask Snaps, they’re able to partner with multiple different organizations and teams who have transactions UX in sight. Talking about MetaMask Snaps – it’s virtually a way for developers to extend the functionality of MetaMask in any way that they want.

What on Earth is Social Recovery?

One thing that many in the industry, including Vitalik Buterin – the co-founder of Ethereum – have been talking about for quite a while is the concept of social recovery.

A bit of context – with self-custody wallets like MetaMask, the way to access your cryptocurrencies is through your so-called seed phrase. If you lose that – there are currently no ways to recover your assets. This is the main reason experts are working on ways around that, and one potential opportunity in this regard is the concept of social recovery.

Jupiter clarified:

Let’s say that instead of having a single source of failure (keeping the secret recovery phrase in one place), what I actually wanted to do is to split that into three different shards. I’m going to keep one to myself. I’m going to then delegate the other two to, let’s say, two close friends. I would then say that if I ever lost my portion of my secret recovery phrase, I would then get in touch with those friends to reissue part of that so I can recover my account.

Of course, that’s a basic breakdown of what the concept suggests, and it’s entirely possible to get very complicated with it.

During the podcast, we also touched on one of the hottest topics when it comes to MetaMask – their planned token.

Last year, Joseph Lubin – CEO at Consensys, the firm that runs MetaMask, confirmed that they will be launching a token, but their head of operation confirmed that it will not be designed as a “cash grab.” Speaking on the matter was also Jupiter, who, in our podcast, revealed a bit more details about the much-anticipated token and what it might potentially look like.

Hint: doing in-app transactions is unlikely to help you get an airdrop.