Name of Project
Kryptik
Proposal overview
Decentralized, open, transparent— the blockchain is designed for the internet. But unless you have a lot of money or you have a lot of knowledge, cryptocurrency is hard. It’s hard to use, tough to transfer, and difficult to secure. Billion dollar companies have made crypto easy, but with centralized services like Coinbase and Square there is no concept of ownership. Their users can track the price of Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc. but at the end of the day— after you’ve verified your identity, paid your fees, and handed over your privacy— these companies only provide a spot on their private ledger: offering convenience at the cost of ownership. There are decentralized alternatives like Electrum and Metamask, but these services are generally hard to use and only support specific blockchains.
Kryptik will simplify digital ownership, by providing a noncustodial wallet that can manage tokens and NFTs from multiple blockchains. Kryptik is a friendly wallet that combines a decentralized backend with centralized features like friend requests, profile management, and two factor authentication.
Kryptik is already under development via a small research grant from Carnegie Mellon. A broad overview of the technical details is shown below.
Wallet
Kryptik uses a hierarchical deterministic (HD) wallet derived from a BIP32 seed. This HD wallet creates a new address for every transaction. While research has shown transactions can be linked on any pseudonymous blockchain, there are two primary advantages of an HD wallet:
- Privacy: Creating fresh addresses makes linking transactions harder.
- Security: By diversifying assets across multiple, distinct accounts, an attacker would need the private keys for each address to drain a user’s funds.
Each blockchain has a corresponding keyring, with an HD node derived from a BIP-44 path. The keyring keeps track of accounts, allows fresh addresses to be generated, and handles transaction signatures. Keyrings with a common seed hang from a ‘seed loop’ that is encrypted and held in local storage. The seed loop can be recovered by entering a password or using a one time password sent via Twilio. If approved, the server will send a shamir secret shard that can be recombined as a seed on the client.
Kryptik uses the Pocket Network as the main RPC provider. This allows Kryptik to interface with multiple blockchains including Avalanche, Ethereum, Harmony, and Solana. Eventually, Kryptik will expose provider endpoints— like window.ethereum, window.solana, etc. — that will allow developers to connect their Dapps to the Kryptik chrome extension.
Decentralized File Storage
Currency is not the only thing that can be owned on the blockchain. Decentralized file systems like IPFS allow data to be distributed in memory around the world, just as transactions are stored in Bitcoin’s global ledger. Kryptik provides access to IPFS, allowing users to store and display decentralized media within their wallet. This is an essential first step to enabling an NFT marketplace where unique files can be bought and sold via a social feed.
Kryptik condenses decentralized file storage into a single button: click, select a file, and upload. The upload process is as easy as Instagram; storage is as distributed as IPFS. After a file has been selected, Kryptik sends the file stream to IPFS for storage. The file can then be retrieved with an IPFS content identifier (stored on callback) and displayed via an IPFS gateway provider like cloudflare. Each upload is accomplished via the Pinata C# library— a REST client that simplifies IPFS interactions.
By combining currency and NFTs into a single cross chain wallet, Kryptik provides a simple onramp for new crypto users. While Kryptik is not Harmony specific, Karmony is one of the first blockchains that will be supported. This grant would allow our team to build the best product possible and to aggressively pursue our mission of simplifying digital ownership.
Here is a simple list of existing features that will provide a foundation for future development:
- Historical and real-time price charts
- Decentralized File Storage
- Social networking (friends, user search, etc.)
- Two Factor Authentication (SMS and Email)
- Account Generation and Balance Checking
- Real Time Encrypted messaging using HD Key Pair
Team
Jett Hays
Software developer with extensive open source experience; specializes in client side languages like Typescript and back end languages like C# and Sql. As a student, Jett is the current Vice President of the Carnegie Mellon Blockchain group where he directs the project incubator.
Jaylem Brar
Software engineer studying at UC Berkeley. Jaylem is the lead lecturer of the acclaimed Blockchain at Berkeley fundamentals course and a developer consultant for Web3 companies.
Nicholas Christin (advisor)
Carnegie Mellon professor studying computer and information systems security. Professor Christin is supervising Kryptik research done under the Carnegie Mellon grant.
Proposal ask
Our proposal is to have a noncustodial, cross chain wallet that simplifies token and NFT ownership. We expect to take 8-10 weeks maximum and our ask is 75,000 USD worth of One tokens. This would cover development, audit, and RPC costs.
Metrics for success
Kryptik’s success will be determined by the number of people who actively use the wallet and the number of supported chains.
Development Roadmap
Milestone One: Open Source Key Management
Estimated Duration: 2 weeks
Cost: 10,000 USD
Deliverable: Open source code that defines a cross chain key management system and accompanying documentation.
Milestone Two: Kryptik Wallet Portal
Estimated Duration: 2 weeks
Cost: 20,000 USD
Deliverable: An online site that provides access to basic wallet features like sending tokens and minting NFTs.
Milestone Three: Kryptik Chrome extension
Estimated Duration: 4-5 weeks
Cost: 25,000 USD
Deliverable: A chrome extension that allows users and developers to connect to cross chain providers.
Milestone Four: Security Review
Estimated Duration: 1-2 weeks
Cost: 20,000 USD
Deliverable: A thorough code audit and security documentation.
External links
Jett Hays Website
Jaylem Brar LinkedIn
Nicholas Christin Website