Jai Sahu
Cointelegraph interviewed Trust Wallet CEO Eowyn Chen to discuss enhancing the Web3 experience for all users.
During the Binance Blockchain Week 2023 in Istanbul, Turkey, the global crypto and blockchain communities converged, highlighting the continued growth of the Web3 ecosystem, irrespective of market price fluctuations.
Despite being organized by Binance, the conference attracted key figures from the cryptocurrency industry. Notably, Trust Wallet, a decentralized Web3 wallet provider acquired by Binance in 2018, was among the prominent participants. Trust Wallet has often been referred to as “the wallet arm of Binance” since its acquisition. Consequently, attendees were surprised when Binance announced its own Web3 wallet.
Trust Wallet CEO Eowyn Chen, who previously held the position of vice president at Binance, clarified that “Binance focuses on the centralized, while Trust Wallet works toward the decentralized ecosystem.” She emphasized Trust Wallet’s neutrality, emphasizing its ability to collaborate with and serve anyone in the cryptocurrency industry.
“We think that keeping that independence and distance is the best way to keep the culture and the talents running for its own mission.”
Trust Wallet emerged in 2017, a period marked by the frenzy of initial coin offerings (ICOs), driven by the demand for a user-friendly mobile wallet. According to Chen, it stood out as “the sole developer-centric extension wallet available.” The primary goal of this Web3 wallet was to facilitate the seamless transition of both users and developers into the decentralized realm of blockchain technology.
Cointelegraph interviewed Trust Wallet CEO Eowyn Chen at Binance Blockchain Week Istanbul. Source: Cointelegraph
“Recently, we became a sister company of Binance rather than operating under Binance because we can have a better playing field,” Chen explained. “We can still partner with each other, and Binance Web3 Wallet is the result of a strategic partnership.”
“Scammers provide better customer support”
Addressing security concerns in the Web3 environment presents a greater challenge compared to improving the user experience, as per Chen’s insights. Unlike focusing on user experience within applications, she pointed out that security vulnerabilities can manifest at various levels, including blockchains, decentralized applications, smart contracts, and even at the code level of a wallet.
Scammers account for the lion’s share of security issues because of the social aspect of fraud, in which social pressures can influence users to ignore security warnings and their better judgment.
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Chen said that Trust Wallet’s security team has observed how scams have become much more sophisticated and has begun to provide a customer support experience that guides users who have fallen victim to scams.
Preventing scams and fraud is an incredibly difficult problem to solve: “It’s a community issue; it’s a people issue that requires education. Education takes time, takes effort — no-return effort.” Chen added:
“It takes a community and the whole industry to figure out how to better educate people. That’s the hard part. It’s not a technology issue; it’s an operational problem.”
Chen also highlighted a security challenge arising from the relatively smaller scale of emerging Web3 startups. In her own words, she recounted a recent conversation: “I was talking to a security expert yesterday, and they said that many of the new projects choose not to do security audits.” Even when these smaller Web3 projects opt for security audits, they often select less stringent providers or those offering the lowest fees, prioritizing quick deployment to save costs.
Web3 competition heats up
In a keynote address, Chen said, “Trust is the best user retention strategy in the bear market.”
User retention is more critical for Web3 due to the open nature of the ecosystem. “The competition probably increased 10 times because there are no barriers to leaving a specific product or service.”
Users have the flexibility to take their private keys and transfer their assets or activities to alternative services. However, Chen stressed that building trust with users is a more dependable strategy than resorting to closed ecosystems out of fear of user attrition.
This strategy has indeed proven successful for Trust Wallet. Chen shared that, even during bear market conditions, Trust Wallet has experienced remarkable growth, with total downloads increasing by approximately 60% over the past two years, surpassing 70 million downloads in total. Additionally, the market share for weekly active wallet users on mobile has doubled from 20% to 40%.
“When things stand through time, and the project and the team are able to prove that they can handle challenges, they can handle mistakes, and they make people feel comfortable to stick with.”
The readiness of the Web3 industry for the next billion users depends on the risk appetite and profile of Web3 companies, according to Chen. She rhetorically asks, “Does Web3 offer enough utility and use case scenarios that people are willing to give it a try? That’s the key question before onboarding the next billion.”
Blockchain as a universal value transfer system
When discussing her favorite aspects of Web3, Chen highlighted two key factors. First, she sees blockchain’s potential to become the value transfer system for the internet, stating, “While the internet fulfills the free transfer of information, blockchain builds upon that and allows the transfer of values.”
Additionally, Chen expressed her belief in the value of nonfungible tokens (NFTs), regardless of their individual market performance. She remarked, “We shouldn’t be just influenced by the sentiment of the market price of the NFTs,” adding, “The tokenization of ownership that gives access to more people is still something that could be valuable, that we can figure out a better mechanism to realize.”
Chen envisions that innovation surrounding NFTs and the utilization of blockchain as a value transfer system will create genuine value for society.