KPCB Product Fellows Program — Challenge Response
It was August 31st, 2016, and only two hours since I had arrived to New York. I found myself in the relaxing yet rarefied setting of an upper-east-side club, interviewing for a summer internship with a boutique investment bank. The only possession I deemed appropriate to place on the table was my wallet, which could not seamlessly fit in any of my pockets. Not long after, I was answering a lightly humorous question regarding the thickness of my wallet. I decided to simply reveal the truth putting the blame on my constant migration as a foreign student.
Born and raised in Bulgaria, pursuing a degree in the United Arab Emirates, and having studied abroad in the United States and a few other countries, it is no surprise that I have bank accounts in each respective location. My wallet exorbitantly contains plastic “proofs” of my funds, existing somewhere in the webs of five separate banks. Similar to my peers, I have realized that the venture of exploring different parts of the world comes along with the quest for “convenient” ways to store and transfer money internationally. Monthly fees, negative interest rates, and the hefty charge on international transfers triggered my initial interest in cryptographic assets. Six months later, I was actively supporting the decentralized alternative to my thick wallet by sending digital funds back home with less than a tenth of a percent charge and putting my patience to the test for no longer than a few minutes. Yes, I have exposed myself to the overwhelming volatility of market sentiments regarding the field but it has been a conscious choice eluding the passive and certain decay of my money in five different continents. Irrational or visionary would be a long-lasting debate.
My remaining concern was the safety of my investments — the vulnerability to external digital attacks native to any decentralized system. Googling the terms and the frequency of “hacker theft” only exacerbated my worry. I was fortunate enough to reason well the necessity of integrating all my crypto-funds into the sleek and handy hardware piece, called Trezor. The seemingly small device incorporates the brainpower of a minicomputer, providing the most secure way for storing digital assets. The cryptographic encryption at hand makes it virtually impossible for any malware to compromise its security features. The team behind this ingenious device, under the company SatoshiLabs, makes it easy to support such a claim given the congregation of cryptographic pundits. Even misfortunate occurrences such as theft and loss do not pose a great threat since the entire wallet can be recovered online solely by the user.
Trezor helped not only reduce my apprehension from storing cryptocurrencies, but also brought along the unparalleled convenience of using one device to hold a multitude of different assets. The common frustration of having numerous accounts in different exchanges and online wallets in order to manage a well-diversified portfolio has been brought to an end. A few clicks on the personalized home screen of Trezor, displaying my name and a photo of my home country, is everything needed to access all my stored funds. An elaborate expression of minimalism.
The unmatched security features, the convenience of storing assets in one place, and the peace of mind brought by the full user control over owned funds do make Trezor a necessity for anybody searching for an alternative to the costly and highly inconvenient thick wallets. I hold a strong belief that it is only a matter of time before such a device would be able to store a globally-accepted and prudently regulated form of digital money. Furthermore, I hope that my next blog post would be dated later in 2018 and would begin by telling the story of my Trezor device, positioned on the table where my interview with KPCB would take place. This time, though, I would have the option of quietly keeping it in my pocket.