Introducing FIO Dashboard: Web3 Usability for Everyone
Table of Contents
- Hello, FIO Dashboard
- Getting Started with FIO Dashboard
- Why You Need a FIO Crypto Handle
- Using FIO Dashboard to Register a FIO Crypto Handle
- Using FIO Dashboard to Purchase Custom FIO Domains
- Using FIO Dashboard to Map FIO Crypto Handles to Any Wallet
- Using FIO Dashboard to Sign and Validate NFTs
- Using FIO Dashboard to Stake $FIO for Governance Rights
- Connecting FIO Dashboard to Ledger for $FIO Self Custody
Hello, FIO Dashboard
We like to think of crypto winter less as a bear market and more as a builders’ market, and with that we’re extremely excited to announce the launch of FIO Dashboard — our latest addition to the FIO Protocol suite and your one-stop-shop for all FIO Protocol functionality.
Rich with innovative features, FIO Dashboard offers a stunning array of usability solutions designed to solve some of the most tangible problems plaguing the blockchain space today; and with an elegant and user-friendly design, FIO Dashboard allows you to experience and manage all of your FIO Protocol goodies in a single web-based experience.
But first, some background:
For those who are not familiar with FIO, the FIO Protocol is a usability layer that provides crypto platforms (any crypto platform, no matter the blockchain!) with a common standard to help make the crypto user experience of sending/receiving/requesting/validating crypto transactions easy, joyful, and error free.
FIO is a solution that makes transacting in any type of crypto, no matter the coin or token, seamless across all wallets, exchanges, and marketplaces via the use of innovative FIO Crypto Handles (ex: username@domain). And now, with FIO Dashboard, you can now use all FIO Protocol features in a single place, quickly and easily.
Getting Started with FIO Dashboard
More than just a single platform for your FIO Crypto Handles and custom FIO Domains, FIO Dashboard is also your one-stop-shop to map all of your wallet addresses, manage your $FIO balances, send/receive/request/stake $FIO, sign and authenticate ownership over the NFTs you create or are interested in purchasing, and much more — all from an easy-to-use and streamlined interface.
Check out our video for the full tl;dr:
Why You Need a FIO Crypto Handle
FIO Crypto Handles (structured as: username@domain, ex: jane@wallet) are built to make crypto easier. With FIO Crypto Handles you can send, receive, request, and authenticate any type of crypto transaction as easily as sending an email — no matter the blockchain.
FIO Crypto Handles serve as an easy-to-read replacement for standard public wallet addresses, which means you can use FIO Crypto Handles in place of those public wallet addresses — no need to deal with copying and pasting complicated strings of text, no need to risk accidentally sending crypto to the wrong place, and no need to worry about selecting the right chain when submitting a transaction. FIO takes care of all of this for you, and is specifically built to make crypto easier to use for everyone.
The best part about FIO Crypto Handles is that they are NFTs, secured on the FIO blockchain, which means you directly own them. Secured by private keys and written immutably, they’re fully unique, cryptographically safe, human-readable identities that bring ease and joy to your Web3 experience.
Using FIO Dashboard to Register a FIO Crypto Handle
First of all, FIO Dashboard offers the ability to register a free FIO Crypto Handle on one of our preset FIO Domains: @wallet, @hodl, or @moon. Simply head over to FIO Dashboard, select the free FIO Domain you’d like to use, add your unique username, hit “Get My FIO Crypto Handle” and voilà: no gas fees, no browser plugins, no wallet connection required … just a few simple steps and you have your own FIO Crypto Handle ready to use for sending, receiving, requesting, and authenticating any type of Web3 transaction across any blockchain.
Using FIO Dashboard to Purchase Custom FIO Domains
Second of all, it gets better. Want to own and flaunt your name, brand, company, pseudonym, or special interest to the world? FIO enables the ability to fully customize your FIO Crypto Handle with a custom FIO Domain. As an example, rather than jane@hodl or thomas@moon (or even janeandthomas.eth…), you could be jane@smith or even anon@ymous. FIO Domains enable full control over your customized Web3 identity, with the same NFT-based security and ease of use as a FIO Crypto Handle registered on a free FIO Domain.
Custom FIO Domains are a flat fee of $40, and can be easily purchased in FIO Dashboard with either a credit/debit card or the $FIO you already have on hand. There’s no need to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars securing your unique Web3 identity; FIO Domains make it easy and cost efficient to claim your personal stake in the Web3 world.
And since FIO Crypto Handles and custom FIO Domains are both NFTs, you retain full ownership and resale rights over every custom FIO Domain you register or purchase — a worthwhile investment to ensure protection of your name or brand, with the opportunity to resell your claim on either the FIO Marketplace or your favorite polygon-based NFT exchange.
Grab your custom FIO Domain now →
Once you own your first few custom FIO Domains, you’ll be able to use FIO Dashboard to see all of them in one place, track their expiration dates to coordinate renewal, manage whether you’d like to make the domain public to other users or keep it private to yourself, create as many FIO Crypto Handles on your custom FIO Domain as you’d like (ex: create a FIO Crypto Handle on your custom FIO Domain for all of your family members or employees), and sell or transfer ownership to someone else.
All of this is can be done in FIO Dashboard with a touch of a button:
Using FIO Dashboard to Map FIO Crypto Handles to Any Wallet
Once you register your FIO Crypto Handle — either for free or with a custom FIO Domain — FIO Dashboard then allows you to link that FIO Crypto Handle to any crypto public address from any of your wallets, whether they support a native FIO Protocol integration or not.
With this mapping, you can then use your FIO Crypto Handle in place of complicated public wallet addresses to send/receive/request/sign all of your crypto transactions — no matter the token, coin, or blockchain. Furthermore, each crypto transaction comes with the option to include a cryptographically secure memo, which can be used to keep record of the transaction purpose (ex: Thanks for the tacos!), keep track of relevant order #s or Transaction IDs, or even just send a friendly note to your friend.
In the past few months, FIO ecosystem growth has been nothing short of spectacular. We’ve onboarded new integration partners by way of NFT platforms, metaverse games, as well as our tried and true partnership sector of exchanges and wallets … with our builders’ market mindset, 2022 has seen the FIO ecosystem grow to be more vibrant than ever.
But here’s where it gets better: with FIO Dashboard, you don’t actually need to have an account with one of our integration partners in order to use any of FIO Protocol’s features. With FIO Dashboard you can now map your FIO Crypto Handle to any wallet of your choice — even if that wallet or platform hasn’t yet integrated FIO Protocol — and still use full FIO Protocol functionality in a single place.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t check out our partner ecosystem — many of FIO’s very own contributors love and adore the functionality offered by our partners. But, with our quest to simplify crypto for everyone, FIO Dashboard is just an additional offering built to provide an easy way to transact in crypto using the FIO Protocol.
Using FIO Dashboard to Sign and Validate NFTs
One of the most innovative features of the FIO Protocol is of course FIO NFT Signatures, which allow NFT creators and purchasers to cryptographically sign and verify NFTs using FIO Dashboard.
FIO NFT Signatures protect both NFT creators and investors by providing a source of authentication that’s easily verifiable on the FIO blockchain. Not only that, but NFT creators can also sign their NFTs off-marketplace — even retroactively — using FIO Dashboard.
Another great feature of NFT Signatures is that it helps to protect permanence of an NFT’s metadata — aka the content contained within the NFT … like an image, which is typically stored off chain — by storing a hash of that content for authentication purposes on the FIO blockchain.
Providing so many options to crypto users, FIO Protocol is like a Swiss Army Knife when it comes to usability, and NFT validation is no different. In fact, you can use FIO Dashboard to easily validate an NFT signature through any standard NFT detail: either via the signing FIO Crypto Handle, the original contract address, a link to the hashed on-chain content, or via the original content/image itself.
In essence, the role of FIO NFT Signatures is to improve the user experience while protecting buyers and sellers of NFTs by giving the creator the ability to sign the NFT using their personalized FIO Crypto Handle, and the purchaser to validate the authenticity of the NFT they’re interested in buying. And all of this is now available in FIO Dashboard.
Using FIO Dashboard to Stake $FIO for Governance Rights
In traditional finance, you can put your assets to work for you and earn passive income without needing to sell them. In a way, staking crypto shares some similarities to depositing cash in a high-yield savings account that otherwise earns you interests.
With FIO Staking, now available in FIO Dashboard, it’s no different — you can easily stake your $FIO to earn voting rights toward the direction of FIO Protocol’s development, all while earning rewards in the form of interest gained against the $FIO you’ve staked.
Connecting FIO Dashboard to Ledger for $FIO Self Custody
Trusted by 4 million customers in 165 countries, Ledger is easily one of the most renowned companies in the market when it comes to securing the new disruptive class of crypto assets.
The Ledger line of wallets offers thorough assurance against all emerging online security threats all while providing you with sovereignty over your private keys. And as we all know, hardware storage wallets are the gold standard when it comes to storing your cryptos in a secure and non-custodial manner.
Usability Meets Security:
Through FIO Dashboard, users are now able to connect their Ledger device using the latest Ledger SDK and hardware app and transfer/manage/protect their $FIO via the self custody offered by cold storage. Once connected, users are shown a prompt to view and compare their public address. That public key is then stored in FIO Dashboard, allowing users to securely manage their $FIO assets with an easy-to-use interface without sacrificing the protection of self custody.
Thanks to this integration, any FIO wallet created in the FIO Dashboard will securely store private keys on the Ledger device, without FIO Dashboard ever having access to or control over those private keys. More importantly, Ledger users can now take advantage of all FIO Protocol features provided by FIO Dashboard, while still retaining custody of their assets, and still experiencing and easy, joyful, and error free crypto experience.
Final Notes
We’ve got some great things coming your way in terms of FIO Protocol and FIO Dashboard functionality. If you’d like to be the first to know when new features go live, make sure to subscribe to our updates here on Medium, follow us on Twitter, join us on Discord, follow along on Telegram, or catch up via CMC Community!
About FIO
FIO, the Foundation for Interwallet Operability, is a decentralized consortium of blockchain organizations and community members supporting the ongoing development, integration, and promotion of the FIO Protocol. The protocol is an open-source, decentralized usability layer solution that works across all blockchains, and uses human-readable Crypto Handles to replace the complexity, risk, and inconvenience that comes with blockchain-based transactions using public addresses. FIO Protocol is built on the FIO Chain, a dPoS blockchain fueled by ecosystem utilization of the FIO Token ($FIO).