GECO Community Spotlight:
A chat with the team behind Linkdrop
In order to spotlight all of the incredible GECO funded teams, we decided to launch a community blog series — a monthly update that will give our readers the inside scoop on the teams behind GECO, what they are building, and most importantly how their project will impact the space.
This week we’re introducing you to Linkdrop, an open protocol for encoding digital assets and onboarding properties into links and QR codes. With the GECO grant, Linkdrop will develop a full meta-linkdrop implementation in order to extend linkdrop functionality to the Gnosis Safe.
Who are you?
Linkdrop was co-founded by Mikhail & Artiom from Russia and Gustav originally from Denmark. We founded Linkdrop because we wanted to make it easier for new users to interact with Web3 technology.
What brought you into the crypto space?
We were all interested in the possibility of decentralized systems. Some of us from organizational and democratic perspectives, others from a technological and cryptographic perspective.
Why did you choose this project?
We’ve worked in the blockchain dapp ecosystem for a few years, building some of the earliest Ethereum dapps, and noticed how hard it was to onboard users.
We developed eth2.io and linkdrop.io to make the onboarding process more accessible so that new users could get started without having to install a wallet in advance. We thought claimable links (similar to referral marketing links sent from companies like Paypal and Airbnb), were the solution, so we worked on enabling the same UX, while hiding the complexity of private-keys/public-keys behind the scenes, without compromising the security of the approach.
Why are you interested in Gnosis and what we’re building?
A collaborative open-source approach is for us the true Ethereum spirit. We really admire how Gnosis has contributed to smart wallet infrastructure with the Safe, which employs meta-tx and an innovative backup scheme.
We’re excited to use Linkdrop to make the onboarding process for the Safe even easier!
What impact do you believe blockchain technology will have?
Blockchain will become the operating system of the fourth industrial revolution, powering everything from AI to robots and trillions of IoT devices.
Linkdrop’s core focus is to provide easy access to digital assets in a permissionless & non-custodial manner. Dapps that make blockchain tech more accessible will fuel the impending blockchain revolution.
How do you envision the ecosystem will change in the next 5–10 years?
Slowly but surely we are seeing mainstream blockchain adoption from Fortune 100 Companies, nation states, and intergovernmental institutions.
We believe that permissionless, open-source projects will still have a big place in the space (and not be lost in legal obstacles), as the fundamental infrastructure layer of the commons that will enable seamless interoperability. They will enable trusted coordination mechanisms between a variety of people, which will combine local trust with global reach, an endeavour that we’ve only accomplished so far with information (Web2), but are about to witness taking place with value (Web3).
Tell us a fun fact about your team.
We met in person for the first time last year at Devcon at the Status Hackathon and won two 1st prizes there. We quickly realized that our technology could be used in a charity setting with cryptoxmas.xyz, that provided food for people on the streets of Venezuela by distributing Ethereum based NFT gift-cards as links and QR codes.
What is your team motto?
We say “why not” a lot internally. This means anyone can bring up ideas, all ideas are equal, and the best argument decides which direction to follow.
We also like to think big! Every innovation was once thought to be impossible.
Many thanks to Mareen Glaeske, Kei Kreutler, and Linkdrop
