Protection from Address Poisoning: Hito Ethereum Emojidress

Why simplifying the crypto wallet user experience is key to mass adoption

It's not often you can put a price on lost opportunity but in the case of crypto hacks we can identify precisely what could have been saved, broken down by exchange in this handy guide to crypto exchange hacks. As this article was posted the CEO of Binance is announcing two more hacks to add to the year's total.

In 2021-2022 the total amount lost in hacks and scams like rug pulls is more than $13 billion, and the only sure thing is there will be more, because while buying and trading crypto is dead easy on an exchange, keeping digital assets safe from hacks, fraud and freezes is complicated. We can blame it on a UX (the CEO of Binance does) that skews to people with technical knowledge, and not the average person. In other words, hardware wallet usability, to date, SUX - something *some* people can figure out, but most won't bother, to sometimes disastrous results.

"Even though it has a screen, the screen is so small that I can't tap the
numbers with my finger and enter the password."

The Hito Ethereum Emojidress: Towards A More Human Hardware Wallet

Even the simple act of verifying an address before you send funds can be fraught with anxiety. Ethereum addresses are 42 characters long. Glancing back and forth between screens trying to see if 0xb794f5ea0ba39494ce839613fffba74279579268 is the same as 0xb794f5ea0ba39494ce8396l3fffba74279579268 (hint: it's not) is more than a little anxiety-producing.

Try to find the difference in these addressees and very quickly you will recognize the frustration reflected in our our customer research quotes sprinkled throughout this post.

“I’ve bought a hardware wallet for my mom, but she was unable to transfer 
her BTC there.”

On the other hand, comparing 1) 🦾✨🥶👢🐗🌈 to 2) 🦾✨🥶👠🐗🌈 is a far simpler matter. We can see right away that the boot in (1) does not match the shoe in (2), without having to minutely examine the order of the characters mid-string. This is how the Hito Emojidress feature works, allowing wallet holders to quickly verify an address is correct, sans anxiety.

In the crypto industry, usability is inextricably linked to security. A crypto hardware wallet must be simple to use in a way that users expect and are already familiar with - complexity can lead to catastrophe. This makes introducing new security steps critical, and is exactly the place innovation is most needed.

The Ethereum Emojidress feature is just one of the ways the Hito team makes security steps like authenticating a 42-character Ethereum address a simple matter of match game, pairing symbols and colors.

Ethereum Emojidress

The power of user experience is such that it can transform entire industries - before the iPhone we couldn't imagine all of our photos and music on the same device we relied on for calls. The revolutionary iPhone design with its no-button surface screen full of apps went on to redefine the way consumers interacted with many aspects of life and therefore many other industries, from dating to news to shopping.

We are now indeed a global village, not only all of us accessing the same services but even the same gestures - swiping, scrolling and tapping - to do everything from flirt online, play games, order dog food from Amazon, donate to a political candidate... even buy and trade crypto on exchanges.

“I’ve bought a ledger, opened the box and had no ideas how to use it. 
It’s still in the box.”

Crypto exchanges have made it easy for consumers to take on too much risk from either not fully understanding nature of custodial wallets ("Not your keys, not your crypto"), or understanding but feeling the risk was lower than the inconvenience factor posed by self-custody via a hardware wallet, aka cold storage. More likely, most crypto users thought their keys were safe enough, that hacks are something that always happens to someone else. Most probably had the good intention of getting a hardware wallet - someday.

Regardless of why, the failure to self-custody has resulted in a bloodbath of crypto hacks, with ImmuneFi reporting $10 billion lost in hacks and ruug pulls in 2021, and an additional $3 billion reported stolen in hacks throughout October 2022 - a record figure even leaving out November and December hacks of FTX, Ankr and Hay.

Just as a great user experience opens new worlds of possibility, a bad user experience inhibits opportunities. When CDs replaced vinyl on the mass market, mobile CD players quickly followed, but the technology wasn't ready with early models requiring, as one reviewer put it "to walk around with the comportment of a ballet dancer stealing the family jewels from a stately home in order to stop the thing from jumping." This is a case of tech design detracting from, even totally subverting the very experience it existed to provide - something crypto hardware wallets with their tiny screens and buttons have also been guilty of.

"The Nano offers great security and peace of mind but doesn’t excel at 
ease of use" ~Infinitus Tech

Crypto hardware wallets are a product whose uneven design - and thus user experience - has inhibited the growth of the category, and thereby inhibits the shared mission of all wallet industry brands, i.e. crypto security. The problem is urgent; a strong argument can be made that the UX is the most critical component of a wallet (see: UI/UX — The Most Critical Components of a Wallet). The UX history of the hardware wallet has kept the vast majority of crypto holders - more than 300 million people - on the sidelines, taking their chances keeping their crypto in exchange wallets even as hacks rains down all around them. This won't change until hardware wallets build for not just some humans (which SUX), or for every human, like Hito.

Sometimes to see the change you want to see in the world, you must take responsibility to be the change you want to see in the world. At Hito, we take responsibility for the user experience being smooth and accessible for everyone, requiring no special technical expertise- a goal we actively work towards every day.

Join us on our mission of crypto security mass adoption! Follow us on Twitter, chat with the Hito community on Telegram, and subscribe to our newsletter.

Hito and the art of self-custody.