Divvy It Up: Making Bitcoin and Altcoin More Accessible Through UX
If you’re puzzled about how blockchain and cryptocurrency fits into your everyday life – you are not alone.
We’re still very early in the transition and transformation from traditional currencies to digital currencies; we’re in that “awkward in between” stage.
One company is focused on making crypto more accessible and launched earlier this week the first form of digital money engineered specifically for easy and convenient transactions.
In an email, a representative of Divi explained that the company is solving for “the pain points of Bitcoin and existing altcoins through a remarkably simple user experience (UX) and navigable user interface (UI).”
There is a precedent for steep growth curves in the cryptocurrency space. Venmo grew from $1.3b to $9b in P2P volume over two years in the US alone.
“We are only in cryptocurrency’s early adoption phase and there is already $281B in it – a volume that would still be larger if the market was accessible to more people,” the representative of Divi said.
Divi’s easy-to-use Smart Wallet makes personal banking within an immutable, decentralized network work.
Designed by Microsoft’s Michael Greenwood, Divi’s Smart Wallet leverages the new UX and UI simplicity of Windows, and for the first time, anyone with a Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS or Android device can participate, simply by using Divi’s wallet.
Simple on the one hand, but secure?
Divi’s user-friendly features include the personalization of wallet address. For example, this long stretch of encryption code - “14qViLJfdGaP4EeHnDyJbEGQysnCpwn1gd” – can easily become “TomsWallet.”
In their white paper, Divi states its goals:
- To create the world’s most user-friendly cryptocurrency ecosystem.
- Divi blockchain used by 50 million or more people worldwide.
- Provide the maximum amount of privacy that governments allow.
- To work with diligence and integrity, inspiring others in the blockchain scene to do the same.
- To meet or exceed the expectations of our community of coin holders.
- To be highly successful in all our endeavors.
Idealist? Indeed! Realist? Let’s hope so.
Why?
Digital currency has until now been the provenance of visionary geeks, even though we have in fact already turned the corner when it comes to cashless payments through even the most mundane services, like PayPal, Zelle, and Western Union (a company finally catching on to the new economics of transferring money).
What does the new currency do better, and why does a universal wallet matter?
Divi’s solution stores names and metadata along with transaction data. Because of these improvements, Divi’s User Interface, according to the company, is easier to learn and use than any other cryptocurrency.
To send money to someone, a user only needs to know the counterparty’s name, email, phone number, helping to eliminate the possibility of loss of funds from sending to an incorrect address.
The current state of cryptocurrency wallets is still very primitive and not ready for use by masses of people for many reasons.
Divi says they “are matching modern UX sensibilities with the digital experiences people are already use to. Think Apple, Venmo or PayPal.”
One of the biggest barriers of entry to the world of cryptocurrencies for regular people is the way all wallets function using long strings of random characters as a wallet’s “public key.”
Divi says they have solved this by allowing users to associate each wallet’s public key with a unique name of their choice, which can be used by others to send funds or connect with them.
Divi’s features include multi-language support, values in 150 currencies, and easier payment flow, including recurring payouts, and automatic division of payments.
Still, for all this talk about simplicity and ease of use – “just download the app” – Team Divi is continuing to face scrutiny. In a blog posted on their website, you’ll find a long and complicated explanation of how to redeem Divi currency, with references to competitive currencies like the more broadly used and understood Ethereum.
To this question: Since Divi isn't a security, why do we have to do this?
Divi’s blog answers:
The SEC or U.S. government haven't passed any laws regulating cryptocurrencies. Instead they're lamely attempting to apply ancient laws such as the Howey Act. They have made many official statements, some of them clear, some of them not, some of them overly broad, and some contradicting other government bodies. Our lawyers take all that information, along with suggestions from people they know who work for the SEC and give us the best advice possible. Our job is to try to protect our community from an uncertain future. One thing for sure is that the rules are getting stricter, and the SEC is cracking down more all the time. In order to make sure Divi can achieve its goal of becoming a worldwide legal digital money, we need to make sure we're compliant with the laws that exist now and are likely to exist in the near future. We're confident all our fans will thank us for our caution later.
It will take more than a simplified UX and UI to assure enough consumers to jump into the Divi wallet – in the millions required to make their application useful.
We are pleased they are working away at this, as we sense disruption combined with healthy competition will result in a more free-flowing global economy when digital currency does its real work: making payments easier, more immediate, less expensive – and more globally fluid.
Edited by Ken Briodagh
