everyone and welcome back to my channel
Girl Gone Crypto I am super stoked I've
got a really exciting guest here today
I've got poppy we the CEO and co-founder
of edge wallet so Paul thank you so much
for coming on the show today Leah thanks
for having me appreciate the time so
edge is not only one of my favorite
wallets in the space but really one of
my favorite projects as well I just I
love the work that you guys are doing
with really helping to improve the
on-ramp process for people into crypto
and I even have my edge t-shirt on today
I don't know if you guys can see that
but maybe just start out I don't write
it so it's a great shirt I love you
guys's logo yeah but I thought it would
be really fun just because you've been
in the crypto space for a long time and
obviously Edge has you know is a great
project within the space so maybe tell
us a little bit about your kind of your
journey into the space and how that
started and what made you decide that
you wanted to start edge got it so I
definitely started with a technical
background you know went to school and
software and hardware engineering and
worked in Silicon Valley for almost ten
years at the time with NVIDIA before the
days when they were known as a mining
hardware company when it was actually
pure graphics and games and 3d modeling
but then I actually left tech for over
10 years and when it's a small business
where instead of being the person that
builds as technology I was in a I was
the person behind and actually using
technology that's where I got to
appreciate definitely user experience
and making things simple for the layman
and the staff that I had to train at
very small businesses anything from you
know a climbing gym to nightclub bars
restaurants and whatnot there's all
businesses now have to use tech in some
way shape and form and then you start to
appreciate and also lash back out at
tech that was really hard to use you
appreciate the good stuff and you you
really lash out it like god this is
really more tedious than it needed to be
but during that time in small business
I'll start to really look into and
understand payment systems deal with
visa master our PCI compliance I also
worked in the health care not health
care issue but the health industry with
gyms and fitness and ice
to understand a lot of I don't want to
go down like a huge soap boxes no stand
on a big soap box here but start to
understand where large corporations and
institutions and entities really mislead
the general public on what are the
truths of our world from what we should
eat and how we should keep ourselves in
shape and and you know basically bring
wellness to ourselves down to the
financial system in dealing with once
again Payment Systems through a lot of
small businesses and it was in the
middle of that but I actually discovered
Bitcoin that was in 2013 and I said oh
my god this is something that
interconnects all of the values that
I've kind of built up earlier everything
from the interest in tech to the
potential disruption of payment systems
that potential not a elimination of cash
but great alternatives to cash that
doesn't effectively cost as much to the
small business owner which I was as no
credit cards would cost us so all that
aligned almost too perfectly and you
know in 2013 I went full deep dive I
wasn't one of those people that read the
white paper and put it down for a couple
years I read that and listened to as
many podcasts as I could back in the
back in 2013 there was basically two
podcasts one of them he nude and the
only other one which was let's talk
Bitcoin with Andreas Antonopoulos was
pretty much the only thing and had I
think one to two episodes a week and I
remember waiting for the next episode
going I want to learn more I want to
learn more and after having understood
and learned what it was how to transact
with it and using it myself that's when
I realized got this industry is young
and there's many things to improve on
and that's when I decided yeah let's
let's try to build on this and and try
to make a name for myself and our
co-founders and what we build for this
next revolution like to get into the
history books and say hey we contributed
to this new technology that everyone
will be using in decades to come
so that co-founded the company in early
2014 and haven't looked back since I
love that especially the story of being
one of the first podcast listeners of
crypto podcast ever
that's pretty amazing there was no
selection of podcasts when I had to wait
I'm a mosaic
Sunday Tuesday and Sundays that they
would they'd skip some and so you know
to finish Tuesday and wait I'd wait
Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday
for the next episode whereas now it's
like you can't absorb all the content
out there so it's definitely different
time and so I appreciate those that took
the I was in earlier podcast listener
but hats off to the people that were
just simply early podcasters and and
helped the community learn and
understand this tech and really there's
no better place than or better person
than Andres Antonopoulos to be learning
about Bitcoin from these still on that
podcast with let's talk Bitcoin know
there's so many more though that it's
it's kind of gone into the shadows but
it's still a great great podcast that I
recommend to people I will link to that
below for people who want to check it
out after this we'll put that in the
here in the show notes below the video
as well so to talk about edge wallet I
use edge wallet and I love it but just
on a high level overview can you just
tell us what really differentiates edge
from other kind of wallets that are in
that same arena yeah so the
differentiator for edge is pretty much
twofold the history of the company is
that it was actually co-founded as err
bits so that was the name of the
original product and the original app
and its goal was to build just kind of
the better Bitcoin wallet but the
differentiator of Erebus was key
management and you'll notice both
earbuds in edge while users fully
control their funds they control their
private keys that's a very very strong
value that we proposed in the product
users don't ever have to see the private
key they never have to write anything
down they don't have to save a file they
just simply create an account and log in
and they can they can conveniently real
log in with pin with biometric they can
switch phones and just log in to
download the app and log in onto a new
phone and their keys are there available
for them to send and receive money that
was the foundation of our boots was
basically our security model and during
the lifetime of err bits we started
tagging that security well we kind of
gave a bad security model a tagline we
call it edge security concept was that
it's secured data at the edges of the
network not on the central servers but
at the edges of the network where you
encrypt the data on your device
only you can see that data and that was
specifically obviously private keys and
any transaction metadata that you might
tag a transaction with and the
transition into edge came about where
number one it was kind of a just a
rebrand that we wanted to do for a while
and the term edge security kind of
struck a good chord with us we like the
ring of it a lot of people liked it as
well
so we also rewrote the app mainly to
also focus on other cryptocurrencies not
just Bitcoin and that required a pretty
significant rewrite from scratch to the
point where we had to launch a separate
app than air bits one - we didn't want
the functionality that people were used
to in air bits to basically some
functionality to disappear an edge
couldn't incorporate the full
functionality of air bits right off day
one so an edge we were able to write off
of the ralph day one support multiple
different cryptos tokens and whatnot but
still use that same security model that
was baked into air bits right that edge
security model simple account creation
but encrypt your keys only you can see
it easily to factor it but then the goal
of the app now changed the app was no
longer focused around payments which is
what Airbus was about and a merchant
peer-to-peer payments even had Bluetooth
and NFC goal of edge was now let's find
out what let's look at what people are
doing with crypto and the challenges
they have and number one what they're
doing is simply they're wanting to
unwrap all right they want to buy it
sometimes sell it frequently trade it
between different crypto assets and
they're doing entirely through
centralized exchanges which they always
had this like yeah I gotta use them I
gotta use centralized exchange if I
don't want to so we wanted to build the
alternative for retail investors where
they can buy sell and trade but not give
up control of their funds and so that
comes into the second fold of what
differentiates edge from others so
number one is key management you don't
have to see your key but you fully
control it
and the number two is you have very very
rich support to buy sell and trade 16
different exchange partners are baked
into the app - on an off ramp from from
Fiat all across the world and almost
half a dozen different payment
mechanisms we have a new one coming on
online next week depending on when this
show goes live
relative went to when we're recording it
but um that's kind of the goal let's get
the retail investors off the centralized
exchanges unless they're the frequent
high-frequency traders other than them
let's get everyone off and owning and
controlling their keys
I think the key management piece of what
you just talked about is so huge because
we live in this kind of culture where
people are so used to being able to
click forgot password and they don't
have to worry about it and encrypt oh
that is a that's a huge potential
concern for someone that maybe doesn't
know how to properly store their private
keys doesn't make backups things happen
and so the fact that you guys are making
that on-ramp just so much more
user-friendly to where it almost feels
like something that they're already used
to but actually has the security on the
back end is is really very cool
and one of the other things I wanted to
chat with you about was kind of that
on-ramp from the crypto to fiea because
you just mentioned that a little bit so
how does that work you said that you've
got all these different partners around
the world
tell us more a little bit about the Fiat
two crypto on-ramp process and edge
got it so if you think about what a lot
of cryptocurrency enthusiasts and
influencers will recommend to a user
that wants to get in the crypto they'll
say all right go ahead and you know
download this wallet or by a hardware
wallet you know you backup your private
key now go to the centralized exchange
create an account there and now deposit
some money with that centralized
exchange maybe via a bank transfer with
credit card or whatnot and once that
money settles in that centralized
exchange go and do a trade trade the
dollars for Bitcoin and then withdraw
your money they always say make sure you
withdraw your money you gotta get your
money out get it into your wallet that
you or you control the keys effectively
what edge does is it ties all of that
together into one product into one
interface so in edge you create your
account at edge which is an encrypted
account that encrypts and backs up your
keys and then you specify where you're
located you say hey I'm in the US or
Canada Europe some country in Europe and
then it will show a list of different
payment options to be able to either buy
or sell crypto and those different
payment options will go through
different partners that we've already
partnered with inside of the app so if
you wanted to use credit card in some
regions it'll go through a partner such
as
either simplex or another partner like
moon pay if you wanted a bank transfer
that might go through Biddy in Europe or
through wire here in the US Apple pay
through another partner with payment
methods in Australia that are native to
Australia and other parts of the world
those will effectively go through
various other partners but you'll do all
of that all with an edge and what's
happening is even though you might be
using a different partner the process of
depositing money into an exchange and
then withdrawing your Bitcoin is
automatic me that you're ever actually
leaving Bitcoin or crypto with the
exchange as soon as you request a
purchase funds like say Fiat goes to the
exchange partner but then they
automatically send out the Bitcoin or
krypto right into edge so while it might
take some time sometimes it's quick five
ten minutes sometimes it takes a while a
day two three days but no matter what
once that purchase happens that trade
happens the crypto always ends up in
your keys that you have full control
over inside of edge it takes that those
few extra steps out of the the friction
to accept friction out from there of
having to do multiple steps with
multiple different applications copying
and pasting a public address as a matter
of fact even the login is seamless
you've created an account in edge it's
an encrypted account that holds
encrypted private keys it also acts like
a password manager when you create an
account with one of our partners inside
of edge you never have to create a
password it actually creates a key
that's used to log you in every time you
enter that partner inside of our app so
you'll notice that is that it feels much
more seamless to be flowing through an
exchange partner an edge the branding
might change you might actually see our
you know our partners logo and branding
there but you're not having to login so
that mute is simply connecting and
you're automatically logged in so it's
definitely a lot of tech that's put
together to enable us to partner with a
lot of companies in the space but it
it's designed to be much more seamless
to the end user and it seems like that
is really like a lot safer for the end
user as well to never have their funds
sitting on a centralized exchange
because one thing that even though you
know a lot of people that are coming
into the space you know maybe someone
tells them hey makes
you take your money off the exchange how
many of them actually do right like even
my brother was the other day was telling
me he's like what I can't just leave my
money on bit tricks I was like no and so
that's amazing that it's like not having
to go through all those steps but having
the just initial experience be that
seamless and keeping their funds safer
overall so one of the things that I them
is my favorite thing about edge that I
think is really cool is how you guys
have partnered with some really great
exchanges like change lis and
shape-shift and change now and you guys
find the best deal for that person and
so if I was going to you know buy some
aetherium with my Bitcoin instead of me
poking around trying to find what's the
best rate you guys do that work for the
end user so maybe tell us a little bit
about that process and why you'd wanted
to build that functionality into edge
got it so I'll separate a little bit
about our exchange partners into two
different buckets to help clarify things
for users so there's the Fiat on an off
ramp partners and those obviously may go
through some queue I see they're very
regionally specific payment methods
specific and we don't do any price
hunting across them per se because
there's many different variables that
might make a user use one versus another
primarily where you live and the payment
method you want to use but when it comes
to crypto to crypto here we're able to
do a lot and edge does this entirely
from your phone it actually goes and
create when you want to do a swap from
one crypto it to another you just simply
specify what crypto you want to go from
by specifying the wallet in your app
that you want to go from and then what
crypto you want to go to and then it
actually goes and puts out order
requests across all of our crypto to
crypto exchange partners and finds the
one that has the best price and that
might seem like the end goal find the
best price find the best price but
actually we put it together for actually
a bigger reason than that we put it
together for the sake of reliability but
we found that you know and this is this
is no knock on our exchange partner this
is just simply a fair issue that you
know many will run into is that there's
times where you're trying to do a swap
and an exchange partner even some
towards the pier you want to do but they
just might be out of inventory out of
liquidity you simply can't do that swamp
but if you had more than one exchange
partner it could fall over to a
different one that supports that
currency pair so what I found it was
that a lot of these exchange partners
well you know maybe the top ten currency
they supported pretty well
once you veered off that you might have
very kind of differing support of
currencies across the different crypto
to crypto exchanges very much differing
availability across the different assets
that was actually one of the biggest
reasons we incorporated it let's let's
have a great experience where the user
just says what they want to swap from
what they want to swap to and if it's
remotely possible we can service it that
was the biggest reason but then we
realized well frequently multiple
partners can service it so who do we
choose obviously then the best price we
want to give the user the best price so
it's it's multi fold its reliability as
well as finding the best price and it
ends up being a great experience to the
point where now if I don't have that
like for whatever reason say it's an
asset that edge doesn't support or it's
one that our partner is no it's
important I have to go outside of our
ecosystem it becomes really really
tedious you know the the process of
having to first of all copy and paste
your address with a website and then
also oh gosh they're out today I'll go
check back tomorrow
I remember one of the biggest requests
we had when we only had a one partner
was hey they frequently are out of
availability of a certain asset can you
give me like a notification when they
come back online and actually have
availability I was like yeah we could
but wouldn't be better if it just worked
and someone that had the availability
now we never get that request no one's
asking us oh can you let us know and no
liquidity is back so well then is the
question it's really it's a it's a
reliability thing and in a way best
price is just kind of an added benefit
that's awesome and you know one of the
things that I think is is really cool is
all of the great partners and the
support of different assets that you do
have on the platform like the list of
coins that are you know available the
list of exchange crypto - crypto
exchange partners that are on there is
really good so I guess my question is
how do you do
side who to partner with and in what
assets to support so no it's kind of two
questions but on the encrypted a crypto
exchange side like shape-shift and
changed now like what are you looking
for in those partners and is the kind of
long-term plan that you eventually want
to have as many partners on there as
possible or are you really selective
with that and then on more of the coin
and the asset support side like how do
you decide which assets to include in
edge as well got two big questions that
never happen exact answer so answer the
first question with the exchange
partners some aspect of you know support
for unique assets that crossover the
what we support so one of the earlier
assets that we support that where it
wasn't well supported by exchange
partners was Manero I said this is
taking as an example so we want to bring
on partners that supported that so that
our usually would actually be able to
use and trade to trade it occurrence he
like Manero and so when we were looking
for other partners that would became an
important factor to look for now with
exchange partners because we have quite
a few we've got eight right now for
crypto two crypto exchange partners
we're looking for those that can
obviously give a pretty competitive
price and have good reliability so we
test them ahead of time ourselves before
we integrate them into edge make sure
that you know a good percentage of the
swaps go through without a hiccup and
that they adhere to the price that they
quote the two main things if there is
any potential exchange partners out
there listening to this this this
episode two big things that we notice
really help drive volume to that
partners obviously first best price and
then also having high limits that tends
to help a lot so people don't want to
break up their transaction that's a
small transactions or do one every few
weeks and whatnot if you can service a
fairly high limit transaction that helps
a lot because a lot of the volume is
really driven by the few large orders
you give a bunch of small ones and a few
large ones and those few large ones go
go to the exchange providers that can do
those higher limits and especially and
this is a big one is part as I can do it
at a fixed rate so just generally
you know a lot of all don't like
variability okay I'm gonna buy I'm gonna
you know buy some aetherium using
Bitcoin and you give me a quote well
whether that quote is a fixed rate quote
or a variable rate quote we track
and we prefer a fixed-rate quote alright
so only if there's no fixed rate quote
available there's a user get a quote
that's a variable which means that it
couldn't change by the time you receive
the currency so fixed rate quotes are
hard they're not easy to do they require
risk on the side of the exchange
provider but those that can provide
fixed rate at a good price and high
limits are gonna do generally well and
provide a good service to our user base
so things like that as well as the
reliability you know we don't want in
gigantic delays all the time for people
to receive money and we don't want
people have any issues so that hopefully
summarizes some of the things we're
looking for we're not we're not trying
to incorporate every crypto de crypto
swap exchange on the market you know if
anything we want to get stricter and
stricter and stricter and get the the
best ones that have good reliability
good rates and actually pare it down to
probably maybe even fewer than what we
have already today but so far we've been
happy with our partners and hopefully
continue continue to do so you had a
second question which is how we select
which yeah which coins in which assets
to kind of support and include an edge
yeah this is easily the greatest area
select this is definitely a tough one
because there's so many angles that
determine an asset support probably
number one is the market like what is
the market demanding and just the good
old fashioned market cap is one metric
to that well it's not the only metric
there's market cap and then there's
simply consumer and event whoo what are
people pinging us about what are they
people what are they asking for what are
they telling us on Twitter what are they
telling us in these shownotes comments
of this of this episode right what
they're saying matters a lot but at the
same time different assets have a
different difficulty level on getting it
integrated so anything from what kind of
back-end ap is and full nodes need to be
run in order to support that currency
how much client-side code inside of our
application do we have to implement to
get the currency supported you know
who's available to do it is our team do
we have any expertise in that currency
or that architecture does the you know a
foundation for a coin have resources
that they could put into it and it's the
balance of all of that as well as do we
have exchange partners that are going to
support the coin
at this point the definition of our app
is a self custody exchange and so we
would be very very very very hesitant to
incorporate an asset unless one of our
exchange partners supported it too much
like it would be weird to go to a bit
wrecks and see that they support some
coin we can't trade it right that would
be a little odd and that's the same
thing with us is that you know people
come to us because they want to build a
buy sell and trade but hold their own
keys so we want to support assets where
they can do exactly that buy sell and
trade so it's a mix of all of that you
know resource constraints who wants to
put in the resources to put in the the
engineering necessary as well as the
difficulty involved the market demand
exchange support all of those kind of
factored in and we try to make some
decisions and and hope for the best yes
long as we sink in a lot of time and
energy and I that didn't really do so do
so well but other times it does really
well so you can only take our best guess
so while we're still kind of in the
realm of talking about cryptid or crypto
exchanges what does the KYC process look
like through edge and does it just
really vary on which exchange partner is
selected or what does that look like
yeah so on the crypto decrypt of
exchange it falls under I want to call
it four buckets of kyc types and by
default it's just gonna pick the best
price and you know the KYC you deal with
if you need to deal with it at the worst
case I'm gonna call this worse and no
offense to this partner but you know
many people don't want to actually
create an account with a specific HH
partner so they freakin will have to
with any of our fiat on and off-ramps
you got to give some kyc information but
one partner shape-shift does require
that you create an account so in order
for them to be selected for best price
you'd have to actually activate an
account with shape-shift either one you
created before or you can actually
activate one inside of the app so that's
kind of at the highest you know highest
friction level I'm second to that is
spot-check kyc where you may do some
transactions and our partners might deem
that hey these addresses and the volumes
and you know based on blockchain
analytics they might think something
suspect is happening from what you're
trading where you're located and at that
point they may ask you for kyc and say
hey can you please provide some kose and
then
if you you have to then contact them and
send them over kyc and if not they won't
return your funds third is one where
they'll never do kyc but if they find
any any kind of issues or fraud or any
red flags
then it'll simply return funds and
invisibly like your let's get a
transaction that you sent out some
Bitcoin for whatever token and the
Bitcoin just comes right back to you
it's kind of the third level and the
fourth level there's absolutely no kyc
because it's a fully decentralized
exchange all right since going through
smart contracts and we do support that
for aetherium and tokens you're not
guaranteed to get that because they
might not be the best price it might not
have any liquidity but if you are able
to go through the decentralized exchange
that's a fully zero qia you want you
don't have any and you know there's not
a chance that your transaction will get
blocked because of kyc purposes so just
arrange the full gamut note that users
in edge can actually turn on and off
different exchange partners inside of
the app and enable the ones that we
don't specify which ones have different
levels of kyc that's a little hard to
describe in the user interface but heck
you're welcome to ask us up heck also in
this show and also on twitter ask us hey
what are the different kyc policies of
each of the partners and they can
disable the ones that they don't feel
comfortable with that's awesome I love
that you have that functionality where
people can really tailor their
experience to to what they want they can
select which you know partners they
would prefer to work with and so that's
and it's super easy in the app like you
just have to go and press a button it's
and I think that's what's great about
edge in general is everything is easy
well thanks we did we do our best
obviously it's it's not easy to make
things easy and I'm sure there's parts
of the app that we could improve on but
that's where we want to hear and
feedback from the community so speaking
of the community and I kind of wanted to
touch on marketing a little bit most
curious how different crypto projects
approached marketing so you guys have a
really strong great community especially
on crypto Twitter and so in terms of
marketing are you guys really kind of
focusing more on organic growth through
your online community or are you guys
actively doing marketing or what does
that kind of look like for you guys
I think for the past couple years since
we launched edge a lot of it has been
organic with some efforts and obviously
efforts in your traditional things at
content creation you know we push out a
blog almost once a week we have our own
podcast we call it our live Q&A where
people can ask us questions live and we
answer questions that have come across
the week you know every Friday at noon
Pacific as well as you know some paid
some paid efforts such as conference
sponsorships and we do show up to maybe
one at least one every couple months
will show up the conference wonder every
couple months but a new initiative that
is getting pushed through over the
course of the next quarter or two is
actually something it's unique in the
self custody wallet space we hear about
this a lot in the exchange centralized
exchange programs but almost never in a
self custody wallet which is an actual
referral program I'm so working with
ambassadors like and that could refer
people to edge and also gain a share of
the revenue that the application makes
through exchange operations buy sell and
trade this was fairly unique we only
hear about this from like the you said
that commit Rix's and the bittley's and
the coin basis of the world but never
from an app like edge where we actually
don't see any of these transactions we
do it in a very private way as well so
this is actually the the next phase of
our marketing strategy is bringing in
the community that potentially already
enjoys using edge and already recommends
edge and really motivate them to push it
to another level and you know give them
some referral programs and and there's
one that's like the base level of this
referral program I personally have never
liked pure affiliate programs that are
just like hey put a link up and you know
and drive some traffic to a product
what's like an Amazon link or what not
what we plan to use this program to
actually drive some really cool
promotions so a referral link in most
people eyes is just yeah I get credit
for new users that I drive to that but
we actually are gonna be making these
referral links even change the behavior
of the app itself when people use your
link everything from making the app an
automatic automatically turn it into a
wallet for specific crypto being able to
work with some influencers in different
region different cryptocurrency circles
where they use their link and it's
automatically a manera wallet
my default or automatically a light coin
in dogecoin wallet and even be able to
automatically give rewards back to a
user if they register for a newsletter
for one of the referral partners or even
be able to do discounted days where
people can do exchanges into or out of a
coin or buy a coin but if they use only
if they use that link from one of our
our partners or they get free swaps into
a coin or discounted you know Fiat
on-ramp your credit card but only if
they use those links we want those links
to actually be more active and engaged
and actually have some promos behind
them that we can custom tailor to the
different partners that we are kind of
onboarding to to do these promotions and
do these referrals so that's kind of the
next phase you'll see over the next
couple next couple of quarters you know
for us during 2020 that's so fun I love
that it I love that you guys are really
looking at not just oh let's do the
standard affiliate link that everyone
else does but like hey let's evaluate
this like how could we do this better we
could finally let's make it fun to
actually use a referral link by our
ambassador and say hey I want to use
this because there's something cool for
the user on this day and and make it
just above and beyond slapping a link on
a page which that does a lot to you by
itself but I you know let's engage in
much more than that
so I think you'll see some cool ideas
come out of that and we've had some cool
ideas from some from some ambassadors
and Patrol partners that we're going to
be launching over the next you know
several months so keep an eye out for it
yeah that'll be fun to watch as that
kind of all unravels and and comes out
into the world
so Paul thank you so much for taking the
time to come on my channel and just chat
more about edge I just love what you
guys are doing over there and I'm
excited to continue watching everything
that you guys are doing as you continue
to you know kind of develop and grow and
involve even more than you currently are
and so before we go is there anything
else that we missed that you really want
to talk about or any kind of last words
you'd like to to leave the audience with
um not much that we didn't all right we
covered a ton and so all I can ask the
audience is for those that haven't
already tried edge give it a try and you
know download edge app is now our domain
breeze
and you know get some Bitcoin get some
other crypto you know send or receive it
to and from a friend around the world
and if anything send us some feedback
you can you know contact us on Twitter
Facebook all of our social media links
are on our website so I want to hear
from you guys just let us know send us
some feedback much appreciated awesome
or I will leave all of those links below
definitely join the conversation with
them on Twitter they've got a great
Twitter account and actually download
edge give it a try it's a really as we
talked about today just really easy to
use online or wallet app and so Paul
thank you again so much for coming on
it's been great to chat with you thanks
a whole bunch Leia pleasure chatting as
well
