Guardians of the Digital Vault Crafting the Future of Crypto Inheritance
Jan 30, 2024
Brian, Epoch, Jenny, Lido, Block Jock, Noodz
Have you ever considered what happens to your digital wealth when life's final curtain closes? Join us as we sit down with Rafael from GenWealth, and together we unravel the future of bequeathing crypto assets with Cardano's pioneering Inherency Protocol. In this must-listen episode, we delve into the critical blend of technology and foresight that can protect your crypto legacy, ensuring it lands in the hands of your loved ones without a hitch.
The episode doesn't stop there; it's a treasure trove of insights into how user experience and ironclad security form the backbone of GenWealth's protocol. We dissect the importance of intuitive interfaces, the rigors of stress testing, and the upcoming bug bounty programs designed to fortify your digital vault against intruders. We also navigate through the legal labyrinths that executors face when dealing with blockchain assets and propose a catalyst to clarify these murky waters. With Rafael's guidance, we chart the project's meticulous eight-month journey from smart contract optimization to final testnet launch, emphasizing community involvement every step of the way. Tune in for a conversation that's as illuminating as it is crucial for anyone looking to pass on more than just memories to the next generation.
Have you ever considered what happens to your digital wealth when life's final curtain closes? Join us as we sit down with Rafael from GenWealth, and together we unravel the future of bequeathing crypto assets with Cardano's pioneering Inherency Protocol. In this must-listen episode, we delve into the critical blend of technology and foresight that can protect your crypto legacy, ensuring it lands in the hands of your loved ones without a hitch.
The episode doesn't stop there; it's a treasure trove of insights into how user experience and ironclad security form the backbone of GenWealth's protocol. We dissect the importance of intuitive interfaces, the rigors of stress testing, and the upcoming bug bounty programs designed to fortify your digital vault against intruders. We also navigate through the legal labyrinths that executors face when dealing with blockchain assets and propose a catalyst to clarify these murky waters. With Rafael's guidance, we chart the project's meticulous eight-month journey from smart contract optimization to final testnet launch, emphasizing community involvement every step of the way. Tune in for a conversation that's as illuminating as it is crucial for anyone looking to pass on more than just memories to the next generation.
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Speaker 1:
Welcome everybody to Cardano Over Coffee. We got a great show for you today and remember, you can join us live on X Spaces Monday through Friday, 9.30am EST, 230 PM UTC. Joining us on today's show is GenWealth. They're developing the first Inherency Protocol on Cardano that will allow you to leave your crypto to your loved ones in a trustless and secure way, without sharing your self-custody and risking losing your funds while you're still alive. Listen in to find out how they plan to do this and check out the link to their Idea Scale Fund 11 Catalyst Proposal voting open now.
Speaker 1:
Oh, snacks, trying to build a way for your loved ones to get your crypto, because we're all going to die. It's just a matter of time. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but at some point we're not going to be here anymore and we all have crypto, and I would love my crypto to go to my nephew. I don't have children. He will be the beneficiary, right. But how do we make that happen? Well, I think maybe we might find something out about that, maybe not. Maybe I'm totally wrong. That's also a possibility. But welcome decentralized nation.
Speaker 3:
Thank you. Hello everyone, it's a pleasure to be here at Cardano for Coffee. Yeah, great space, great stuff you're doing, so thank you for this, please introduce yourself.
Speaker 1:
Tell us a little bit about who you are and how you got in the crypto. Maybe a little bit.
Speaker 3:
So my name is Rafael I'll dox myself, I guess, from Portugal. I'm living in Portugal and I started in the crypto space and in Cardano around the end of 2020. And I didn't sell my crypto as well. So lessons learned for this bull market, I hope. And yeah, basically since then, I've been mostly learning about it, interacting with protocols every day, and after a while, and after learning more about Cardano, how the architecture works, and even taking some courses on how to code, which I was not great I've started with this initiative. I also have a small YouTube channel that is recent it's now one year old where I talk about cryptocurrency, blockchain and a little bit about Cardano. And yeah, and we are not trying to launch this protocol. In fact, we already have the smart contracts and the proof of concept. That is a little bit ugly. That's something we want to change and we'll keep on growing it and to make it a more complex protocol In the future. We have plenty of ideas and it's exciting, I would say.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, let's talk about the protocol and then we can get into some specific questions or maybe on the team and everything like that. But what is the protocol? What's it going to do for me?
Speaker 3:
Okay, as you said, and well, we are all going to die and the question is are we prepared or not? And right now, if we think about it, there is no safe, trustless and centralized way to leave our crypto to our loved ones, especially Ada and our native assets. Because, at the end of the day, we either need to trust intermediaries or we need to share our seed phrase or its location with our family or some kind of mechanism that is always reliant on all the other people. And the truth is, whoever controls your seed phrase, whoever can assess your seed phrase, is as the owner of the tokens. As you are. They have the same right as you have to spend them and to do whatever you want. So it is a big risk for your cryptocurrency.
Speaker 3:
So we are trying to solve that problem with the app, where you're able to retain the self-custody of your funds but, on top of that, you can also define what should be our beneficiaries, divide your crypto wealth and decide and give. Like we work with a token, let's say tokens that allow you to claim your assets out of the wallet in a trustless and decentralized way and, at the end of the day, you decide which part each person is going to get. They will get a token and when the time comes and you're not alive anymore, they'll be able to use it to claim their part, and only their part, and it's something that you decide and set while you're still alive. In general, that's how it works. Currently, we work with the proof of life, although in the future we also have plans to try to work with certificates and all of that.
Speaker 1:
Can you explain proof of life for those that might not know what that is, please?
Speaker 3:
Yes, so it's basically you know, we call it a vault. You basically are able to create your own vault that runs almost like on top of your wallet, and you have your vault with all your crypto and basically you have an interface and you just have to update a certain deadline. So when you create your vault, you create a deadline. That's a deadline that needs to be respected before your beneficiaries are able to claim your crypto, and while you're alive, you want to naturally update that deadline before it ends so that nobody can claim your crypto and once you're gone, once you cannot do it anymore for some reason, your beneficiaries will finally be able to claim it. The deadline and everything it's up to you to define. You have to total control over your funds.
Speaker 1:
Can you tell me? You said the smart contracts were already written for this. What language were they written in? Inacon, the region. Inacon, wonderful. There's been projects that I've seen in the past that have tried to do this and they encounter all kinds of problems. Right, proof of life. One thing that I can think of is if I know somebody who has a date set for a proof of life, I can go, take a gun and hold it to them and say you're not signing that transaction and now I'm getting all that. How do you stop fraud and all that type of things from happening on your protocol?
Speaker 3:
When you mean fraud, you mean pointing a gun into the person.
Speaker 1:
Well, you can't stop that. But there's other types of fraud, right, and other types of things that people will be able to. I can say that I'm somebody else, and you know what I mean. Are you going to use some type of identifiers? Like, if I identify my nephew as my beneficiary, how are you sure that it's him when it comes that time? Right, okay?
Speaker 3:
Yeah. So right now, in the future, we hope to work with decentralized identities and all that stuff that is being developed. Until we have a reliable source of decentralized identities to work with, we're kind of giving that responsibility to the creator of the inheritance. So at the end of the day, when you create your vault, you create your pockets. The pockets are the divisions you want. Each pocket should represent a beneficiary. So at the end of the day, there is a token that can be minted to give the assets to claim that pocket once the person is gone. Before it won't be possible and what happens is that you send the token directly to the beneficiary.
Speaker 3:
So you talk to your nephew you ask him what is your address, what is your wallet, and you send that token directly to him. We are also working in the future, in the very close future, for solutions because, at least for me, that's a worry for solutions, too. Give your crypto wealth or transfer your crypto off to people that are not crypto savvy so that don't know how to work with a wallet. Those solutions will naturally be a mix between the centralize service using this protocol and being subjected to the same rules, but at the same time, you need to have someone representing the beneficiary and that will have a legal agreement to do so, and the legal agreement where they would, you know, over collect, realize. Legal agreement where, if you don't live around your part, you stand more to lose than to gain.
Speaker 1:
Got you. Now another question that I had. That I see is a difficulty, and then we're going to maybe get into your. We'll see if anybody else has any questions. But then I want to talk about your title, its proposal, because voting is open. Right, so talk about that. But Now I lost my question. I'm sorry. Nudes epoch, you have any questions? Try to remember mine.
Speaker 5:
Yeah, I picked up at the top some links to the catalyst proposal that you can check out there. There's two of them that are friend is involved with the inheritance protocol and then down for marketing and education. I'm really interested in the in the bereavement industry that were in ways that it can be brought to web three and I'm curious to know what kind of potential attack factors you think will emerge in this industry, because I would assume that at some point in time, once it's more normative to like Seek out a service to recover crypto funds for love going to pass away, there will be some bad actors out. There is a. Don't worry, we're going to take care of you and take advantage of people when they're all heartbroken and not really thinking clearly or carefully. So here's to know what your kind of vision is for for the future of the industry in our guard.
Speaker 3:
Okay yeah, I think, if we think about it today, we are already very subjected, and even more subjected, to these kind of risks. Right, because you know, you have a seed phrase, you can share it. And if people are not aware of the seed phrase, of how things work, if people are not aware of its importance, of how they can Use it in a wallet, etc. We, we, we covered the funds. What happens is they are subjected to all kinds of scams and people saying who, I will help you. All of that. And even if you trust someone in your family you know, I don't know if you have a lot of money, then you, you share the seed phrase with him and you give him indications to like share it across the family. You have no guarantees that will happen because, at the end of the day, yeah, they are family, we trust them, but sometimes, when people see a lot of money, they do crazy, crazy stuff, they Don't behave like themselves and you're you're kind of subjected to all these risks. Having such a protocol, the great part is that the rules will be set by the person who has the crypto and the other people will just have to follow it, in terms of possible scams, for example, as we were talking about, we would have a service that is, you know, done with more manual work on the legal side At the same time, with the kind of agreement we would have in place that would, with the right incentives, so with the over collateralization and the insurance that would stop people from behaving negatively. I think you know, at the end of the day, that's, that's all. That's the great. One of the great benefits of cryptocurrency is being able to align incentives for individuals to be having the way we want. So we just need to think how can we do that and think of the several different outcomes. But, of course, in the future, considering this area, you know there will be a lot of scams. There could be scams depending on the solutions that you use. But I think if we use this kind of smart contracts, even with other framework, the scam, the scam opportunities will be harder to get, because you know there are clear rules that are going to be executed by a smart contract, so nobody can actually do anything to stop that. That's the way it partner no trusted need, no trust needed. But I don't know. For example, I can see if you can fake certificates of death, for example, right now, if we work with certificates of death or something like that, that we explore that possibility, it would be really easy to fake them, put them on chain and yeah, and it's just a paper. We have no way to verify if it's true or not. But, for example, in the future, if those certificates are actually emitted directly on chain by the I'm missing the name of the place you go when you die, but to get your autopsy I'm missing the name of that but if those guys, yeah, corner, thank you. Exactly If they are emitted by the, issued by the corner, directly onto the blockchain, for example, those will be but childhood to forge, for example. So I think there are.
Speaker 3:
The advantages of moving towards a blockchain based system are Having more control, no need to trust intermediaries, the rules will be respected and executed by the smart contract, and also the costs. Right now, in the traditional industry, there are a lot of costs related to wheels, such as riding your wheels, storing your wheel, then you have to pay the executor of your wheel and basically, this kind of smart contract we have could substitute all these three individuals. So, yeah, so as we move to a more tokenized world, if that's what will happen, but I think there are a lot of centralized institutions pushing to a tokenize tokenize world, like black rock, where I've recently done the Bitcoin ETF. I think those protocols will become increasingly more common and the way to deliver on inheritance is that it's easier, simple, less bureaucratic there's also a lot of papers and bureaucracy and also you know when you can rely more on it because you don't need as much trust or anything like that.
Speaker 5:
Yeah, you're good. Yeah, that's awesome. I definitely have some additional questions, but we have Cardano review with a hand up and if anybody else wants to come join the conversation, just hit the request and come join us up here today. So our Cardano review, let's hear it.
Speaker 2:
What's up? Yeah, so I Really do think that this is the novel idea, you know, because what happened to your, to your crypto, with everything you know when you're, when you're not here, but they do bring up some good points, which is the potentiality of people misusing the system To try to get your money before you die. So, um, I guess my question is, when I'm like, yeah, I guess my question is Once you guys, because seems like there's gonna be a lot of things to flesh out I went to the, to your website, or not your website? I went to your profile and I couldn't find the website that did find your Twitter or your YouTube. I guess my question is will you be like making some explainer videos and like walking people through the whole process? Because I'm a like a visual learner and there's I'm a lot of other people visual learners and sometimes I'll just use the tech in this, test it out and like try it all its limits. So are you guys putting on like stress, testing the system and walking people through the whole system?
Speaker 3:
Yes, for sure. I think that's super important in terms of my, my Twitter. Right now, this Twitter is just a Twitter. I use more for the YouTube channel. We have a Twitter for Genwells that's how we call the protocol and it, yeah, it's at Genwells App, at Genwells app and, yeah, you can you have the Twitter there. You have right now a website. That is just. We did it really quickly for funding.
Speaker 3:
In terms of catalyst, in terms of the commutation, we are already developing the commutation for the current protocol and the smart contracts. But right now, with the proposal, it's kind of the things we want to do. We want to create a better user experience with a better interface and front-end to really be easy to use this protocol. Right now, the interface is not good. It's just a proof of concept, something we were using to test the smart contracts and test all the functionalities and, besides that, we'll put the protocol onto the testnet. We'll have a bug bounty program for the community to come and to test it out, find bugs and, besides that, we want to do audits. Audits are really expensive, but I think it's really important because we are working with Customer funds. You know we are looking a lot of funds sometimes could be life savings of a person. So we really need to be safe and to be, you know, better safe than sorry. So we'll try to stress test it as much as possible before actually launching on main ad. But so far we have done a lot of internal testing and it's been working really fine. Of course, of course I Education will be important and I have a YouTube channel, so I recognize the importance of education. That's why I created it. So we'll be doing a lot of video tutorials and a lot of just like docs the well-documented docs with the things you should know, even some tricks and functionalities you can create using this protocol.
Speaker 3:
For example, one thing you could do using this protocol is to minimize the risk of losing your seed phrase. That's just a specific characteristic we notice. That is, if you have multiple wallets and you decide to give admin token to each of these wallets, only the person who created the vault can give the admin token. You are actually able to assess this vault through the wallets you own. So that means that if, any chance, you lose your seed phrase to one of your wallets and you have your funds in your vault, you'll still be able to assess the tokens from one of the other wallets, which is also an interesting solution.
Speaker 3:
But there are many more things we can do. We can, for example, nest vaults inside a vault and do more complex flows of how the funds should go to the different people. For example, I don't know I have funds to go to these three people, but if one doesn't claim with a complex vault I can put the amount that should go to that people that is not claiming, because maybe she died or something. I can make it after two years go to the other person and the other person is able to claim it. All those kinds of things and personalizations are able to be done, but that needs to be explained. In the future those complex features will be integrated as a functionality and the complexity will be abstracted by the front end of the protocol.
Speaker 1:
That's quite interesting, quite interesting, the way that you're, because I know some of the problems in the past have been what if the person who inherits my money is also dead? But you seem to have a solution for that, which is really cool, which is really awesome. Actually, war wells. You had your hand up and then put it down. I don't know if you had a question.
Speaker 4:
Yeah, that actually basically was my question he answered it towards the end about what happens if you either change your mind about giving it to a particular person or they end up passing away. I guess maybe it's just me. I'm not really clear on the particulars as to my understanding is you were saying that you send a token to the wallet that you want to bequeath your crypto to, but now I'm thinking that maybe it's more of a. There's a back-end website that isn't actually sending a token to a wallet, but it's more configuring for what wallet you're going to send something to, and more of a web 2 kind of situation. So is there any? I don't know if I'm on the right track or wrong track or if you can clarify for me at all.
Speaker 3:
Okay, I hope I can and I hope I understand. But just, yeah, it's everything. Web 3, everything decentralized. Honestly, you can. Just, if you develop another front-end for it, you can run it, no issues. You don't need anything else Right now as we stand.
Speaker 3:
And, yeah, you send the tokens to your wallet. But imagine I've already explained what happens if the person dies first. But imagine you send the token, you have a specific pocket with a certain amount of crypto deposited into that pocket and you send it to a person. That means that person can claim that pocket, but for some reason, I don't know, it was your wife and she betrayed you or something I don't know Just imagining a scenario and you don't want her to get anything anymore.
Speaker 3:
What you have to do, what you need to do, is just simply create another pocket or send your crypto from that pocket to another already existing pocket, divide it across the other pockets. Whatever you want to do, you just need to remove that crypto from there and basically, the person will still have the token, but they cannot do anything. They cannot claim anything from there because there's nothing there. It's empty. So you also have the ability to create as many vaults and as many pockets as you want. So you also always have the ability to change your beneficiaries. As long as you're alive, or even if, for example, a beneficiary loses the seed phrase to his crypto wallet or it's compromised and someone can assess it, what happens is that you just need to remove the funds from that pocket. You create a new pocket and then you send it the new token to a wallet that is not compromised and yeah, and they will still be safe and good to go and there will be no issues with claiming your tokens.
Speaker 4:
Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you so much. Appreciate it, thank you.
Speaker 1:
Thank you, I know it had to do with like legally right. I just don't remember the specific questions because when people die, there's like different laws and different countries and different. Do you foresee like any problems in the future with that?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, that's a good question. Right now, the thing that is and that kind of happens, at least in some jurisdictions I've seen, like Portugal or the UK, just because I've been working on a company also that was creating wheels online wheels in the UK and so I had a little bit of exposure onto that side and the thing is, across different countries the legislation is very specific, but also across different countries what happens is a lot of the responsibilities to pay the taxes or anything go to the person themselves and then the person can seek for legal counseling to deal with those responsibilities if the person doesn't want to deal it by itself, right, and but besides that they still need to pay for all the other services, for someone to transfer the assets that will be the executor across the family. They'll need to pay for the wheel, they'll need to pay for storing the wheel and all those kinds of services still. So our protocol is kind of substituting those services and not the legal side. We try not to be on the legal side exactly because of that, because it's complex and very different across legislation.
Speaker 3:
One idea we are exploring, but this is too early, so we are just exploring to try to get some advice for different legislations in the platform, but just advice to help people if people want to leveraging AI. But this is something we are still exploring and studying, so it's not something we'll have initially, but that's something that will be theoretically very doable. And I was going to say something else that I forgot. Oh, my God, I think you're passing me this.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I'm rubbing off on you. Yeah, newt, do you think about it? Or whatever? You kind of answered my question. I just see that being as a hurdle because I've been an executor of a state before and it's not fun. Yeah, it's not fun, like being responsible for getting who gets what and who needs paid where before funds are distributed out, amongst things. So it's a whole process. So that's what kind of like freaks me out about the whole situation. It's because I've been through it and I know that it's a legal process and it's not just as simple as sending the funds to somebody.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, the thing here is also, the process changes a little bit because at the end of the day, this is not using an executor or using anything. You also don't have a confirmation that the person is alive. If you think about it Like just in an hypothetical scenario, of course we are doing this for inheritance, but at the end of the day that's a bad line. We don't know why the person is not updating the proof of life. It could be for some other reason. So you have no confirmation of death. So what we are? Just, it's almost like, I don't know, like a complex fasting schedule. It's almost like a transaction that we are enabling.
Speaker 1:
A future data transaction.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, and that is not actually directly connected to death. It's most likely that it will be because of death, but not directly. So legally, you know, there is no Interesting. You understand, interesting there is no. You cannot say this was because the person died and this is an inheritance.
Speaker 1:
It's not Because technically it might not be dead Exactly, might have just not forgot to sign their transaction, they extended it, or whatever.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, or they are missing, or I don't know.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, whatever, I get it totally. We have a few minutes left. Can you tell me what your catalyst proposal is about? Just a quick overview of that, what you're asking for and what you're gonna use the funds for?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so I've already said a little bit about that, but basically we already have our proof of concept. We have smart contracts working and what we are trying to achieve with this catalyst proposal is to guarantee a good experience for the users, to be ready for test net and then main net, so deliver a good front end. We will have some UIX and some stuff for that as well, and besides that is going to test net with this protocol, having a bug bounty program, having the community testing it out and helping us find any issues and also doing a security audit. We already got some quotes and I think that's gonna be very important to ensure the security of the protocol. And once we have those things taken care of with this proposal, we should be ready, as long as there are no issues, to launch on main net, and that's the goal is to prepare us to on the solution stage. We are in the current solution stage to go to the test net, to the audit and then be prepared for main net.
Speaker 1:
Excellent Nudes. Any last question, Because you said you had a few. Any last questions before we let them off the huts.
Speaker 5:
No, I was just going to ask about the catalyst proposal. I saw it's an eight month timeline that you guys have and I was curious to know. Maybe you just take us through each step, like what are the first things you're looking to accomplish? But you've gone over some. I don't know if you want to speak to that in any regards, and I would suggest anyone, if they're interested in this, check out the IdeaSkill link pinned at the top, where you'll have a link to the YouTube video that gives their demo. So that's the luck to you. Not sure if you wanted to speak any further on kind of your timeline for these eight months ahead.
Speaker 3:
All right, yeah, I can speak a little bit about the timeline, no problem. So, basically, as stated, wait a minute, I'm just going to get the right information, so I get the actual, accurate dates for you guys and to not make any mistakes out of on top of my. So, first, we are going to try to do some optimizations to the smart contract. That's the first milestone Just to reduce, like, the weight, the memory and to increase the amount of assets you can actually stake per per pocket. That's that's important. So you need to be aware of those limitations of the current blockchain and we're trying to optimize. We already achieved some stuff, but there is more we want to optimize and, if necessary, you can actually get some external up of an experienced developer to help us with these. Besides that, we have the development of the UI wax. We'll be hiring an expert. We already have someone that started developing this and we don't. We already managed our expectations that we don't have the funding to pay her immediately, but hopefully, if we can get the catalyst funding, we will laugh. Besides that, we have the front ends, just to design a good fund from them with the user experience. I'm forgetting about the deadlines. The first one for the optimizations should be around three weeks, especially if we are an expert to help us. The second one should be around one month of development for the UI wax and for the front end development, we hope it to be around one month and a half. And then we have also some marketing, which I think is important to get awareness for, for the, for the project, we haven't done anything besides this organic kind of marketing and we want to do something to really bring the community, and I think it's important to show people what we are building, because you know building and they will come is cool, but it's really important that people are aware of what's being built so they can use it. Then we have the testnet launch, where we have the bounty program for the community to give feedback and test out our app, and finally the audit to make sure everything is is fine, there are no vulnerabilities in smart contract and that is safe for users to use it.
Speaker 3:
I think maybe one thing that is important and I forgot to mention is that we are also looking to integrate with the Dapps on Carolina, so we want to integrate in situ A that in the future you can actually do everything you want from from our front end.
Speaker 3:
So like, for example, you want to trade some tokens or provide liquidity in a DAX, we could have a front end integrated for you to do so from the protocol directly with the smart contracts and without you know, without having to like, from the vault directly to the Dapp and from the Dapp directly to the vault, and we can do that for DAXs, for I don't know, liquid protocol, for example, borrow and landing for Indigo. Yeah, it's just a matter of working on these integrations, but I think that's very important. And we think that's important as well because it could make the experience for users much more easier in the future, because right now, if you want to interact with DeFi and everything, you kind of need to go to the website, you kind of need to go learn and then connect your all that, etc. Here in the future, hopefully, we can have everything integrated and people just need to choose the app they want to use, the functionality they want to use, and then they can do it directly from the page.
Speaker 1:
Thanks, genwell, for joining us and thank you all for listening to Cardano over coffee. Make sure you check out Genwell's fund 11 catalyst proposal link down in the description. We want to give a big shout out to our monthly podcast supporters the Wizard, tim, discovercardano, bookio Project Camo, linda from StakepoolTicker, m-a-l-u Twisted Gears, meehan, enigma, stakepoolticker1, monster, stakepoolticker, m-n STR, epochsec and Psycho's the Cardano card game. We appreciate all your support. If you'd like to have your name or business mentioned in future podcasts or have your logo and links displayed in the description of our podcast, click the support button now.
