One of the central and founding tenets of crypto has been self-custody... but lets not kid ourselves, self custody of crypto is a pain in the arse for the technically minded, so it is no surprise that most normies are going to be terrified of the whole idea. Add to the mix, the inherent danger and weakness of taking care of private keys and seeds... when most people can't secure their own emails... well, this is just going to eb a recipe for financial disaster!

So, it means that most people stick to keeping their crypto on centralised exchanges... which completely defeats the "not your keys, not your crypto" ethos.

With the rollout of Ethereum smart wallets and Near intents, there is a new type of self-custodial wallet that has been in operation for the last year or so. Infinex is the brainchild behind the Synthetix founder, and it has the nicely humble vision of dethroning both the current crop of self-custodied wallets with their inherent difficulty of UI and security, as well as the centralised exchanges that derail the self-custody ethos.

Easy to set up, with passkeys as an easy secure methods for account setup and verification... there isn't that long and easily skipped step of backing up seeds in a secure manner. Seeds have long been seen as the weakest link in crypto self-custody. Abstracting these away from the regular user is definitely a good idea, and for those that want to access the seeds, that is also possible.

Account recovery is done through a verified crypto address. The process is started through the regular account triggers... gmail or something similar, but it triggers the recovery to a crypto address that you added yourself at setup.

The triggers can also be hardware wallets for those who want that extra security, or just through the email route for the less secure but easier method. And 2FA is present and required for those who want to withdraw from Infinex. There are vaults which are then transferred to the smart contract wallets... mimicking the hot and warm wallets of a secure setup, with the cold authorisation again for those that want that!

Now, we get to the uses... currently limited mostly to crypto changing and storage.... but soon to see the rollout of a sign-in similar to Wallet Connect to allow access to the whole range of DeFi!

The principal guiding design feature is chain abstraction... the Infinex team believes that users don't want to and should need to know what chains their assets are on, and that the smart contract wallet should handle all of that in the background. Definitely a worthwhile vision... it is really really annoying to have so many different chains to interact with! Especially with crypto teams not always being totally clear what chains they are mainly based upon and which they have only a "token" presence (haha...)!

Swidges are the key feature of Infinex... Swap and Bridge... it allows you to swap and bridge across EVM and non-EVM chains via a multitude of DeFi contracts. No need for gas tokens as the fees are taken priced into the swidge and all you need to do is to specify what you want to swap and what for. At the moment, you also need to specify target chains, but that is on the way out as well!

So, first impressions are great! Swidges are awesome and mean that you can use Infinex to quickly trade and change into and out of token holdings.

Worth a try, to try and get a head start on the future of self-custody!

Handy Crypto Tools

Infinex: The future of self-custodied crypto wallets. Simple but powerful to use, made for normies!
Ledger Nano S/X: Keep your crypto safe and offline with the leading hardware wallet provider. Not your keys, not your crypto!
Coinbase Wallet: Multi chain wallet with lots of opportunities to Learn and Earn!
Binance: My first choice of centralised exchange, featuring a wide variety of crypto and savings products.
WooX: The centralised version of WooFi. Stake WOO for fee-free trades and free withdrawals! This link also gives you back 25% of the commission.
GMX.io: Decentralised perpetual futures trading on Arbitrum!
Coinbase: If you need a regulated and safe environment to trade, this is the first exchange for most newcomers!
Crypto.com: Mixed feelings, but they have the BEST looking VISA debit card in existence! Seriously, it is beautiful!
CoinList: Access to early investor and crowdsale of vetted and reserached projects.
Cointracking: Automated or manual tracking of crypto for accounting and taxation reports.
KuCoin: I still use this exchange to take part in the Spotlight and Burning Drop launches.
MEXC: Accepts HIVE, and trades in most poopcoins! Join the casino!
ByBit: Leverage and spot trading, next Binance?
OkX: Again, another Binance contender?