Michael Luckhoo on Cirus wallet-as-a-service for mainstream adoption

0:01I'm Ashton Addison from blockwest capital for investment pitch media and today on the cryptocoin show we have Michael laku co-founder of Cirrus Foundation once again back on the show Michael it's great to see you again thanks a lot Ashton it's been uh it's been a while I'm happy to be back here it has you know that there's tons of updates since our last video with Cirrus and the

0:23wallet is is moving forward and thousands of active users which I'm excited to dive into and I know you guys are doing something particularly special in the wallet space and wallets are particularly important to to the growth of blockchain and mainstream adoption so I feel like it's of utmost importance to get a wallet right that it has good user experience uh growth and and allows

0:45people to get into web 3 easily so for let's I want to dive into all of that but let's just start from the top for those who haven't seen our previous interviews or for those who aren't familiar with Cirrus foundation on like what exactly are you and your team are doing at Cirrus and then we'll dive into all those details sounds good thanks a lot Ashton um

1:06really simply put Cirrus is the Forefront of building a web 3 solution that gives people pure ownership of their data and their digital currencies we think that's the two pillars of uh primary tenant in in web3 so meaning that this is how people really gain access to all the benefits of web3 all applications of web3 and we call this a decentralized web

1:29um without these two components um you know really the movement for web3 can't really happen so that's really what we're focused on at really focused on building a solution that ties people directly into earning from their data but more importantly evolving them into new applications that are powered by their data and opening a world of financial opportunities across the world something

1:54we call open finance but the idea is that anybody should have access that's unfiltered not restricted by Geo not restricted by government constraints and I think finally you know we've seen in the past year and a half is that I think this is the need globally I love that Vision that you have for a wallet you know when I speak to people that are just getting into

2:15cryptocurrency they go oh a wallet that's just that's just where I store my tokens right that that's what the purpose of it is and I feel like your vision for uh you know ingraining yourself in web 3 and actually you know having the wallet is something that you can earn from and that you can uh have so much more functionality than just storing tokens I feel like this is the

2:36next evolution of a wallet yeah certainly and it's it's funny because there's so much you know some miscommunication around what wallets are some people think traditionally while it is just for uh transacting right so we just have it for spending and buying things um in the in the web 3 world wallet is really your account it's your identity it's it's everything that's tied to you

2:59so a little bit of confusion around the terminology but really a wallet should be able to store digital identity Solutions connecting you to all the things that you are you know really using day-to-day storing your currencies that are sovereign to you um health records potentially at a later date um tied to the blockchain and all of these things kind of combine so a wallet

3:20is really an account for the user uh entering into the web3 space but more importantly how they are able to create soldering access to their digital assets and uh that's really what we want to show and that's why Cirrus I'm really focused on building a Next Generation wallet uh we call this generation two because the current wallets in space uh from you know 2016 to 2023 I've really

3:44just like you said been primarily focused on storing tokens uh movement and tokens and swaps and trade kids uh we think that the wallet space needs to evolve and we need to evolve to to Really consume uh more wide scale adoption and so we're at a generation two right now um where wallets will be better serving the person more focused on the digital intelligence data identity as I'm sure

4:06you're seeing across the world a lot of discussions topics on this space and and really preservation of assets yeah I love that approach and when you when a team is building a wallet it's of utmost importance to have you know security and safety of the user's funds and as you talking about in a version two of a wallet you know their personal identity and whatever other personal

4:28information that they have and that's not something that can be built in a day you know I'm sure there's rigorous testing that goes on years of figuring it out to make sure that you know nothing ever gets stolen or compromised and everything is safe and secure and that it's actually easy to use I would love to hear a little bit on the backstory of how long you and your team have been

4:48working on this and where exactly you're at right now yeah you know it's a really exciting point for us here at Cirrus and I think Ashland we've we've talked for the past few years uh even from my previous Venture all the way to Sears um and a lot of it was about building and developing and you know getting things together and more resources to finally you know uh able to launch and

5:10this is exciting so I'm happy even just through our personal relationship that I can confidently come back in the show and say hey we have a successful product it's in the hands of many users across the world and uh they're using a day-to-day which is amazing uh we went through uh such a process to get here um I can't even begin to describe we we built it right from the ground up uh all

5:30the technology components all the audits we did I think we did like five different audits cost too much money uh but for the right reasons and then we really doubled down on user experience we worked with one of the best design teams across the US who helped build um you know concept cars and making sure that the number one thing we focus on is ease of use and ease of experience and

5:51that's that's really been our core of Cirrus making it at the most easy entry point into the world of web3 and financial access and the way we do it is not just from user experience and design but also making sure that people can easily tap into their data and use that as their first digital currency so for people who never have access to bitcoin or ethereum their first digital currency

6:13is really waiting for them which is tied to their data and that gives them access to you know a whole host of applications so we have launched uh that's kind of the biggest news I guess we're talking about here it's all been our focus on our product some performance stats right now we've got a few thousand users that are under this sort of private wait list

6:30we're inviting more people in every single week lifting that gate as we scale and check our balances all the way through so it's a step climb approach making sure we're secure we're covering all our bugs any issues that come up and we can capture that really quickly so to this point right now we have a fit around 55 engagement ratio so that means all the users right now are

6:55actively going back in checking their updates using the wallet that's pretty high for a benchmark of a wallet um 92 of the uh customer base said they would refer Sirius to a friend which gives us a really high NPS score which is also really amazing and we have less than uh five percent right now probably closer to three percent in tickets that means any bugs that arise and then we

7:17have to figure out capture so from a product perspective we're performing pretty well we're actually beating some benchmarks um and that's exciting so now we're very comfortable to kind of lift this weight lift weight list and and really bring this to the masses um but it's it's it's nice that we can come back into the show and and really speak confidently of of what we've built

7:36that's amazing to hear congratulations again and I was able to try out the uh the wallet in the in the early days and you know I'll tell you it has the sleekest design it looks like I think you mentioned there you're working with some you know super super cars uh it does look very beautiful I think it's one of the most Sleek it sort of has that you know like apple kind of feel

7:57where they just they just know exactly make it simple and not overly complex which crypto wallets can be if you add in all these different functionality and the technical part of it it becomes overwhelming for people that aren't involved in in crypto they're just getting it as their first wallet I feel like it's very sleek and and nicely designed and it's great to hear about

8:17the feedback of the other users and exciting for the next steps to to go public and and have it all hopefully reach millions of users yeah yeah and I also I saw that the uh the wallet is being branded as a wallet as a service I'm curious on what that means and um in terms of functionality and what it means for Cirrus

8:44yeah this is a this is a really unique Revelation for us at CRS as well um you know through a building process of the entire you know past year and a half we really became much more confident in what wallets require how to attach different functions features um storage all these different things through this learning process we were able to say that a lot of businesses and

9:07companies may have not had that expertise and are curious about well what is a web 3 wallet bring uh to their business and so what we found is that the wallet is a service space something very fresh only a few companies now right now are entering the space and we're able to develop a solution and basically a wallet that ties to an existing business or platform and gives value share to

9:33their customers so meaning that as more of their user base and their clients integrate with their platform they will be able to earn value directly into the wallet that's tied to their platform so for example you go on a website that website sees that you're there and deposits a nft says Hey welcome back thank you for this nft every time you come in you'll get 50 15 off of our

9:54discounts of our shoes whatever cases um the cool part about that as opposed to a traditional loyalty or reward point system is that user can move that anywhere when it's their wallet as a webview wall they can move that to a secondary Market they can trade it they could sell it if they want it's portable there's a portability around that that data and that asset and so what we found

10:13is by giving the user of that platform Unbound restraints on that movement of that piece of asset they feel a higher retention to that brand and higher infinity and loyalty so they feel that they're getting more internalized value it's not just some type of points system and I you know earn a thousand points to come back and Shop with me so a lot of

10:34businesses are taking this new approach and where they create value with the user and that builds a stronger digital community and it brings back value back to the business so we're actually this is actually my previous um you know kind of venture that he built before Cirrus so we're now actually able to deploy this and more importantly we have a major Enterprise

10:53client that has signed up with us so we are able to go through that process confidently and learn from that experience and really develop this um the second Point as well as a service because I know it's really fresh and new um coinbase for example Circle just launched within a couple weeks this the solution a service is different we we really focus on not just giving an SDK

11:15kit out there and saying hey go have fun with it and hopefully you can put a digital currency in there we really want to integrate with that business we want to show why data intelligence matters why their users may want to use this wallet and and finding fine-tuning it so we understand it from a data perspective and a currency and value perspective and

11:32that's something that is unique in the space I think we're probably one of the first two to really tackle that wow that's really cool because this once the power of this technology is realized by major corporations if they have the tools like something in Cirrus wallet where they can better connect with their customers be it any type of you know brick and mortar business or a coffee

11:55shop or Enterprises as you said I feel like that what you said about having an nft and then taking it away and the owner of the wallet really gets to own all those assets but they also are building loyalty in a new type of way to the businesses I feel like that's going to revolutionize all businesses yeah and it's important for us because our ethos is adoption first right so as

12:20as much as we can get a web 3 wallet out there to the masses that's our goal um the direct consumer approach which is right now you can use our product you can use Cirrus wallet it's great because we have great advocacy in the crypto world they're the most viral Community I've ever seen uh it's like a you know 300 like Spartans so they will always cheerlead your product they will create

12:41natural marketing and and awareness so we're always going to be a consumer first approach because it brings the highest level of uh voice to what you're doing but at the same time targeting businesses brings in millions uh probably over of a course of a very short period of time and and that's what we're doing to give people access across the world and yeah working really well

13:01and one part that I like about the wallet and I feel like a lot of people would like is the fact they're actually earning funds in the wallet and like a lot of people you know they have that mindset as you mentioned about it's for transaction transaction events for sending money or receiving money but what about just earning money I would love for you to talk more about the

13:22mindset of just being able to earn while you're doing what you're doing in in sort of a passive income kind of way yeah that's that's a really good point um you know what we've seen from all our feedback is people love the surf and earn feature of our wallet that means as you surf the web you were in crypto because it's built on your data so data is your digital currency

13:45for example last year alone meta made 113 billion dollars from ad Revenue spending off of users data and and the person got zero dollars out of they got a free website um you know all these major companies Twitter is no shortcoming of that as well and other major Platforms in Google so we're finding that value has not been distributed and and the idea of

14:08distributed value across the internet needs to happen it's a it's a pretty much an inevitable at this point um with the emergence of AI which is another very new form of Rich data we can't just hand that back to the centralized companies and say hey just Harvest this and mail it you know Mill that into more better technology and llm so that's really really really rich

14:29information that people or providing and the idea for us to bring a wallet to Market that gets people to just earn from their data is a passive income stream but it's more importantly it's about you being an owner in the space and being a benefactor of that that's that's really the thesis of web3 um the cool part is we're not just paying people passively we want to bring

14:51people into applications that give you new Financial access this is what I keep kind of pushing on because this opens the doors to people who have never had access to D5 never had access to open finance and um yeah it's all built by their data which is a easy thing catastrophic catastrophically sized issue with the amount of money that Facebook and Google

15:14and the ad people are making and many people don't realize that you know if the product's free then you sort of are the product and I think that we're seeing uh a paradigm shift with things like Cirrus wallet but also with uh you know Twitter it seems like now something has shifted where the creators are able to earn for you know they're sort of using the platform and creating

15:37engagement and creating value and creating content and for that they're actually earning funds I feel like this could be the start of something where you know people are going to realize that they're entitled for either their data or their content or their time to be receiving some kind of compensation no longer should they become the product yeah big time your time is value right

16:02and and we know that we're sucked down with all our uh time and energy day day to day and vying for attention is the number one key metric that brands of companies are looking for what's really cool right now is that from The Tick Tock world over now to YouTube and now back to Twitter um the Creator economy is being paid at a greater rate so that means they're

16:22becoming part ownership in these platforms I think that's a turn of the tide and the next evolution of that isn't just a greater economy it's owner economy meaning the users now also get to get paid and be part of that so the Creator on Twitter who has a really good subscriber base and putting on really good content if you're an early subscriber and that platform is earning

16:43revenue from their advertising maybe you get a part of that maybe you become part of their subscription Revenue source and uh that's a really interesting model because it creates a more direct relationship to the Creator it creates a value incentive for the users and people are Advocates when they have something at the table when there's a real stake

17:03at the table then just a you know a tweet or a comment um I don't want to give all this away for Elon or x.com or whatever he's calling it right now uh but we would love to support the web 3 Model uh in some of these platforms and at least provide guidance yeah definitely well I I have a feeling uh that eventually they're going to be adopting some kind of wallet as a

17:24service or some kind of wallet but you guys are ahead of the game so Props to you for you know understanding that not only should people be able to earn funds but it should be able to go into their own wallet and they should be able to do whatever they want with it in a decentralized way I'm not sure that's going to happen on Twitter it might be some you know direct to PayPal or some

17:43web 2 kind of stuff but I'm feeling like we're gonna get there and you guys are Paving the way for Innovation so with that said I also saw that there is a serious Innovation lab which is pretty sounds pretty cool and you guys are already doing a lot of innovative things what is what is all included in in the serious Innovation lab and what are you guys working on there

18:06yeah it's a that's a great Point um we you know this this entire month probably over a month and a half we traveled to see all their Partners across the world we went through many conferences we went from Bahamas to Chicago we had a web three investment conference I had the the pleasure of speaking at and through all of these initiatives and our partners that we've

18:25actually been working with we want to create a joint Hub where we can bring and invite innovation in uh to our application this is not just about Cirrus building it and us being a home brew type of um Innovation we want to include um a form of governance where research and development other initiatives from the community could come in applications can

18:47be linked and built on our platform and it's inviting to the community I'm kind of hinting towards a potential governance uh protocol model that we look at developing later this year uh that gives everybody access to what we're building at Cirrus and the voting and and inclusivity on what we want to build um we're not just forcing um what we think is right we want to

19:13listen and I think from an innovation which was really well LED from our team uh Julia and um Michael Mike is a really kind of instrumental to building out a a very clear process in how we handle Innovation and a lot of that was built on um fundamentals of how we rate and how we score things and really where the user adoption is coming from so that's really what our

19:37Innovation lab is is focused on um we'll we'll leave I guess speak more on the Partnerships that we'll have uh tied to that as well later this year very cool and that sort of sounds like a little bit like getting the community involved and almost having more decentralized governance or just feedback of everybody that's using the platform big time yeah

19:59um you know governance token could be uh could be a thing in our near future the web 3 space with specific to wallets and I've been working on this for years so you've probably been following sort of the wallet ecosystem industry do you think that this wallet as a service is going to be a status quo moving forward or you know all wallets will be sort of

20:23version two wallets in the near future or how far along do you think the wallet industry as a whole is yeah this is you know it's it's really amazing because you know I've been here in the space for for many years and so we look at the wallet space we're like wow there's a lot of wallets out there there's metamask there's these other applications and so what's new to be

20:46built really that was the first iteration of wallets and and that's how we see it um we looked at all the data across the internet um and we actually compared that to the early states of the internet um the web 3 wallet space or the web 3 space is growing on track uh similar to the adoption of the internet so when people didn't even know what the internet was

21:07um and we're now at a turning point where we need a version two we need a new leap in Innovation and that is that just doesn't exist right now people really want to choose how they use a wallet some people are confused with custody or non-custodial or where their data is being stored or can they get paid from it and all of these different components what we're doing is we're

21:29creating a very modular way in which users can integrate with the wallet space build pretty much a wallet of their own that really ties to them almost like the website Builders give them hints here early states of the internet so we've looked at back at the history and really saying this is what's happening now in the wellness space and the data shows

21:50that 24 compounded annual growth rate in the wild space year over year and that's continuously growing so it's still a very unsaturated Market only um less than one percent of the world right now still has a crypto wallet so even if we move that to five percent or crossing uh 12 it's a massive space to grow into um and we we are happy to be the second

22:12iteration of that sort of growth phase introducing new components to a wallet um and that's really important for us I think that the iteration aspect of innovation needs to happen very similar to early days of the internet and we're seeing it again um so data shows the growth rate shows we're having real conversations with businesses that are saying hey you know

22:33what we want to we want to incorporate this into our business and easiest way possible which is the wallet as a service space as well and uh that's just all happened really within this past year because when you look at the strategy of building a wallet and you look at version 1.0 wallets that are out there you know a lot of these innovators they're not just looking at how can we

22:56make this 10 better how can we make you know the swaps 0.1 percent cheaper or how can we add other tokens that you know this wallet maybe doesn't support you're thinking way ahead of that of like what else what are the functions that people aren't even thinking of right now and what wallets will become decades down the road uh with all the infrastructure that's going to be built

23:17out around it including the the identities and and the finance functionality built in and and everything else so I I really have a long-term Vision that I'm seeing here Michael thank you Ashton yeah I really appreciate that um and so for the next year the product is launched uh I I'm sure it doesn't stop here there's probably so many things to do um what are some of the things that you

23:44and your team hope to achieve in the next stages of growth in getting to hopefully millions of users yeah so we are in this later part of the half part of the year we are in sandbox testing for the wallet as a service space specifically with a with a Enterprise client uh that gives us access to millions of users um we'll we'll make an announcement exactly who that is shortly and we we

24:11want to invite a new way of thinking of wallets so how they exist with the centralized currency exchanges how they exist with other platforms really ensure and sovereignty to those to those assets and I think we've seen a need for this especially considering what happened with FTX earlier the year so our real focus is solving inner issues obviously in the

24:34industry and bringing a solution that people haven't even tried yet you know I think that's that's something part of innovation really pushing that boundary so our wallet as a service initiative is is why we are able to now attract New Capital to the table new institutions that are actually backing us which will hopefully within the next month make announcements of the capital placements

24:56we're getting from real institutions are saying okay well how do we help Advance the technology here with Sears and that's that's a really amazing thing for us to have um this is not just an inner crypto World we're kind of expanding outside of that box right now and going into the end of the year um you know along the lines of having a real governance type Community I'm

25:17hinting at this again that's really on the roadmap and then early part of 2024 we will touch on the modular web 3 wallet space specifically to what I just said the idea that you can build your own and we'll be able to uh advance that so a lot of a lot in store yeah definitely that's super cool I'd love to you know people in in back in the old days when

25:44they just had you know paper wallets as we have in our pocket you want to choose your wallet you know what can you put in it how many pockets what type of material um you know what kind of cards that have what kind of functionality in there and I feel like through the ethos of of web3 or decentralization or own your own funds own your own data we should be

26:02able to customize what we want to own and what we want to have in the wallet so I feel like that's part of the long-term goal as well so I'm glad that your team is in line with that and all the best on this wallet as a service I feel like that's a great way to go from you know thousands to millions of users overnight if you get the right partner the direct to Consumer model is more of

26:22an uphill grind where you're already fighting people uh you're fighting for customers that are already in the web 3 space that already have another wallet trying to tell them why it's better when what we really need is the web 2 user or just everyday people in real life that are working with these large companies all of a sudden they onboard a web 3

26:41solution and the customers of their company don't even know that that it's web3 they're just looking for advanced functionality to connect those consumers together so I feel like that's a great approach to to like exponential growth so all the best on that um and so for the people that want to follow along with that and just for the people that want to try out the the

27:01wallet and the earning function and just see what the the UI design that I talked about super sexy what is the best way for them to get started on that and learn more uh so what we could do we'll drop a link right here in your channel and anybody who clicks on that link uh for your community we'll give them instant uh whitelist access to our product so uh

27:23yeah I'm kind of dropping the bomb here on the team but you know what we're gonna do it uh we're ready to do it we want to do it to your community because Ashley you've followed us right from day one uh it's really important that we work with the people who have been our backers so that's within 24 hours everybody will have access uh please start using it check it out give us

27:39feedback as much as possible jump in our Discord chat with me directly um that's probably the number one thing we could do and then we'll drop in uh what we've been working on the past few months called our July in review or feels like our year in review because there's so much been happening but uh Julia really helped build that out uh and the team and we're trying to be as

27:58transparent as possible all the uphill battles we faced all the hardships all the feedback we have and how we're improving ourselves I think um the best thing is it being as transparent as possible it's going a long way with us and we'll share that in the link as well too highly appreciated and uh it's nice to hear that you're being real about it because we've both run startups and smbs

28:21and it's it's a tough it's a tough game but um that's that's what it's going to take to deliver an amazing product to millions of users so keep up with the great work I will leave those links in the description box thank you so much for for that link to get access to the wallet and I'll leave the July in review in the description box as well all the

28:41best with everything with Sirius moving forward and let's follow up in the near future thank you so much Ashton looking forward cheers