Kain Warwick - The Builder’s Dilemma - TOKEN2049 Dubai 2025

Hey everyone. Um, thanks very much. I'm the founder of Infinex and I'm going to be walking through uh this dilemma that we face as builders in the space um when we try and optimize for the user experience um on uh on chain. So we have this uh dilemma as builders um when when we start out in the space that forces us to choose between uh existing patterns of how things are built um and making new patterns and we've been kind of stuck in this uh space for a while now. So I'm going to um walk through uh the evolution of crypto wallets um which is not showing up there.

So um let's see how my memory goes. Um so uh we basically have uh in the in the early Bitcoin days uh Bitcoin core uh CG minor um command line tools um to to use Bitcoin. They were all obviously self-custodial and they were not necessarily user friendly. Um it was it was a very technical thing to do. Um and then in 2011 we had the first centralized exchanges um which were very userfriendly and very easy to use.

you just deposited Bitcoin um into the exchange and you were able to trade it. Um and the first one of those was obviously Mount Gox, but then we had Coinbase and um you know, Kraken, a bunch of other exchanges launched. Um and today, even 15 years later, uh they still dominate. So that form factor of wallet has been the kind of dominant uh place where crypto activity happens ever since the the first launch of Mount Ox in 2013. Bitcoin uh upgraded and we had multisigs um so you could secure large amounts of funds um which at that time you know obviously there was a lot of funds on the Bitcoin network and people didn't feel comfortable having self-custody with a single seed phrase or single private key and so u multisigs were deployed as well as hardware wallets so we saw the launch of traor ledger that allowed people to self-custody uh bitcoin and other assets in a way that was much uh much safer than just having uh some software running on your computer.

Then in 2015, something happened. Ethereum launched and we had smart contracts. Um, after the launch of smart contracts, we needed a way to uh have browsers that would interact with smart contract platforms and decentralized applications. The first of those uh was missed. But then very quickly after that, we had MetaMask launch.

and MetaMask was unfortunately a little bit too successful and it created uh a situation this gravity well that we haven't really been able to break out of since then um almost a decade later. So we've had incremental improvements since then. We had mobile wallets. So, um you know, Trust Wallet, uh Rainbow Wallet, a lot of uh new wallets launched that were basically mobile apps that wrapped the same signing experience that MetaMask uh initially um deployed but um inside of a a mobile app. Then we got smart contract wallets um which improved the UX, improved signing, but again incremental sort of marginal improvements.

And then we had embedded wallets and embedded wallets said, "Okay, let's take the MetaMask experience and put it into the DAP itself." so that you don't need to have a browser wallet or browser extension or to deploy new software. You just turn up the DAP and you have a wallet right there. There's some issues with that as well. And again, this incremental improvement has kind of pushed us in different directions, but it hasn't been able to break out.

So now it's 2025 and we haven't really been able to improve the the user experience um with any of these innovations over the last 10 years. We're still stuck in this MetaMask gravity well. So, we have this trade-off space here. Hard to use, easy to use, more universal, and more isolated. And browser extensions are up in the top left, right?

So, we have they're they're hard to use. Um, you need to be a bit of an enthusiast, you need to have, you know, uh there's a bit of a learning curve to get used to them. Um, but they are quite universal. So, if you have MetaMask, you can take it to almost any DAP. If you have Phantom, you can use it on Salana, you can use it on Ethereum, um, Sui now.

uh so they're getting uh more and more universal but there is this learning curve that is hard for people to get past. Mobile wallets are kind of in the middle of that space and then embedded wallets are down here. They're very easy to use. You turn up to a DAP, you get a new wallet provisioned for you um but they're isolated and this is creates a a different UX problem. They're easy to use but it doesn't necessarily mean the experience is good.

And then centralized exchange very much down the bottom here. They're an isolated silo. Binance, KCoin, you bring your assets to them. Everything happens inside there. It's great UX.

There's no gas. You don't need to worry about chains. You can have any asset on them. Um, but you you don't have the ability to do anything outside of uh those silos. So, we have this interesting little trade-off space that kind of emerges out of that where we can't really figure out how to break out of here.

Um, and it's it's this kind of decision as a builder when you turn up that you have an isolated experience that's easy to use or you have a universal experience that's hard to use. And we we need to figure out a way to kind of break through that. And the challenge is as a builder when you turn up and you say, "I'm going to build a DAP." You have no control over the wallet or signing experience. you have to adhere to the existing standards because MetaMask, Phantom, uh even uh embedded wallets, they all have a standard that you uh you can't change.

So, you build a DAP and you're you're stuck in this uh this side of the equation. And then as a wallet provider, if you were to turn up and say, "Hey, I'm a new wallet and I've built this amazing technology and it does all these cool things," none of the DAPs work with it. And so, it's very hard for you as a wallet or infrastructure provider to change the standards. And again, we're still stuck in this MetaMask gravity well. We can't break out.

Um, and so again, browser extensions up there, embedded wallets, but we can't really work out how to get up into this universal, easy to use quadrant. How how do we how do we get up there? What do we need to do? Um, and so when we started building Infinex, we said, well, UX is the number one thing for us. We don't care about anything else.

We're willing to make trade-offs as long as the user experience is as good as a centralized exchange, which for an onchain platform that's non-custodial is hard. But what it meant was that we had to build our own wallet. So, we were building the application layer, but we wanted to build a full stack application that went all the way down to the wallet. And that is something that most people are not crazy enough to do as a, you know, normally you just want to build an application. It's hard enough.

You got to build smart contracts. You got to, you know, get liquidity. you don't want to go and reinvent wallets at the same time. But for us, we didn't have a choice. We decided that we were going to do this and we wanted an easy to use and universal solution.

Um, so we had to build the app and the wallet. Now the Infinex today, if you've used it, you're probably thinking, hang on a second, it's also isolated, right? It's its own silo. How does this actually solve the problem? you've built a very good user experience, but you can't do anything with your assets inside of Infinex outside of Infinex.

It's basically the same form factor as a centralized exchange. Um, which is true. So, the question is, what do we do about that? How do we fix that? And I've got a video [Music] that Thank [Music] [Music] you.

Ah, look back. [Music] Okay, so there's a lot of stuff going on in that video. It's a very quick um snapshot of both the current state and the future state of Infinex. Um but the the current state that we have today inside Impex is this silo, right? So you come and you create with a pass key a new account which is very quick.

We have 11 supported chains. Um, you can swap and bridge across about 2,000 assets. Um, you can earn. We have, uh, I think about 20 different earning opportunities that are available inside the app. So, you can swap into those.

Um, whether it's an LRT, LST, or other yield bearing asset. Um, but now what we have is an app store. We have the ability for you to use apps like Ave that you know and love using your Infinex account and bring that to the DAP itself and be able to interact with the exact same experience that you have inside of Infinex which is chain abstracted gasless easy on boarding and it is going to basically uplift all of these DAPs that have been stuck in this MetaMask uh gravity well and allow them to break out and build new experiences that are um basically designed for a modern multi-chain world. You know when when Metamas launched we had one chain and some test nets. Today we have you know so many different chains and the the form factor of wallets has not changed.

So this is the first new form factor that we've been able to uh design in the last decade. So you go to Ave and you can connect with your Infinex account and you make a decision as well from a security standpoint as to which um functions in the contracts you want to have autosigned. So you can use your pass key for some things and you can autosign others which means you now have an experience that is single click. You go to supply assets and you can just click once and assets supplied. Within those um DAPs though, you also have modals that will help you to get the funds that you need at the time that you need them.

So most of the time if you've been to a new DAP and you provision a new wallet, you probably find that you don't have the right asset, you maybe don't have gas for it, you might need to bridge, you might not know what bridge to use. Um and you might even bridge the wrong asset. You bridge the wrong variant of USDC and you're kind of stuck. Um, so with our swap and bridge functionality built in to these DAPs with a few hooks, you now know exactly which asset you need, it can prompt you to get that asset and it can help you to find the best route. Then when you come to a new DAP or a new application ecosystem like Mega ETH, um, you want to get on boarded, you probably have no assets there.

You probably never used it before. So you need to be onboarded into the ecosystem which means we need to give you options to use other assets whether it's Bitcoin or Soul or USDC to get Mega ETH on Mega ETH on the day that it launches so that you can start using DAPs. And then once you've done that and you've used the DAP and you've got a position in Ave or you've got an open um per position in noise, you want to be able to come back and have a single control plane where you can either close those positions, you can modify them and it's it's a single platform that you can go where after you've taken your assets out into the world and done all of these things, you can come back to it and go, okay, I can see that a position, the health factor is still good or it's not great and you want to top up and inside of the app inside of Infinex itself, you can top up your collateral or you can close the position completely. So, we're launching um with uh a bunch of apps that you probably know and love already. Um apps like Ave Athena Sky um Synthetics and then we've got two new ecosystems that we will be launching with Fogo and Mega ETH.

And inside those ecosystems, we're working with some of the top DAPs there to make sure that on launch day when those new chains launch, we make it as easy as possible for you to be on boarded into those ecosystems. So the first wave of Infinex Connect enabled apps, things like Ave um are going to be coming out in May um next month and Infinex Connect, the actual SDK that enables this for DAP developers that enables DAP developers to build these new experiences to build multi-chain DAPs that have easy onboarding is going to come out in June 2025. Um, so we'll be uh launching with a few hackathons and other uh promotions to make sure that we've got as many new DAPs that are using this SDK. Um, and um, you can go to infinex.xyz um/connect and find out more or express interest if you're a builder.

Um, and yeah, we're extremely excited to see what people are going to be able to build with this. U, we think that this is a huge uplift for application developers and we're really excited to see the Infinex app ecosystem come to life.