Crypto Wallets and Mass Adoption, Maryna Nestеrenko, Trustee Plus | ETHSofia 2025

Hello everyone. Sorry, I just need a moment to realize that I'm on the stage already. It was a tough day. Hope that you had a better one. But I think that it's going to be very interesting because uh this topic is not just about crypto.

It's all about uh my goal also. So let's start. Yes. First of all, I will tell a bit about myself. Uh I'm head of customer support in the trusty plus.

This is custodial crypto wallet. I work there more than three years I think. And uh for these three years I made a big work on making crypto easily uh making crypto easy for everyone like even for my grandma. We even tested our KYC procedure on her and she did her best. Uh so I know what I'm talking about.

And uh for me this topic is personal because I believe that mass adoption will happen the time when people start uh to understand that crypto and all the finance are the one thing. So let's start with evolution of crypto wallets. Uh I think that's all of you knows that few years ago wallets was something very complicated not for everyone only for the crypto enthusiast only for the people who has like technical education and everything but as we see now everything changed and today wallets are becoming not just a crypto wallet it's more about like super app where you can make everything so uh each has tradeoffs of course Full independence, right? Non-custodial wallets are fine. Yes.

But like full independence or ease of use because as I see not everyone can understand how to use a custodial wallet or sorry non-custodial wallet. Yes. So uh I know that maybe some of you will think like what losing grounds but yes it is about the analytics. For the last few years, we understood that uh non-custodial wallets give you full control of your assets, but at the same time, they put the whole uh like you have to be uh sorry, I forget the world just one moment. Yeah.

So like you have to be responsible for your money by yourself, right? And if something happens, sorry, you have to make everything by yourself. So for mainstream adoption, this is a huge challenge. Just imagine how to explain what is the seed phrase to your grandma or mom or sister. It was a challenge.

I did it and uh my mom said that if she has an option, she won't she she don't even want to know about it anymore. So most people prefer safety nets, familiar processes, and the feeling that if something goes wrong, they can ask support. Of course, like uh in our app, you have the bigger ever uh button of support. So if you need something, you can just see this biggest ever button and ask us. So why custodial uh why custodial solutions are becoming more relevant?

Um so custodial wallets are more aligned with customers expectations. So you can top up with Iben, spend money with cryptocards, send money to your business partners and everything in the one app. So you don't need to download anything else. You just need one app to manage all your assets, all your money, euro, crypto, everything, everything in one app. And it helps to lower the entry level for the regular customers.

So like everyone can understand how does it work. You just register, pass the QC and use it. That's it. So yeah, Trusty Plus as an example, of course. Uh this app shows how far the crypto wallet can evolve.

So it's no longer just a crypto wallet. It's a financial hub where you can make everything. So we combine a sepa uh swift cryptocards, mobile payments, everything instant transfers between the customers and uh user make everything at one place. about the mass adoption of course uh technology alone doesn't drive the mass adoption but UIX does that's what the change the game changer the UIX right if you see something familiar if you see that this app looks like you used to uh like a revolute for example right or something that you already saw somewhere yes you're going to use it because you trust this app of course and mass adoption will come when people stop thinking about crypto and simply think finance like no this is not crypto anymore that's just my finance and that's it integration with traditional finance so uh to truly integrate with a daily life of a regular person uh we we see that we should connect everything with a traditional rails so Ian is crucial we first of all maybe three years ago we won't uh think that Okay, we really need a band, we need euro, we need SEPA because no one thought about it. Everyone was like, okay, I going to use crypto.

I know that I can withdraw such such funds and that's it. But then we realized that like people why why do I need to make any other app just to manage my euro for example. So that's why we added a ban so you can send money to your business partners or like pay for your flat everything and USDC or UDC balances helps you to spend your money just like a cash. It's very easy. You just add the card to the Apple Pay and you can go and compliance of course AML KYC we know that it's very important for the regulations.

So that's why we have AML and QC like the biggest ever AML department that manage everything. So yes, this is also a crucial moment. What about Sorry. Yeah. Uh what's about the crypto in everyday life?

Just imagine you have the instrument that helps you to spend your crypto on Netflix, on I don't know, Uber, on I just ordered yesterday uh text me. It was a hard one, but I did it and everything just with one card. And you don't even notice that you use crypto. You use just you use your money and that's it. And that's the real vision.

When users don't see the difference, you just spend it. And the smoother the experience, the faster the adoption of course. What's about the challenges? Of course, if we talk about crypto, if we talk about something that is very interesting for the regulations and everything, of course, there are the barriers. And the main barrier in mass adoption is that every country has its own regulation.

Not every country, but like in Europe, we have one thing, in USA another, in uh Montenegro another. I think they don't have regulation now, but that's what we have. Everything is very different and we have to compare what do we have with what we going to make with it to make everything as good as we can. And of course fraud remains a threat. uh we just all the time we're working on preventing the fraud and the moment we realize like okay we made it now the fraud won't happen then the frauders uh goes with a new idea and that's the reason why we always make new steps to prevent such situations and of course most importantly the education we started like a big pro uh program of uh education for our customers like how to use your wallet, what is the wallet, what is the the seed phrase, how to send money, what is the fee, what is gas, because uh I just remember two years ago I tried to explain to my sister what is the gas fee and she was like okay why gas or why drone why everyone wants some money from me why to send some money I have to have another money and why it's so complicated so yes we have to educate people to give them uh them The explanation why does it happen like this?

So the future of crypto wallets uh the future belongs to the super app. The app that can manage everything at one space. So you can just merge web three and traditional finance under the one roof. That's the point. And AI will personalize your expenses.

For example, that's what we're making right now. Uh so AI machine learning also going to be the friends with the crypto of course and the wallets that feel like banks but with benefits of crypto will win. So key takeaways uh to summarize mass adoption is about convenience. This is the first of all custodial solutions are now the gateway and trusty plus is already shown the path towards a crypto bank. So the final step is when people stop to uh differentiating between crypto and finance it's going to be one thing.

So sorry doesn't matter. So Tom Hanks says thanks. Thank you so much. Have a nice day. It was my pleasure.

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