Dialogue with Trust Wallet CEO: The Decentralized Exploration Journey of a Technological Idealist

Guest: Trust Wallet CEO Eowyn

Interviewed by: Nianqing, ChainCatcher

If it weren't for the acquisition by Binance in 2018, perhaps not many people in the Chinese-speaking region would know about the crypto wallet Trust Wallet. Zhao Changpeng once described Trust as "a diamond buried underground." For a long time, this project has maintained a low profile, but its technical strength should not be underestimated.

In its early days, Trust Wallet resembled a community open-source project, contributed by developers within the community. Its founder, Viktor Radchenko, is a "tech geek" who rarely appears in public and prefers to focus his energy on product development and coding. After the acquisition, Viktor joined Binance as the project lead.

That same year, Eowyn Chen bid farewell to her position in financial management consulting on Wall Street and became an assistant to Binance co-founder He Yi, responsible for Binance's growth and community operations. Since they joined Binance around the same time, Eowyn and Viktor became good friends and often discussed user growth issues. In 2021, Viktor expressed that he really didn't want to do anything beyond technical development, so Eowyn wanted to help lighten his load and thus joined Trust Wallet as CEO.

Eowyn graduated from Harvard University, and after that, she immersed herself in the financial consulting industry in New York. Although she gained considerable experience amidst the hustle and bustle of Wall Street, she gradually realized that the traditional financial system was losing its innovative vitality.

With a spirit of exploration and reflection on new things, Eowyn left New York. She seized the opportunity to explore bike-sharing overseas in San Francisco, joining ofo to expand its market in the U.S. from 0 to 1. Through her experience with the "little yellow bike," she not only deeply understood the importance of business and cash flow but also developed skills like going to city hall in the morning and rolling up her sleeves to fix bikes in the afternoon.

After leaving ofo, Eowyn did not rush into the next project. Instead, she spent a lot of time establishing her values and deeply contemplating the impact of artificial intelligence and blockchain technology on future society. Eowyn places greater importance on decentralization and checks and balances of power. While the internet has facilitated the flow of information, it has not addressed the pain points of true value circulation. In 2018, He Yi attended a private gathering hosted by Eowyn through a friend's introduction, and this chance encounter opened a new door for her. He Yi clearly showed Eowyn how blockchain technology could serve as the underlying infrastructure for value transfer on the internet.

After experiencing the ICO bubble in 2017, the crypto industry calmed down during the bear market of 2018. As a contrarian thinker, Eowyn felt this was a better time to carefully examine whether the industry truly possessed anti-fragility. At that time, Binance had just completed its first year and was facing numerous challenges and difficulties. After a ten-hour "interview" with He Yi, due to his vision and sincerity, Eowyn even accepted a 30% pay cut to join Binance.

In the early years at Binance, Eowyn participated in building the global community and growth team from 0 to 1, and she was also responsible for Binance's global market operations. However, as Binance grew larger and new users increasingly came from outside the circle, Eowyn found herself drifting further away from the industry. In contrast, she hoped to be closer to the front lines of crypto innovation, directly serving the industry and users. Therefore, in 2021, she and Viktor hit it off and decided to step out of their comfort zone to try to bring more users into the on-chain world through Trust Wallet.

Currently, Trust Wallet's client has been downloaded over 60 million times, with the main users distributed across Europe, America, South Asia, and the Middle East, nearly 60% of whom were gained last year. The Trust Wallet web extension wallet, launched last November, has also reached the top three in download volume in the industry.

What makes Trust Wallet special? What are its technical advantages? How has it developed since being acquired by Binance in 2018? Recently, ChainCatcher interviewed Eowyn Chen, and she engaged in an in-depth discussion with us about Trust Wallet's positioning and development within the entire Binance ecosystem, the competitive landscape of the wallet sector, and the current obstacles faced.

How is Trust Wallet positioned within Binance's larger ecosystem?

1. ChainCatcher: Trust Wallet was acquired by Binance in 2018. What are the differences in its development path before and after the acquisition?

Eowyn: The most obvious difference is that before we didn't have the money to hire people; it was purely community-developed contributions. Afterward, with financial support, we could hire staff. Before Trust Wallet was acquired in 2018, it was essentially a product developed through open-source community contributions, and at that time, the wallet didn't have a good profit model, which was also the main reason Trust Wallet sought acquisition.

The founder Viktor and CZ's philosophies aligned very well. Basically, after they talked for one or two hours, they finalized the acquisition. After the acquisition, Trust Wallet hired three employees who had previously worked on open-source projects in the community. Since then, the team has maintained a relatively small size; from 2018 to last year, although our user base reached tens of millions, the team only grew from 3 to 20 people.

After the acquisition, there was more energy and expertise to support user growth and brand operations. As the parent company, Binance can also provide better legal and technical advice and support. We can utilize Binance's risk control and security infrastructure, such as the Security Scanner feature, which alerts users when a transfer encounters risks, indicating whether the address is of medium or high risk. Additionally, we have integrated Binance's underlying risk control and security systems. The competitive edge of Binance's underlying data in the industry also ensures that Trust Wallet is stronger in this regard than others, which is one of our unique aspects.

Moreover, being acquired has the advantage that we don't have to worry as much about survival as other wallets, allowing the team to focus more on product development. CZ set the goal for us to concentrate on user growth without considering revenue for the time being, so we have significant freedom to lower the barriers for users and focus on the product. Of course, as a good commercial product, being able to realize economic value by providing value to users is an inevitable growth path and a sign of industry maturity, and we are actively exploring and trying.

However, Trust Wallet's operations have always been very independent, with data completely isolated from Binance. The team and legal entities are also independent of each other, which ensures that we can operate quickly like a startup while also ensuring that Trust Wallet can be more objective in the industry and better implement principles of user privacy protection. CZ and He Yi, among others, in Binance's leadership play more of a board role. We only need to report regularly every quarter, and the "board" provides resources and advice based on the difficulties we encounter.

2. ChainCatcher: What is Trust Wallet's current positioning within Binance's entire product ecosystem?

Eowyn Chen: Binance's larger ecosystem can be roughly divided into several segments—CoinMarketCap as a traffic product and industry traffic entry, Binance Exchange as a centralized platform for custody services, while Trust Wallet is positioned as a decentralized Web3 platform, providing self-custody services and striving to lower the barriers for Web3 open access. We provide different solutions based on different user needs. Users who want to protect their privacy and manage their on-chain assets independently without trusting a centralized team, or those who want to explore various dApps across different chains without restrictions, can find more options with Trust Wallet.

Binance, as a centralized exchange, has certain limitations. The reason why everyone sees listing on Binance as a milestone is that Binance screens these coins, sets listing standards, and requires protection of user interests, ultimately supporting around 250-500 coins. However, Trust Wallet integrates over 70 public chains, allowing users to access tens of millions of different coins and NFTs. Trust Wallet, as a decentralized tool platform, has no barriers and is open and fair, with no biases or preferences; we hope to support the development of any public chain and quality projects.

3. ChainCatcher: Many centralized exchanges (CEX) have launched their own decentralized wallet products, all within the same brand system. However, Trust Wallet maintains a relatively independent relationship with Binance. Besides data isolation, are there other considerations?

Eowyn Chen: The Trust Wallet team has a strong idealism and belief in decentralization. We firmly believe in the importance of ownership of personal assets and data, privacy protection, and opposing censorship. This team culture shapes our product philosophy and brand image, enabling us to better serve and support a decentralized world. Therefore, the current way Trust Wallet can receive support and empowerment within the Binance ecosystem while maintaining a high degree of operational independence is quite suitable.

We choose to keep Trust Wallet relatively independent from Binance primarily because we believe that the brands, philosophies, and products of Trust Wallet and Binance serve different user groups, and each product and brand can complement the other. If a user places a high value on data privacy, the on-chain data and behavior of Trust Wallet users will not be linked with Binance's user data, which is a consideration for user privacy protection.

Although Binance's brand influence is very strong, like all brands, it represents certain meanings, which means there will be limitations in some scenarios. For example, if users have higher expectations of being cared for by the Binance brand, then products like Binance Wallet will differ from Trust Wallet. Users have higher expectations of Binance Wallet regarding connecting to external applications and security protection; if security issues arise, it will damage the corresponding brand. Thus, the choices provided to users by this product are still limited because they need to involve operational censorship and security protection. Moreover, Binance is seen as a representative of a centralized brand in the industry, making it difficult to serve users who are very committed to decentralization.

Finally, team resource issues also need to be considered. It's crucial to have the right people doing the right things. We need to continue to create broader space for the industry while providing good products, technology, and services for the depth of the industry and the on-chain world. We are actively exploring points of closer cooperation between Trust Wallet and Binance, as long as it meets the increasingly complex needs of more users and provides more choices. We are willing to try all possible ways as long as they help more users experience the on-chain world and feel the transparency brought by blockchain technology; this is what we are willing to do.

How to differentiate in competition?

4. ChainCatcher: As the competition for wallets as the current entry point for Web3 becomes increasingly fierce, how does Trust Wallet differentiate itself? What unique advantages does it have?

Eowyn Chen: I believe that compared to other brands, Trust Wallet, after five years of exploration, has a product experience logic that is primarily simple and applicable to most regions and different cultural user habits, making it easy for most people to get started. This is also our main vision: to onboard more people into Web3 and crypto. Because compared to what to do, knowing what not to do tests product judgment more. Although other wallets have more features and are flashier, I believe simplicity is a result of deep consideration of user habits.

Trust actually developed many features before but later removed them because, while they were more powerful for Degen users, they confused many novice users. This was a conscious trade-off we made. Additionally, Trust Wallet recognized the multi-chain development direction early on, investing a lot of effort in supporting multiple chains over the past four years, allowing our web extension wallet to support all mainstream non-EVM chains like Bitcoin, Solana, Aptos, Sui, Doge, LTC, etc., which is rare in the industry. We have also established industry standards for multi-chain wallet interactions; for example, Solana's Phantom wallet recently adopted our interaction logic to support multi-chain interactions used by Ethereum.

The Trust Wallet mobile app currently supports 73 chains. Teams making wallets know that supporting multiple chains is not a technical challenge; supporting each non-EVM chain requires repetitive work, but it takes time to accumulate. Therefore, most emerging wallets tend to choose the opposite path, only supporting one or two chains and optimizing the experience based on that.

In terms of security, Trust's safety is divided into two parts: team operational security (including code) and security features provided to users. Over the past six months, we have conducted over 30 audits, both internally and externally. We have strict audit coverage and service agreements to enhance code security, and we also offer bounties to the external community to support security improvements. The technology mainly relies on the team's hard power. Honestly, no wallet has been completely free of security issues because 100% security does not exist, but what all teams can do is minimize and avoid security risks. Everyone is continuously improving their skills in the ongoing battle against hackers and scammers. Therefore, having experienced incidents historically reduces the probability of making mistakes in processes, technology, and operations, and how to handle mistakes well is more important; it is also a process that the team must go through.

Another part is the security features provided to users. Previously, we mentioned the Security Scanner, which collaborates with Binance's risk control and security teams to provide risk alerts to users when transferring and using dApps. Additionally, we will soon launch the Transaction Simulation feature to help users visualize what might happen after signing authorization. To enhance industry security, we will open-source this tool to the community, and we have also authorized EIP-6865, hoping to improve the security environment together with the industry.

5. ChainCatcher: Trust Wallet recently proactively released a security report mentioning vulnerabilities in new wallet addresses generated between November 14 and 23 last year, and it quickly patched the vulnerabilities and implemented a compensation plan. What impact and lessons did this incident bring to Trust Wallet?

Eowyn Chen: One reflection we have is that we were not frequent and thorough enough in auditing the open-source underlying code. So the lesson learned is to provide the corresponding audit frequency and speed in internal processes, including involving more experienced people, such as the Binance security team, in the review. Hence, we have implemented the policy of over 30 internal and external audits and SLA repairs for security-related bugs over the past six months.

After this incident occurred, we quickly released two third-party security audit reports, and we will increase the frequency of audits moving forward. Therefore, you will see more audit reports coming out, especially concerning user private key authorization and related aspects.

Moreover, the team's security awareness has strengthened after this incident. We have discussed this event multiple times in internal meetings, which has helped everyone prioritize security in decision-making.

In fact, during this process, we have learned many other lessons, such as how to communicate with users after a security incident. We found that many users do not read information, and even if some users read our product prompts, private messages, etc., they do not take proactive action. Some users even delete the product upon seeing risk alerts, as everyone has experienced the baptism of scammers. This also reflects how difficult it is to communicate with users in this industry. Therefore, we have gained a profound understanding of user behavior through this incident and summarized our experiences in handling compensation for incidents.

Although the handling process was not easy, our team still has a very strong sense of belief that we did the right thing by proactively releasing the issue and immediately providing a compensation solution. We also hope to set an example for the industry through our execution process and accumulate experience in handling incidents.

Recently, our two-month reporting window has just closed. We are still waiting for many users to provide the necessary proof to ensure they are the wallet owners and that the related claims are valid. After that, we will release a formal reflection and summary to inform everyone what we learned during this process. Currently, we are quite surprised that most of the affected users did not file claims, and due to privacy and our policy of not collecting user data, we do not have contact information for the affected users. Additionally, most of the claims filed are unrelated to this incident, with many unreasonable user demands. Overall, the difficulty of customer service compensation in a decentralized world is quite high, and there is still much exploration to be done.

6. ChainCatcher: In what specific ways does Trust Wallet ensure the security of users' assets, such as risk address detection and interception of shell apps?

Eowyn Chen: We have always had dedicated security monitoring for shell apps and fake apps to report them to the corresponding app stores in a timely manner. To prevent shell apps, Trust Wallet has transitioned from an open-source wallet to a closed-source wallet, although the underlying code remains open-source. By closing the product's source code, the probability of fake wallets decreases, but they still exist, so we will strengthen monitoring and reporting.

Next, we will launch an important feature called "Transaction Simulation." When users authorize a smart contract, we will simulate the specific interaction process and remind users of the possible outcomes after the operation. This feature is expected to be completed in the second quarter and is already being promoted within the developer community. The corresponding functionality will also be open-sourced. We hope more developers can use this security feature to generally improve the industry's security level and create a cleaner environment.

Additionally, our security team has expanded, and we have strengthened internal training and communication with industry experts.

7. ChainCatcher: Trust Wallet has successively launched new features supporting key cloud backup, social login, encrypted tax reporting, and fiat currency deposits and withdrawals. Besides these, what other user-friendly features will Trust Wallet introduce?

Eowyn Chen: We are currently still testing MPC, which is relatively early and still in the 0 to 1 stage. Therefore, our team needs to consider the final form of the product, how high the user acceptance level is, and what difficulties users encounter during actual use. These issues cannot be resolved simply by launching this feature in the short term; they require continuous iteration. Besides MPC, we will also consider features like Smart Contracts and AA, but I believe the next step is to think about how to integrate these different scenarios, which is also a challenge faced by the industry.

Two months ago, we launched customer support features and introduced ChatGPT, hoping to use AI to share information with users in a timely manner and help them resolve some issues when they are in a state of anxiety.

Moreover, practical features such as staking, airdrops, cross-chain swaps, and fiat currency deposits and withdrawals will continue to be iterated and improved, all of which are on this quarter's agenda.

8. ChainCatcher: How many users does Trust Wallet currently have? Which regions have a higher concentration of users?

Eowyn Chen: The client has been downloaded over 60 million times globally, with 60% of that growth occurring last year. In the second half of last year, we launched the web extension wallet, which has maintained its position as the third most downloaded wallet extension globally since its launch a few months ago.

The Trust Wallet web extension wallet is likely the only top-ranking extension wallet that supports the BTC network, and it also supports non-EVM networks like Solana. We hope the extension wallet can not only support users but also enable developers to use it as a cross-chain dApp deployment tool for better product development.

In terms of regional distribution, our main users come from Europe and America, followed by Southeast Asia and Central Asia, especially with rapid user growth in Southeast Asia. The proportion of Chinese-speaking users has not been particularly high but is steadily increasing. Perhaps Chinese-speaking users have their own characteristics, and we are still exploring growth in this area, hoping to enable more Chinese-speaking users to use Trust.

What obstacles currently exist in the wallet sector's development?

9. ChainCatcher: The wallet sector is developing rapidly, with an increasing number of competitors. Not only have leading DeFi projects like dYdX, Uniswap, and ParaSwap launched their mobile wallets, but many traditional institutions like PayPal and Reddit are also developing their crypto wallets. How do you view the current competitive landscape in the wallet sector?

Eowyn Chen: Competition is indeed fierce. Everyone believes that wallets have great potential as traffic entry points, which is certainly true, but in reality, wallets are not that easy to develop.

As I mentioned earlier regarding security issues, the decision-making judgments made by teams differ when they haven't encountered security problems. Every team must go through its exploratory phase, which is an inevitable growth path.

Of course, intense competition has a benefit: as the industry grows, the user base will become diverse based on different needs. The more competition there is, the more everyone will think deeply about who their target user group is, leading to a greater focus on developing their own strengths. For example, some wallets cater to DEX trading users, leaning more towards Degen, while PayPal's wallet is aimed at very mainstream Web2 users.

Faced with different user expectations, everyone is starting to enhance their products and services. This also saves costs for developers because before user differentiation, everyone was in an experimental state, just throwing products into the market to see the reaction. But now they can refer to the behaviors and experiences of competitors.

In this competitive landscape, I am quite confident because I believe users still have a strong trust in us and a solid user base. Trust will not shift due to a short-term trend; building trust in any wallet takes time.

10. ChainCatcher: Do you think the current environment is a healthy competition?

Eowyn Chen: I do have concerns about unhealthy competition. I have observed that with the launch of different wallets, the interaction standards with dApps have become very fragmented.

I am a rather idealistic person, so I believe that the decentralization of blockchain should maintain an open ecosystem. Just like the TCP/IP protocol established by the traditional internet, which sets unified standards and interfaces, it should be done this way. But now the interfaces between wallets and dApps have become very politicized, with standards becoming a project in themselves, aiming for profit and venture capital. I think this is wrong; it should be a very open and highly interoperable industry, but in the end, it has become like some large companies, needing their own USB ports.

Seeing such trends emerging is quite concerning, so I want to call on industry builders not to raise the barriers on this matter. True competition should be about making better products that serve the most suitable users. If developers can reach a consensus on standards, it would be an important infrastructure for the industry.

Although Web3 is a trustless industry, as long as people are involved, trust issues will always exist. It is understandable to remain behind the screen without considering ideology, but I believe that true builders need some idealism to proactively establish relationships, which is also an important driving force for the development of human society, and our industry is no exception.

11. ChainCatcher: Besides the industry standards issue mentioned earlier, what do you think are the biggest obstacles to the current development of wallets? What measures will Trust Wallet take to address them, and what are the future plans?

Eowyn Chen: I believe the biggest obstacle to wallet development is still the "impossible triangle" problem, which is the balance between security, usability, and decentralization. Behind this is a matter of trade-offs; of course, technological advancements will make these trade-offs smaller, but the team still faces choices. For Trust Wallet, security is the top priority, usability is second; this has always been our principle.

Additionally, wallets face a significant challenge regarding potential regulatory uncertainties. The idea that "DeFi will never be regulated" is a very naive thought. DeFi will definitely be regulated; it's just a matter of how. If our industry does not proactively provide corresponding compliance solutions, we may passively accept very unreasonable compliance terms. Therefore, we are currently collaborating with Binance to communicate with regulators worldwide, synchronizing the development of centralized custody and wallets to provide a more objective understanding of the industry, rather than imposing very inappropriate terms directly. This is also a critical issue for mainstream adoption.

Finally, the biggest limitation for wallets lies in the potential for the industry itself to develop application scenarios. Currently, the problems that Web3 wallets solve mainly revolve around holding crypto assets like BTC to hedge against inflation risks, which is the most direct scenario for wallets.

However, if most users enter Web3 and there is a real breakthrough in the penetration of application scenarios for mainstream users, what will that scenario be? At that time, wallets will merely be tools and pathways for users to access application scenarios. Without solid application scenarios, why should wallets serve as the traffic entry point for Web3? Therefore, this is a problem for the overall development of the Web3 ecosystem, and the fundamental value of wallet applications is still to ensure security and usability.