In this interview for the "Behind the Startup" series, Ishan Pandey talks to Eric Parker, co-founder of Giddy, a startup focused on making DeFi (decentralized finance) accessible to everyone. Eric shares his personal journey and what led him to co-found Giddy, the challenges they faced during the ideation phase and the factors that differentiate their platform from other crypto wallets on the market.
Giddy co-founder Eric Parker talks about the personal journey that led to the creation of Giddy
Ishan Pandey: Hi Eric Parker. Great to have you here for our "Behind the Startup" series. Can you share with us a little about your personal journey and what led you to co-found Giddy?
Eric Parker: First off, I’m a huge nerd. My background is in Computer Science, so my career has been spent writing apps for all kinds of tech companies. I love tinkering with code and computers, which led me to my first experiment with Bitcoin mining in 2012. I’m one of the many who let a hard drive go to the landfill with old private keys on it. Whoops. Tough lesson to learn, but that led me to building Ethereum miners with my brother Ethan, and eventually to DeFi. I was absolutely enthralled by the idea that we could write code and deploy apps to the blockchain. I got hooked and couldn’t put it down, which led to yet another startup idea for my brother and I.
Ishan Pandey: What inspired you and your brother Ethan to start Giddy? Can you walk us through the journey from ideation to launch?
Eric Parker: So, I’m just living my life being a massive nerd and loving DeFi when I met someone who needed crypto help. They got some money stuck on the Binance Smart Chain (bad contract migration) so I helped them un-stuck a significant dollar amount. Turns out this person was a tech investor, which got us talking about solving the usability problem of DeFi on a massive scale. It’s just too hard for most normal people to do. We wanted to make it fast, easy, secure, and fun for everyone, so we raised money based on that plan and here we are!
Ishan Pandey: Giddy aims to make DeFi accessible to everyone. How does your platform achieve this goal, and what makes it stand out from other crypto wallets on the market?
Eric Parker: World-class user experience, and a focus on decentralized technology.
You can stake into a yield bearing protocol with one tap in the Giddy app. A process that can take DIY DeFi users multiple-dozens of steps to complete is done in an instant in our app. And without having to worry about gas. Nobody else is doing that right now.
We differ from many crypto offerings in that we are truly non-custodial. With Giddy only you have access to your money and you interact directly with DeFi protocols on the blockchain. We knew from the start that the true power of crypto and DeFi lies in owning your financial destiny, and we built the tech to make that possible.
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Ishan Pandey: Giddy's focus on user experience and design are evident in the app's sleek and easy-to-use interface. Can you talk about the importance of UX/UI design in the crypto industry, and how it impacts user adoption?
Eric Parker: First of all, thank you for the compliment! We think about UI/UX all the time. Technology is only as useful as it is usable. UI/UX is all about a human quickly and easily solving a real-world problem using tech. So many crypto projects are miraculous feats of decentralized technology but are largely inaccessible due to the burden of DIY private key wallets, fiat-crypto interactions, multiple chains, obtuse tooling, and so on. I believe DeFi has the potential to offer financial freedom to more people around the world, and if we’re going to accomplish that, it must be done in a way that everyone can access. Otherwise we’ve got this beautiful but untouchable creation that we can’t put into the hands of those who need it most.
Ishan Pandey: Security is a critical concern for anyone using a crypto wallet. How does Giddy ensure the safety of its users' assets and data?
Eric Parker: Security in crypto hinges upon management of the private key. We want people to stop writing their private key on sticky notes and also not have to stamp it into metal plates and bury it in their walls at home. Ready for some technical terms? Multi-party computation and threshold share security. MPC for wallet recovery and TSS for private key security. Our users are not required to write down a private key. They log in with Apple, Google, or email and we break up their private key into multiple factors such as a backup password, google authenticator, sms, and phone biometrics.
With Giddy, your raw private key is never stored in a database, never placed in cloud storage, and never even crosses the internet. Instead the private key is represented by a TSS algorithm and the app uses your backup factors to recompose the key locally on your device whenever you need to sign a transaction. And all of this magic happens as fast as you can enter your device’s PIN or do a biometric scan, so it remains very safe and very usable.
Ishan Pandey: Can you tell us about any notable achievements or milestones that Giddy has reached so far, and how they reflect your vision for the company?
Eric Parker: A few noteworthy things:
● Giddy Token launched April 2022, it’s a utility token that supports one-tap staking
● Launched fully working app on Polygon Network
● On-ramp with Coinbase, Sardine, Ramp, Transak available
● Auto-compound rewards with Aave, Balancer, Curve, Gains Network Pools
● Onboarded thousands into DeFi with zero previous crypto experience, including at least one 83-year old grandmother who is currently staking in Curve
All of these accomplishments represent an enormous amount of hard work from the dedicated team at Giddy to bring our vision of mass DeFi adoption to life. And there’s so much more coming this year!
Ishan Pandey: The recent FTX debacle has caused quite a stir in the industry. What are your thoughts on this, and how do you see this impacting the development of web3 technology and the formal economy?
Eric Parker: FTX was a human failure, not a crypto failure. Too much money was being controlled by a small group of people with conflicted interests and no oversight or proper regulatory burden. FTX put billions of dollars at risk that never should have been accessible for risk exposure in the first place.
Ishan Pandey: Blockchain technology has been largely unregulated. What are your thoughts on regulating blockchain, and how do you think this will impact the industry as a whole?
Eric Parker: In my view, regulation has two primary objectives. Protect consumers, and encourage economic growth. Good regulation should help consumers spot a bad actor by making it clear what the good ones look like. Good regulation should also provide a framework for the honest builder to set up shop and provide a service to users.
Crypto regulation is especially challenging because the subject matter is so technical. That’s why I think leaders in the crypto industry should be working with regulators to offer guidance on what good crypto regulation should look like. We’ve had leaders in the crypto space doing this important work for years already, and I think we’re only benefited from more builders getting involved.
Giddy is headquartered in Utah and we have actively been working with the state to push forward smart, fair, and effective regulation. Things like an MTL carve out for non-custodial wallet providers, a DAO legal entity with ability to redact founding team names, and state-sponsored network validation. Let’s work together with our government leaders to provide education and guidance on this subject before politicians with conflicted interests make it difficult for the space to thrive.
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