Partnered With:

Why are Keystone and UniPass merging? [翻译]: 为什么Keystone和UniPass要合并？

Read this article in 16 Minutes

What is the main business of the merged Account Labs? What are the features and advantages of Account Labs products?

Original Title: "Account Revolution in the Web3 World from the Merger of UniPass and Keystone"

Original Source: Account Labs

On May 20th, UniPass and Keystone announced their merger into Account Labs. The former CEO of Keystone, Liu Lixin, will serve as the CEO of Account Labs, mainly responsible for external affairs such as business development, growth, and financing. The former UniPass CEO, Zhi Xian, will serve as the COO of Account Labs, mainly responsible for internal affairs such as product development and team building. The official statement provided detailed responses and answers to various questions regarding the merger.

The following is the Q&A section.

Can you briefly introduce Account Labs? How was it created?

Account Labs: Account Labs is a company formed by the merger of UniPass, a smart contract wallet solution developer, and Keystone, a hardware wallet developer. The company focuses on the field of account abstraction and is committed to creating a leading Web3 account abstraction solution globally, reducing the barriers to use for Web3 products. Their long-term vision is to bring billions of users into the Web3 world and create a more comprehensive, convenient, and secure digital world for users.

Why did Keystone and UniPass choose to merge?

Account Labs: The UniPass and Keystone teams share a common vision - to make it easy for everyone to own and manage their decentralized accounts, bringing billions of users into the Web3 world. Not only that, the two teams complement each other, with Keystone team having strong upper-level development capabilities, while the UniPass team has years of experience in exploring technology at the bottom level of development, and both teams have been deeply involved in the Web3 account field for many years. This merger will open a new chapter, further expanding the depth and breadth of exploration in the Web3 account field, and creating a more free and autonomous digital world for global users.

Can you briefly introduce the personal experiences and backgrounds of the two founders of Account Labs?

Account Labs: Account Labs CEO Liuxin Liu is the founder of Keystone. After the merger, he will mainly be responsible for the company's external affairs, including business development, growth strategy, and financing plans. Prior to this, Liuxin Liu worked for a high-quality startup company in the domestic intelligent hardware field, accumulating rich experience in product research and development, design, supply chain, and overseas promotion.

Liu Lixin, Account Labs CEO, former founder of Keystone

At the same time, he is also one of the earliest participants in the blockchain industry. He started to get involved in Bitcoin in 2009 and officially entered the cryptocurrency circle in 2013. In 2017, he founded Keystone, aiming at the smart hardware track in the blockchain field, and is committed to creating the hardware wallet that is closest to user needs. The company has now established strategic partnerships with multiple leading software wallets and has a good reputation in the core community of the industry.

Account Labs COO Zhixian is the founder of UniPass and will be responsible for internal affairs of the company after the merger, including product development, team building, and operation management. Zhixian started his entrepreneurship in traditional internet gaming in 2012, accumulating rich experience in technology research and development as well as team management. In 2017, he officially entered the blockchain industry, focusing on creating small and micro payment solutions in the blockchain field. In 2020, as one of the earliest contributors to the Nervos ecosystem, he led the team to successfully develop a Web3 account product in the UniPassID field. After two years of exploration and experimentation, the team finally overcame a major technical challenge in the first half of last year, successfully compatible with the EVM ecosystem, and quickly completed seed round financing, achieving product development from 0 to 1. Today, the contract deployment of the UniPass wallet has reached 110,000.

Magistrate, Account Labs COO, and former founder of UniPass

Company Business

What are the main businesses of the merged Account Labs? How do they operate respectively?

Account Labs: After the merger, Account Labs will be divided into two business lines: UniPass, an intelligent contract wallet, and Keystone, a hardware wallet. Each original team will continue to be responsible for product development and operation. At the same time, internal resource integration will gradually begin, starting with external branding and marketing, and gradually exploring the possibility of product collaboration between the two business lines. Combining account abstraction technology, a decentralized account solution that balances usability and security will be created.

How to understand account abstraction?

Account Labs: Compared to EOA (External Owned Account), account abstraction essentially makes accounts programmable. The difference between account abstraction (or more accurately, "contract accounts" in this context) and EOA is similar to the difference between Ethereum and Bitcoin.

The abstract and programmable properties of accounts enable them to achieve more diverse and intelligent functions and experiences compared to EOA, such as batch transactions, flexible payment of on-chain transaction fees, and setting different signature permissions. Account Labs believes that in the visible future, "account abstraction" will completely change the interaction mode of Web3 accounts.

What are the characteristics and advantages of Account Labs' products? How do they differ from other similar products?

Account Labs: Account Labs is divided into two product lines - the smart contract wallet UniPass and the hardware wallet Keystone. The following will explain the advantages and features of each product:

UniPass is a low-threshold, non-custodial smart contract wallet solution that provides a seedless, gasless user experience. UniPass allows users to register for a non-custodial smart contract wallet without the need to manage mnemonic phrases, using Gmail or Email.

In addition, the UniPass team has pioneered a set of on-chain email social recovery solutions based on the DKIM protocol. By combining zero-knowledge proofs and other cryptographic principles, it is possible to automatically verify the email address associated with a user's wallet address on the blockchain. This technological innovation enables users to easily and securely manage their decentralized accounts. For example, if a user loses their wallet or their account is threatened, they can regain control of their wallet by simply sending an email.

Keystone hardware wallet is a hardware wallet that uses QR code for data transmission and can achieve "never touch the internet" for mnemonic words and private keys. It became the first hardware wallet to support MetaMask Mobile in April 2022. Currently, it has been integrated with software wallets such as Keplr, Core, Gnosis Safe, Fewcha, Sender, Solflare, etc., and can support more than 1,000 digital currencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum (including all digital currencies adapted to EVM chain), USDT, XRP, Tron, Cosmos, Aptos, Solana, Aptos, OKT, Near, Polkadot, Kusama, etc.

Keystone hardware wallet has a built-in security chip for offline storage of private keys, providing a very portable and open-source solution, while solving the security issue of blind signing that many users have been worried about. It also has a 4-inch screen and can support Bitcoin PSBT multi-signature. From the perspective of protecting digital assets, Keystone hardware wallet truly achieves a balance between security and portability through integration with other software wallets.

Merge Impact

What impact will the merger of Account Labs have on existing UniPass and Keystone users?

Account Labs: After the merger, the company will retain the business brands and user bases of Keystone and UniPass. Existing users of Keystone and UniPass will not be affected by the merger. The merged company, Account Labs, will operate and manage the smart contract wallet UniPass and hardware wallet Keystone as two independent business lines, with the original teams continuing to be responsible for product development and technical support.

What is the future development plan for the merged Account Labs?

Account Labs: Account Labs' two products, UniPass and Keystone, will continue to be developed according to the original product plan in the short term. The team will also actively participate in the co-construction of the account abstraction field with core developers in the Ethereum ecosystem. In addition, the team has developed a long-term roadmap to achieve the vision of "bringing billions of users into the Web3 world," which will be roughly divided into the following three stages.

In the first stage, Account Labs will use Account Abstraction (AA) to penetrate the stock scenarios, and through these landing scenarios, fully verify the technical architecture, contract security, and business model of AA.

The second phase of Account Labs will use account abstraction technology to help projects introduce a large number of Web2 users. The expected application scenarios can be decentralized Binance, top traditional consumer brands, and traditional game manufacturers' Web3 transformation, helping blockchain technology truly empower real-world scenarios.

The third stage of Account Labs will transform account abstraction into the most important infrastructure for "Decentralize The World". There are expected to be three specific application scenarios. The first is cryptocurrency payments. Account Labs believes that in the context of intensifying geopolitical tensions, account abstraction shoulders the historical mission of establishing a new international economic order. The second is decentralized identity (DID), mainly targeting developing countries without a stable ID system. Account abstraction is expected to help these countries rebuild a more stable identity system. The final scenario is the tokenization of "big scenes" such as online education. Account abstraction will make it more communicable and imaginative, benefiting more people. At the same time, UniPass's main product form will migrate from SDK (AaaS - Account as a Service) to an independent application, becoming a super entrance for users to manage their on-chain assets and digital identities in one place.