Today, November 26, 2018, marks the launch of the Foundation for Interwallet Operability (FIO) and the FIO Protocol, an interwallet protocol that seeks to make the transfer of cryptos between wallets as simple and straightforward as making transfers on PayPal.
“In the crypto world payments are exponentially more complex and cumbersome,” said David Gold, CEO of Dapix, a founding member of FIO. “Crypto payments feel too risky, too scary and too difficult for members of the public. You have to use an incoherent string of characters, and you can’t confirm if funds have arrived. The average person on the street simply will never feel comfortable using crypto unless this changes.”
The FIO Protocol is intended to birth a range of features including cross-chain counterparty metadata, enabling transaction statuses within crypto wallets, the provision of a single cross-chain wallet name that’s hard to forget and more.
Gold, in an email correspondence with Bitcoin Magazine, argues that “decentralized blockchain transactions” need to be easier and “less risky than fiat transactions.”
He said, “Users need to have greater confidence that their blockchain transactions are accurate before they commit to sending. This challenge can’t be solved by an individual wallet or exchange as it lies at the interface between all of them. The FIO Protocol is an industry-led, decentralized solution that will enable easy-to-use and virtually error-free transactions between any wallet or exchange.”
Gold, who spent 11 years as the managing director of tech VC firm Access Venture Partners, believes mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies will be severely limited unless it becomes easier to move them around.
To make sure crypto payments are as easy to transfer as payments on PayPal, the FIO Protocol will leverage a standardized layer of connectivity and usability features that crypto businesses such as wallet providers and exchanges
