Show HN: Meemaw – Trustless and grandma-friendly wallet as a service (github.com)
Marceau here, founder of Meemaw. I was working on a different project (communities with better aligned incentives) for which I needed users to have access to a crypto wallet. I couldn't afford users to have to deal with private keys and what not, and I did not feel comfortable being locked to a non-transparent third-party provider for something as important. So I built an internal "wallet-as-a-service" around audited librairies. I dropped the original project since then and that service evolved into Meemaw.
Many "web3 projects" would be better off without any web3 component. But if you do need your users to have a wallet, there are a few good reasons to use something like Meemaw:
- great UX (no faffing around with private keys or seed phrases, easily customisable)
- great DX (get up and running quickly, integrate with your existing system easily)
- more secure (MPC, trustless)
- low dependency risk (you've always got the option to self-host or export existing wallets)
If you'd like a refresher on MPC wallets or Wallet-as-a-Service, I did my best to explain it without BS industry jargon: https://getmeemaw.com/blog/mpc-wallet
If you have Docker and Node installed on your machine, you can have a full example running in less than 5 minutes: https://getmeemaw.com/docs/getting-started
You can already self-host Meemaw, and there will soon be cloud hosting as well, with the option to easily switch from one to the other at any time.
The closed-source competitors are all (very) well-funded, but I think we can provide a better developer experience with higher security and reduced dependency risks. Right now, Meemaw is probably not ready for production, but we'll get there sooner rather than later. Your feedback would be greatly appreciated to continue moving in the right direction :)
13 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 47.5 ms ] threadAlso, please see the site guidelines here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. They include:
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."
- Gridlock is a wallet for end-users directly. Meemaw is a so-called "wallet-as-a-service", allowing developers to deploy wallets for their users, within their app. The experience is for each developer to define.
- Meemaw is open-source and designed to reduce risks on many counts: going from cloud to self-hosting and vice versa will be super easy, there will be open-sourced tools for end users to recover their wallet even if the company (whether Meemaw or developers using it) goes down, etc
Happy to discuss further if you feel like I misunderstood what Gridlock does!
It’s a different tool for a different use case.
Also, having your product open-sourced and/or audited increases trustworthiness. You mentioned going open-source and being audited in 2021 but neither happened as far as I can find. That’s fine, just different than OP’s project.
On the flip side, I noticed this Q&A from your docs that I think is at least re-assuring:
“What happens to my assets if Gridlock shuts down?
Should Gridlock ever become unavailable, you are still safe and protected! The built-in Eject Feature allows you to access your crypto independently without Gridlock. This is the definition of self-custody where you are in full control!”
PS. I’m not the target audience for these type of products. I stay away from most crypto stuff. I just stumbled upon this thread and wanted to share my thoughts :)
Your pricing page needs work. “Enterprise features” is kind of meaningless and doesn’t tell me what I actually get?
I get why you have a discord, but I wouldn’t feature it so prominently. I, personally, find it to detract from your brand. Enterprise companies aren’t going to allow their employees to access your discord and it just, to me, makes you seem “less serious”.
Why would you choose to get into this space now?
And why should I believe your service will be around long enough to make it worth integrating?
Thanks for your question, this is completely valid.
I think there are two axis to this :
1. Typical wallets, as in end-user “tools”, are B2C in essence and most crypto users are used to not pay a penny for a wallet. Meemaw is a “wallet-as-a-service”, meaning that it helps companies deploy wallets for their users. It’s a B2B service. I think you got that but just wanted to make extra sure. For a company with the right use case, having a way for mainstream users to own digital assets without struggling to understand how this all works is really valuable. Think banks letting their users own some crypto, Starbucks with their loyalty program, Reddit with their NFTs, etc.
2. Why now? Well, to be honest, it’s just because I did not find any alternative that I trusted for the long term, when building that first project I mentioned. I was really looking for an open-source and easily self-hostable project to give me the confidence that, worst case scenario, I could make it work even if company XYZ disappears or raises their prices or removes features... I probably felt the same as you do. I ended up building what is now Meemaw, trying to find ways to make it more resilient for everyone involved: if Meemaw disappears, companies using it should not be at risk; if those companies disappear, their users should not be at risk. It’s never perfect of course, but I think Meemaw will be vastly superior on that front.
I hope this was clear enough, let me know if it wasn't :)
They were sold firebase as the solution to all their problems. But what you’re pitching here is much closer to what they actually needed to enable their vision.