Simple and robust.

About Xapo.

Xapo was founded in early 2014 by Wences Casares with the mission of bringing bitcoin to the masses. He once said to me:

I truly believe bitcoin may change the world more than the Internet did. It is the biggest step forward in the democratization of money we've ever seen. — Wences Casares

He immediately got my attention, and I followed his lead. I was very lucky to be part of that founding team of crazy dreamers. We had a tremendous opportunity to bring 4 billion unbanked people into the global economy.

The problem.

We wanted to build a trustworthy product, but due to irresponsible implementations there had been major security breaches reported by other bitcoin service providers — giving the impression that bitcoin was hackable, and negatively impacting the whole ecosystem.

The process.

I worked with Federico Abad and Craig Dehner to develop a simple but robust experience. We wanted people to understand that bitcoin was simple to use in their day-to-day life, but also secure and legitimate.

Bitcoin's price had been fluctuating a lot at the time, so we used a price chart as the entry point for potentially interested users. From there, people could access either their Wallet — everyday money, easily transferable — or their Vault — savings, protected by additional layers of security.

From users.

Users perceived Xapo as a secure bitcoin wallet and shared their thoughts on the App Store and on social media.

In the press.

Coverage of the Xapo launch focused on our security implementation. That framing helped rapidly position Xapo as the most secure bitcoin wallet in the world.