On June 24th, our CEO Veronica joined the AMA section in the Travala community, bringing the latest updates of SafePal and sharing useful guidelines on how to keep crypto safe. Following is the recap of the AMA talk. Welcome to join follow us on Twitter for more latest updates!
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Jayden: Welcome SafePal x Travala.com Community AMA! Alongside our announcement of the new partnership between Travala.com and SafePal, we are having an exclusive contest that will give you a chance to win a SafePal S1 cryptocurrency hardware wallet by just making a booking on Travala.com. More details can be found HERE: https://blog.travala.com/travala-com-joins-forces-with-binance-backed-safepal-wallet
Today we are excited to welcome our guest Veronica @Veronica520, CEO of SafePal to join us in the AMA. Now let’s welcome Veronica
Veronica Wong: Hi everyone, it’s exciting to be here. Thanks for having me here today.
Jayden: To get started, can you give us a little background about yourself and SafePal?
Veronica Wong: Sure! My last career was in the mass data security department of one of the biggest tech giants in China. I worked there for 7 years as a product manager and sales channel manager. This period is a piece of very important experience that has led me to bitcoin and laid a solid foundation of what we want to do in blockchain space, which is to provide a secure and user-friendly wallet service to the masses.
I personally heard about bitcoin back in 2015. The bitcoin white paper has blown me away. But it was not until 2017, when we witnessed the huge success of cryptokitties, and the ICO boom that we found that cryptocurrency is no the only application of blockchain, and there is more potential than that, such as gaming, tokenization and more. That was how I ended up joining in the blockchain space and decided to do something useful in it. That’s how we started SafePal.
A short intro of SafePal: SafePal is a decentralized cross-chain cryptocurrency wallet that enables everyone to secure, send, manage, buy, swap, and trade crypto in a mobile way. We are also the first hardware wallet invested by Binance. Till now SafePal has supported 19 blockchains and 10,000 tokens, covering users from nearly 80 countries across the world. Our first hardware wallet SafePal S1 was released in May 2019, providing users with the most advanced security protection of crypto assets, and our software wallet was released last month, enabling users to store a small amount of crypto for daily transactions. Welcome to find out more about SafePal at www.safepal.io .
Jayden: Awesome intro! Great to have you here Veronica! Let’s jump into a few other questions to help our community know more about SafePal! The first question is: What are the advantages of SafePal compared to other hardware wallets?
Veronica Wong: This is a very big question. To better illustrate, I’ll break into 4 parts.
A. Advanced security
SafePal S1 adopts the world-leading security hardware architect, with an EAL 5+ secure element(to keep the private key in a safe and isolated environment), true random number generator(to make sure the private key is uniquely generated) and multiple layers of security sensors(to detect a malicious attack and trigger self-erasing mechanism). It is implemented with an air-gapped signing mechanism. All transaction data is transferred via encrypted QR codes between the hardware device and the SafePal App. There is no Bluetooth, no WiFi, no NFC, or any other radio frequencies, and thus keeping the private key in a 100% offline environment. On the software level, SafePal is implemented with device authentication, Passphrase, and self-erasing mechanism, protecting your crypto from supply chain attacks, radio-frequency attacks, and other attacks.
More security details can be found here: https://docs.safepal.io/safepal-hardware-wallet/security-feature
B. Powerful features
SafePal S1 needs to be paired with the SafePal App in order to on-board daily transaction functions(because the S1 is 100% offline). With the SafePal S1 being paired with the SafePal App, users are able to send, manage, buy, swap, and trade crypto inside the SafePal wallet without any compromise on the security of private keys. This provides a high level of convenience to the end-users without the bother to move their crypto between different third-party service providers. All crypto management functions can be found inside the SafePal wallet.
C. User-friendly design
SafePal S1 is built with a 1.3’ high resolution IPS screen and a D-pad, displaying every detail of your transactions and enabling you to interact with the wallet in the easiest way. Once you receive the wallet, all of the wallet configurations can be done on the device, and you don’t need to plug it into a computer or download any desktop or App to do the initialization. There are more details like this. SafePal S1 is a perfect hardware wallet to choose no matter if you are a beginner, developer, or advanced crypto investor.
D. Accessible price
SafePal S1 is a hardware wallet with the best specifications and the lowest price(only $39.99). We want to make crypto accessible to everyone. You don’t need to second think about ordering expensive and cumbersome-to-use hardware anymore. Order a SafePal S1 and you won’t regret!
Jayden: Thanks for the detailed answer 🙂 The next question is: SafePal S1 costs only $39.99. Some people might think that a low price is equal to low quality. What’s your opinion about that? Can you explain your pricing strategy with us?
Veronica Wong: This is the most frequently asked question to SafePal.
I think ‘low price is low quality’ is a stereotype that is commonly seen in customer psychology. But it can be easily proved wrong when we see that Amazon Echo Dot(1st generation) is below $20 and Google Home Mini costs only $39.
Product accessibility is one of the key factors when we think about our product strategy. In our customer survey, we found that 15% of the interviewees said that they don’t want to buy a hardware wallet because they are expensive, and the price of some hardware wallets is even higher than the value of the crypto they own. This is no doubt ironic.
If these users don’t choose a hardware wallet, it means that they have to compromise their asset security by storing their crypto in software wallets or centralized exchanges. This is an unfair situation.
We entered this market with the mission to make crypto secure, simple, and accessible to everyone. Making the best and affordable hardware wallet is the goal that has been set since day one. Though SafePal S1 costs only $39.99, its security is not compromised in any aspect. We are proud to say that SafePal S1 is the only hardware wallet that can provide the best technical specifications and the best price at the same time in the current market segment.
Jayden: Thanks for clarifying! Pretty sure it solves a lot of concerns! The next question for you is: We noticed that SafePal integrated the software wallet on your App, could you tell us a bit more about it?
Veronica Wong: Yes we released the software wallet feature in our V1.8.0 update last month. Blog post here https://blog.safepal.io/safepal-lite-software-wallet-is-now-alive/ .
The main reason for this implementation is that we want to provide users with the freedom to choose. Users are free to decide whether to buy a SafePal S1 hardware wallet or simply download a SafePal App to start their crypto storage journey.
In either way, users are able to create and manage multiple wallet accounts inside one App. Usually, we will recommend our users to store a large amount of crypto in the S1 hardware wallet, and manage small amount in the software wallets for daily transaction purpose.
Below is a typical interface where users can freely choose how they would like to store their crypto.
Jayden: Sounds exciting. let’s get to the last question for this section. What are the future plans for SafePal? Do you have any new products or exciting news that you can share with us?
Veronica Wong: We have made solid footprints since SafePal was founded in 2018. Thanks to the support of the beloved community, we are able to provide users from more than 80 countries with the capability to securely protect crypto assets.
The most exciting news in this June is our cooperation with Travala. 🙂
Travala and SafePal share the same value of deepening crypto penetration and widening crypto adoption with the most accessible and useful products. I personally appreciate what Travala has achieved in the past journey and am excited to join hands with AVA to build a safer and simpler ecosystem together.
Toward the end of this year, we are going to see a new type of SafePal hardware wallet and a brand-new software version with even stronger product features. Welcome to stay tuned on our Twitter and follow our latest product updates.
Jayden: We are excited too! Thanks, Veronica for all the amazing answers! It was a great start of the AMA. Now it’s time for Segment 2.
We have Twitter giveaway pre AMA and now we will need your help to find out correct answers to all 5 questions given. You can see all the questions here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf0b0MitqPqoGc6xGin8DdejN4eTT0NrXlVD9WcJ_jUjFuSgQ/viewform . Users who answer correctly 5/5 questions will share a pool of $100 worth of AVA!
Veronica Wong: Can’t wait! Are you ready?
Jayden: Let’s go! 😀
Veronica Wong: For the 1st question: Which type of communication mechanism is SafePal S1 using? *
- USB
- Encrypted QR code
- Bluetooth
- NFC
- WiFi
The correct answer is ‘Encrypted QR code’. The following GIF shows exactly how it works when you need to send crypto.
For the 2nd question: How many cryptocurrencies does SafePal support? *
- 10 blockchains and 5K tokens
- 19 blockchains and 10K tokens
- 20 blockchains and 15K tokens
- 11 blockchains and 8K tokens
The correct answer is 19 blockchains and 10k tokens. This can be easily found on our SafePal homepage. I hope you folks get the right answer!
For the 3rd question: Which feature isn’t supported by SafePal for now? *
- Send and receive crypto
- Trade on Binance DEX
- Buy crypto with credit card
- Login to Dapp via WalletConnect
- Token swap
Oh, this one is tricky because one feature from these options was actually not supported at the time when the survey was released. The answer should be Token Swap. But the good news is that just a few days ago, we have released V1.9.0 and added Token Swap already. Now all of these listed features can be used inside the SafePal wallet. I hope you like it!
For the 4th question: Which one of the following statements is NOT true? *
- SafePal S1 is embedded with an independent secure element, which Trezor One doesn’t have.
- SafePal S1 has a 1.3′ high-resolution screen and a high-quality camera.
- SafePal is a decentralized wallet.
- SafePal supports Passphrase feature.
- SafePal S1 erases wallet data and private key once it detects any malicious attack.
- SafePal is the first hardware wallet invested by Binance.
- SafePal is only available in the US market.
I think this one is pretty easy haha. The last option is the right one to go. Users from across the world can order a SafePal S1 from SafePal homepage(www.safepal.io) and Amazon. We also have offline resellers in Singapore, France, and Switzerland.
Last one! What is the retail price of SafePal S1? *
- $119.99
- $99.99
- $79.99
- $39.99
I don’t think there is anyone who would answer this one wrong. SafePal S1 costs only $39.99. For the AVA community, we have provided a 10% OFF discount with the promo code AVA@SafePal(available til Jun 30th). If you order two units from the SafePal homepage, you can even enjoy free standard shipping worldwide. Welcome to get your SafePal S1 anytime!
@jayden All five answers disclosed! Hope you folks get all of them correct!
Jayden: Wow that was quick. Thanks for all answers! Users who answer correctly 5/5 questions will share a pool of $100 worth of AVA. The distribution will be done after the AMA!
Now it’s time for the Live Q&A Session. Please submit your questions here and Veronica will address it.
- The Group will be unmuted for 2 minutes.
- Each user can only submit one question (We will active the “slow mode” feature, users will be restricted to submit more than one message in the chat for 2 minutes)
- Veronica then will try to answer as many as she can.
- After the AMA has finished, Veronica can select 3 lucky users with questions to win 3 SafePal S1 wallets.
Kunlefighter：How does SafaPal feels being the first hardware wallet invested and backed by Binance? Does it boost your morale and give you more confidence to keep building what the users need?
Veronica Wong: Being the 1st hardware wallet to be backed by Binance brings both wide recognition of SafePal among the crypto communities but also a lot of pressure on the team because we need to set an even higher standard to our product and services. We have been working and iterating our product from day to day, releasing a new version every 2-3 weeks. We listen to user feedback carefully and this definitely helps us to grow steadier and faster. We are confident because of our solid professional background in hardware, software and cybersecurity, but also because of the genuine and positive feedback from the communities.
Diego: SAFEPAL plans to create a card so that users can pay with it in business? And what benefits would it bring to the community? Are you planning to integrate SAFEPAL as a desktop application in the future? Could you tell me more about the SAFEPAL S1 project?
Veronica Wong: SafePal desktop is already in our dev pipeline and it should be kickstarted in early Q4.
Crypto card business involves a lot of KYC and regulations. We are interested in this direction, but still doing diligent homework.
The long run goal is to provide users with diversified options to store and manage their crypto.
Amazing: Adoption & Awareness about Platform is very important for any Creator as well as Users! So, What are your plans to attract More users as well as Creators with Non-crypto users too on SafePal platform?
Veronica Wong: Accessibility is one of our main focuses when designing our product line. We built the wallet as a mobile-friendly, highly intuitive-to-use, simple communication mechanism(send crypto with a simple scan) and friendly user interfaces. And mostly importantly with the affordable price. We will go on to deliver more diversified, useful products and features to the users. I’m sure SafePal will become the first wallet to consider when a crypto new beginner enters this market.
Ashish Tripathi: What is meant by self-destroy and key-erasing mechanism of SafePal Hardware wallet? How this Mechanism can Protect our Funds from Hackers?
Veronica Wong: There are multiple layers of security sensors embedded inside the S1 hardware wallet. Once any malicious attempt is detected, the sensors will trigger self-erasing mechanism, wiping the wallet data(including the private key) inside the secure element. In such case, no one can extract the private key from the hardware wallet. Users will need to recover the wallet with the correct seed phrase when the wallet is reset.
Quyen Tran: SafePal Wallet is an offline wallet, so how can you add new money, by updating the firmware, or will it be needed to replace the actual wallet?
Veronica Wong: To use a SafePal S1 wallet, users need to pair it with the SafePal App. The S1 is keeping the private key offline and signs every transaction that the SafePal App sends to it, while the SafePal App will be in charge of crypto management(adding/deleting/moving crypto) and communications between the blockchains. Details about how to use it can be seen from this 1min video.
Lanre Akorede: Security of Funds is the main Motive behind purchasing any Hardware wallet & as we know, Most of the Hardware wallets like Trezor, Ledger needs Connection in any way like USB or Bluetooth! But you said that SafePal doesn’t require any Connection! Can you tell us How?
Veronica Wong: As seen in the GIF above, SafePal S1 communicates with the SafePal App via encrypted QRcode. They transfer data back and forth by scanning the QRcodes displayed on the phone screen and hardware wallet screen. This is also called air-gapped signing mechanism. The advantage of it is that it’s tamper-proof to any radio-frequency attacks, online attacks and middle distance attacks. All data is transmitted within a short 10cm distance. This can make sure that no one can even peek from aside about your asset details.
David Prince: 1. There are many types of tokens, coins, many types of digital wallets that support them, many exchanges, while the market capitalization is small, so where is the market share for SafePal wallet? 2. In the past few years many crypto coins are prone to hacking …what you can assure to crypto traders that SafePal has strong security and privacy to prevent hacking?
Veronica Wong: 1. The crypto market is indeed small right now. Crypto users take less than 1% of the total internet users. But the market space is promising. Lately, Paypal has disclosed their plan to onboard crypto payment to its platform. Many positive signs have emerged. I think we need to wait patiently for the industry boom to come.
2. Security is endless war and is the most important focus in our team. Onto the wallet, we have input all of our professional knowledge and details. We have worked with the prestigious Wallet. Fail security team in wallet penetration test last year, and are working with a few other security labs from EU and US on the second round of auditing. It’d take quite long and once we have the final report, we will surely keep everyone noted.
Kudo Shinichi: Do you have any plan to make your coin ( token ) like other wallets did ?
Veronica Wong: No I don’t see any purpose of issuing a coin(token) right now. There are enough tokens on the market and I think the only metric to decide whether to issue a token is to see whether there is a real-case utility in it. Right now we are still working on product delivery and iterations. Building, building, building is our current focus. We don’t want to issue a token simply because we are able to issue one.
Veronica Wong: These great questions get me super excited. Great to share with you my genuine thoughts.
Jayden: Thank you so much, Veronica! I enjoyed it a lot! It has been great to have you with us today to talk more about the SafePal wallet. We wish you and the rest of the team every success going forward.
Today’s SafePal x Travala.com Community AMA is done. We appreciate the folks who stayed all the way! Here are some important links for our community to follow SafePal:
- Homepage: www.safepal.io
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/iSafePal
- Telegram: https://t.me/SafePalwallet
Veronica Wong: Thank you folks for your great interactions. @jayden Thank you for hosting me! It’s really enjoyable! I wish you all stay safe and healthy during pandemic times. Best wishes. Have a great day.
