- Tangem unveils a groundbreaking self-custodial payment solution with VISA.
- Tangem plans to make a mark in the crowded wallet industry with its products.
- Company spokesman explains Tangem’s competitive edge in a crowded market.
Crypto wallets serve as the heart of the industry, ensuring the security of users’ assets worldwide. While industry titans like Metamask, Trezor, and Ledger have etched their legacies, a new star called Tangem has emerged to make its mark.
In an exclusive interview, DailyCoin Senior Journalist Insha Zia sat down with Tangem Blockchain Analyst Denis Baturin at Cardano Summit 2023 in Dubai to dive into Tangem’s odyssey in the cold wallet cosmos.
Tangem Pay: A Bank in Your Hands
One of the biggest highlights of Tangem’s keynote at the Cardano Summit was Tangem Pay, the first hardware wallet certified by payment giant VISA. With certification for use across 95 million VISA POS terminals globally, Tangem Pay emerges as a pioneer in self-custodial payment solutions, seamlessly blending security with extensive utility.
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The collaboration with VISA puts Tangem Pay on the podium and raises important questions about the journey leading to such a massive partnership. Denis Baturin admitted that the path that eventually materialized into a deal with VISA was arduous and hard-fought, but the payoff was worth it.
“Tangem Pay was one of the highly requested features [from our users]. Whenever we would introduce our hardware wallets, the first thing users would ask is if they could use it to pay at shops, and our answer was always no, you cannot. Payment terminals don’t support crypto flow, but we had been thinking how to work around it for quite some time.’ he shared
In response to the rising demand, Baturin and his team crafted a solution that transformed Tangem’s crypto wallets into a tangible payment method.
“Banking flows and crypto flows don’t really align easily. There are a lot of complicated factors at play, which is why we have implemented a solution that incorporates elements from both TradFi and DeFi.” Baturin explained.
He added that in order to do this, they needed an intermediary with existing payment infrastructure to handle authorization: that’s where VISA came in.
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The result is that users can effortlessly transact at any of the 95 million VISA terminals worldwide through Tangem Pay. Illustrating how the solution worked, Baturin clarified:
“When a user initiates a transaction at a terminal using Tangem Pay, VISA validates the transaction data and supplies it to the smart contract. The smart contract then cross-verifies the authorization data and approves the transaction.”
Despite the apparent complexity, Baturin insists that the transaction process is swift.
Baturin also disclosed that Tangem Pay is up and running and is ready for its first testing phase soon.
In addition to announcing its historic collaboration with VISA, Tangem revealed its slickest product to date, the Tangem Ring.
Tangem Ring: A Head Turner
The Tangem Ring garnered widespread attention at the Cardano Summit, with attendees showcasing the sleek ring on their fingers, highlighting its distinctive design and functionality.
I even got to test the new wallet out. What’s worth noting is that setting up the Tangem Ring proved remarkably user-friendly, taking less than a minute through the Tangem app and requiring only a phone with NFC support.
Understandably, developing something at such a scale has various technical and security challenges. We asked Mr. Baturin to share some of the major hurdles Tangem encountered during the development process and the solutions they implemented to navigate those challenges.
Baturin revealed that navigating the well-established cold wallet industry while striving to make a unique impact presented a significant challenge for Tangem.
“Our main challenge was that we came out when there was an established cold wallet scene, which made it very difficult to grab a bite [of the market],” added Baturin.
The blockchain analyst shared that their unconventional approach involved eliminating seed phrases and introducing a lineup of crypto wallets encompassing cards and rings while ensuring reliability. Baturin emphasized that Tangem’s seedless methodology sets them apart from industry giants like Trezor and Ledger, offering a faster, more secure, and easy-to-set-up alternative.
With Tangem, users bypass the need to document seed phrases on paper, as everything is securely stored within the hardware wallet lineup. Baturin highlighted the enhanced security of Tangem wallets, initialized with access codes impervious to brute-force attacks. Commenting on the wallet’s security, Baturin posited:
“Our wallets feature chips with the highest security rating, designed to eliminate additional attack vectors. We believe our solution is much more secure than other hardware wallets, some of which, in fact, lack secure chips altogether, and opt instead for general-purpose chips prone to vulnerabilities.”
Simplicity is Key
Building on Tangem’s unconventional approach, we asked Mr. Baturin about their strategy for standing out and gaining a competitive edge in the crowded wallet market. His unequivocal response? “Simplicity is Key.”
Baturin underscored Tangem’s commitment to simplicity, both in terms of user experience and hardware. He explained:
“The lack of additional components aside from the chip and antenna improves our security and reliability and allows us to experiment with various form factors. This simplicity also extends to collaborative opportunities, enabling partnerships to create unique-themed hardware wallet cards with other companies.”
In addition to prioritizing simplicity, Baturin revealed another crucial strategy: being user-driven. Tangem strongly emphasizes user preferences, and despite adopting a seedless approach initially, they responded to user feedback. Acknowledging that some users preferred using seed phrases, Tangem incorporated this feature in the latest generation of their hardware wallets.
Lastly, Baturin highlighted Tangem’s commitment to developer-friendly integration, emphasizing the simplicity of incorporating Tangem’s SDK and apps into existing pipelines. Notably, the transparency of Tangem’s approach is evident through the open sourcing of their SDK and apps.
Find out more about Cardano’s Midnight in our interview with CEO Eran Barak:
Cardano’s Midnight: 4th-Gen Tech Without the Maximalism
More interviews from the Cardano Summit:
Emurgo Envisions Sleeping Giant Cardano to Wake by 2028
