Investing in Blockaid — security as a keystone of great crypto UX
Lisa Cuesta and I are proud to announce our investment into Blockaid’s Seed round via Credibly Neutral, our early-stage venture fund investing in protocols, infrastructure, and crypto SaaS. As they close out their Series A and come out of stealth, we’re thankful to invest alongside incredible investors including Ribbit, Variant, Cyberstarts, Sequoia, and Greylock.
Blockaid enables builders to protect their users from fraud, phishing and hacks. They ingest vast amounts of data collected from scanning, simulating, and validating dApps and transactions across the web to stop users from falling prey to attackers that seek to steal their crypto.
There are many companies that have attempted to do something similar, but Blockaid’s path has been the hardest, but also the most impactful. Blockaid integrates directly into wallets and dapps, including MetaMask, OpenSea, Rainbow, and Zerion, rather than having a separate Chrome extension or sign up flow. Most users aren’t even aware they’re protected by Blockaid, which is the way it should be. Security is and should be automatic and assumed.
Blockaid is a keystone of great crypto UX. Today, it is stressful and scary to interact onchain. Whether using a Ledger or Coinbase Wallet, a user must be highly attentive; clicking a single wrong link can mean total loss of assets. Even when interacting with known dapps or contracts, a user can almost never decipher the technical jargon of the transaction they’re being asked to sign. To sign most smart contract transactions on Ledger you even have to turn on a setting called “Blind Signing” since neither the Ledger hardware nor wallet software can show the user a plain explanation of what is happening.
The more stressful it is to use crypto, the less people will use it. This isn’t rocket science. But this also explains why Blockaid is the keystone of great crypto UX. It’s not enough to have fast, cheap transactions if the user does not feel safe making them. Once security is assumed and the anxiety is gone, there will be an enormous weight taken off users’ shoulders because they can now be free spirited with trying new dapps and activities.
The problem extends beyond users. Or rather, users extend beyond users. I expect that of the 1bn transactions per second crypto will see in the future, well over 99% will be bots: AI, micropayments, and IoT (e.g., Tesla self driving cars paying to recharge themselves before going back on the road). These are also “users” of blockchains that will need to be protected from the cottage industry that will spring up to steal their funds.
A built-in solution like Blockaid that sees and prevents attacks before they happen will be able to develop the best models and every customer and users of theirs will benefit from their aggregated knowledge and insights. It’s a powerful proposition, and one that we’re extremely excited to get behind.
Blockaid was founded by Ido Ben-Natan and Raz Niv, former members of the Israeli cyber intelligence unit. They’re unbelievably intelligent and driven. I’ve never seen a startup win two behemoths first — OpenSea and MetaMask — before tackling the rest of the market. Working with them helped evolve how I invest because it has set a new benchmark for founder-problem fit and go-to-market aggression.
They are also incredibly tenacious. As Israel is reeling from the surprise terrorist attack by Hamas that killed over a thousand Israelis, the Blockaid team is continuing to push forward and ship products to advance and protect the crypto industry. It’s both inspiring and deeply saddening, and we hope the conflict ends soon so they and other Israeli builders across the ecosystem can get back to building full time in safety and security.
To learn more about Blockaid, visit their website and follow them on Twitter. They’re the team to watch and we’re grateful for the opportunity to back and support them.
