Crypto exchange launches platform to make DeFi apps accessible

The complex onboarding and user experience is the price people pay to use decentralized apps — and it’s also one of the reasons most are not using those services. A top Indian crypto exchange wants to fix that for users worldwide.

CoinDCX on Friday launched Okto, a mobile platform that will host other decentralized apps and won’t require users to remember the long string of words as their passwords. The platform will store parts of the key and tie the rest to the customer’s device, where it will be authenticated using customer’s biometric ID.

“To make decentralized investment opportunities further accessible, Okto has integrated multi-party computation technology to solve private key related issues, helping users to recover their passkey and funds seamlessly,” said the startup, backed by B Capital Group and Coinbase Ventures among its backers.

Okto is aimed at helping the masses get exposure to web3, said Neeraj Khandelwal, co-founder of CoinDCX, in an interview. “The larger population isn’t comfortable with setting up their wallet accounts and storing and remembering the key,” he said.

The new platform will support over 20 chains and more than 100 protocols and absolve all transaction fee across chains, he said. Users from around the globe will have access to Okto, which launches in waitlist today. The startup has started to engage with developers around the world to onboard their apps onto Okto, he said.

CoinDCX began working on Okto eight months ago and has a dedicated team of over 50 people. The startup is sticking to focusing on crypto despite the market downturn and its chief rival (CoinSwitch) expanding to standard fintech features such as wealth management.

“As the technology is maturing, builders are creating use-cases to unlock value and make the internet a more equitable space. Our new DeFi offering is the first step in this direction. In the next three to five years, we foresee all CeFi platforms will have a DeFi arm that will be efficient, economical and provide wider opportunities for everyone in the ecosystem,” he said.