Earlier this month, Anthony Di Iorio, chief digital officer of the Toronto Stock Exchange, CEO and founder of Kryptokit and Decentral, and co-founder of Ethereum, announced the beta launch of Jaxx, a unified platform which provides wallet services for both Bitcoin and Ethereum users.
Jaxx wallets consist of a hierarchical deterministic Bitcoin wallet and a lightweight Ethereum wallet being developed by Kyptokit, a Bitcoin group entrusted with securing more than 500,000 Bitcoin wallets installed on their Chrome extension and Rushwallet products. Since its establishment in 2013, Kryptokit has maintained its reputation for providing a secure platform that has not experienced a single case of customer fund loss from hacking attacks or data breaches.
The Kryptokit team completed the launch of its wallets on Android, Apple iOS, Chrome Extension and Firefox Nightly. In the next few days, the Kryptokit development team will launch Jaxx Bitcoin and Ethereum wallets for Windows desktop, Apple desktop, BlackBerry mobile and Linux kernel.
The Android tablet version of Jaxx wallets launched this week features a single-page, intuitive and simple user experience, enabling Bitcoin and Ethereum users to transact the two digital currencies with ease. The coding of Jaxx Bitcoin and Ethereum wallets for Android and iOS applications are designed primarily with JavaScript to enhance the efficiency and simplicity of the application.
The architecture of Jaxx’s Bitcoin and Ethereum wallets is similar to the approach of mobile application development framework Apache Cordova. The Kryptokit team explains that a thin JavaScript application layer on its Android and iOS application processes all of the wallet-side operations.
Jaxx wallets also use a cryptography library on the JavaScript side to keep it unified across their implementations. More important, the Kryptokit team says the code allows the wallets to rely on a client-side security model, with private keys hosted locally that are never sent to any other servers, reducing the risk of vulnerability and key compromise.
After the Kryptokit development team completes the launch and implementations of Jaxx wallets across all of the targeted platforms, it will begin integrating various software and technologies to optimize user and trading experience.
Di lorio says that once the first stage of the development phase is complete (infrastructure phase), the development team will begin integrating technologies such as ShapeShift’s instant cryptocurrency exchange API to allow users to convert Bitcoin to Ethereum and vice versa.
“Phase 2 (integrations such as ShapeShift) is easily achieved once the groundwork of Stage 1 has been completed. Our goal is to become the default wallet for Bitcoin and Ethereum. We believe Jaxx's single page design-led UX, easy to deploy unified codebase, ability to pair on over a dozen devices, and unique messaging layer gives us an edge in appealing to the masses. I expect the integration phase to begin in March, and SS is first on the list,” said Di lorio.
The integration of ShapeShift and collaboration with its CEO Erik Voorhees, who previously mentioned that ShapeShift will be providing advanced Ethereum functionality and improved contract support for Bitcoin, will bring the Jaxx wallets into a completely new level, with which users can trade freely with minimal fees directly from the wallets.
With the marketcap of Ethereum surpassing $462 million and Bitcoin maintaining its price stability, the Kryptokit team believes Jaxx wallets will become increasingly popular among Ethereum and cryptocurrency enthusiasts in general. More than 2,000 users have downloaded the Jaxx Android and iOS apps already, in just a few days after its launch.