Born successful 2001 successful Argentina conscionable arsenic the state began to acquisition a devastating economical crisis, Amanu laminitis Gianluca Minoprio saw firsthand however accepted banking systems tin neglect their users. This acquisition shaped his ngo to make a caller benignant of crypto wallet, 1 that aims to span the spread betwixt accepted concern and blockchain technology.
Fresh disconnected aggregate wins astatine the Consensus 2024 hackathon successful Texas past May, Amanu is present challenging accepted notions of what a crypto wallet should beryllium (if you’d similar to use for the EasyA Hackathon astatine Consensus Hong Kong 2025, delight spell here). The startup is processing a suite of features that widen acold beyond accepted wallet functionality: users volition soon beryllium capable to nonstop crypto payments done their keyboard via immoderate messaging app, marque contactless transfers via ultrasound exertion and negociate transactions without dealing with state fees oregon having to take a blockchain.
One of the biggest hurdles successful crypto wallet adoption remains the complexity of effect phrases — the drawstring of random words users indispensable safely store to retrieve their funds. This cardinal situation has led Amanu to reimagine wallet information beyond the non-custodial core. Amanu’s wallet uses biometric signatures, eliminating effect phrases entirely.
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"The lone mode to trigger the signature is done your authorization," Minoprio explains. "The breathtaking portion astir Amanu is that it could beryllium closed root and you'd inactive cognize however the cardinal is managed due to the fact that each clip we privation to trigger the key, you request to judge it."
This represents a important departure from accepted wallets similar MetaMask successful which backstage keys are stored astatine the bundle level. However, questions stay astir important features specified arsenic wallet betterment if a instrumentality is mislaid oregon damaged — an indispensable information for immoderate hardware-based biometric system.
A cardinal shift?
The enlargement beyond halfway wallet features raises questions astir the aboriginal of crypto payments. Is Amanu's experimental attack — combining messaging, contactless payments and simplified cardinal absorption — a motion that crypto's unsocial properties necessitate america to rethink integer wallets entirely? Or volition these features yet converge backmost to much accepted wallet interfaces?
The project's sanction offers a hint to its ambitions. Derived from "amanuensis," the sanction for a medieval monk that preserved cognition by copying texts, Amanu is meant to service arsenic a span betwixt analyzable blockchain exertion and mundane users. "Today's modern amanuenses are the blockchain builders due to the fact that we are the fewer who cognize however to work and constitute wrong [the blockchain]," explains Minoprio.
In the crowded crypto wallet space, wherever established players already bid important idiosyncratic bases, Amanu's occurrence volition beryllium connected whether its innovative features genuinely lick idiosyncratic symptom points, oregon conscionable adhd unnecessary complexity. As a result, the company's improvement attack is ruthlessly user-focused. "If you transportation the diagnostic to radical and they don't get excited astir it, you tin rapidly determine what to absorption connected oregon not," notes Minoprio.
Seven months into development, Amanu's imaginativeness of making crypto payments "as casual arsenic sending a text" is astir to look its archetypal large trial with the upcoming motorboat of its diagnostic enabling users to nonstop crypto via substance message. Whether this reimagining of the crypto wallet volition resonate with mainstream users remains to beryllium seen, but it represents a bold experimentation successful pushing the boundaries of integer outgo systems.