Blockchain Inspiration
Interviewing Ruben Merre, CEO of NGRAVE
Keywords: Blockchain, Inspiration, Private keys, Security, Entrepreneur
1. How did you get introduced to Blockchain?
In 2015, while working with a big financial institution during a research I came across Bitcoin though didn’t invest immediately. In 2017, I had an eye-opening moment regarding Blockchain and started studying use cases like money transfer with minimum transaction fee using Bitcoin, centralized database shortcomings, etc. and ultimately started investing in the crypto.
2. How did you kick start with NGRAVE?
People owning crypto have certain anxiety about its safeguarding on the online platforms. Through the research we understood there is no solution to it today and that’s when we decided let’s develop a solution for this problem in 3 years. Now our product is in the market, we are selling since June 2020 and we will now start shipping from mid-April 2021.
3. What were the challenges you faced while establishing NGRAVE?
We are not money driven, rather we are purpose driven. We took the hardest way and focused on security as it is the way of gaining trust. With this vision we started and today we have the most secure crypto wallet in the industry, formally proven by its EAL7 security certification, the highest attainable in the world. We clubbed the hardware aspect with the security and then with crypto, this was a very uphill battle as in phases bitcoin dropped too and then pandemic hit delayed the shipping. An Entrepreneur’s journey is always miraculous, on the same day you might come on national television and also get an invoice of 200,000 Dollars while you don’t have a cash flow for that. Every time you will be all over the place growing and issues coming up but then that makes an exciting and crazy journey. It’s not always about gaining the money and retiring early but it is about empowering the world! We don’t talk about how many units are sold but we talk about how many people have we empowered financially and the peace of mind they have now post having our product.
4. How is Private key storage and its vulnerabilities?
In the current system, attackers can find the traces of the private keys using simple algorithms. Therefore, it is important to have hardware solutions. Private key is the heart of the entire security system of Blockchain hence, we built the first end-to-end solution. We didn’t stop at ZERO, we built GRAPHENE and so on. What was surprising was the very first step of generating a private key, nobody did that well. After generating the key, they showed you this is your key generated but the people having access to the backend of the platform also had access to the key. Second issue with private keys is there are proven backdoor in the chips that created the keys. That’s why we have created NGRAVE Perfect Key. That’s why people should realize the importance of private keys and we enable them to start truly owning what is theirs.
5. What do you think, is Blockchain a potential future or it’s a hype?
There is a huge diversity in the opinion regarding decentralization of the system. We are still not there yet in the pure philosophy of the Blockchain hence, we have immense opportunity. Many crypto exchanges exist today, still at the end users are depending on them for the security of their crypto by giving them the authority to generate and handle the keys while you have the passcode. DeFi is much needed to go to the next evolution of the Blockchain ecosystem.
6. Entrepreneurs you admire in the Blockchain area.
If you are specific to Blockchain then it’s quite limiting. I am not really a person who quickly admires some people but I admire the mindsets. I might sound strange but my mom is a person with an extremely positive mindset. If someone asks me what superpower I want, then I would say what she has which is always being positive and optimistic. Being an Entrepreneur you can think of worst-case scenarios but still have an optimistic approach for dealing with them. This trait is much represented by Elon Musk, failing is less important to him rather failing to try is his approach, for him whatever happens is a progress. Never giving up attitude is what I admire.
7. Resources you would recommend for getting started with Blockchain.
https://medium.com/ngrave/keeping-your-crypto-safe-solving-the-private-key-paradox-4510e5c9f92c
https://medium.com/ngrave/cryptos-box-of-pandora-how-to-keep-it-closed-93ba1a75d413
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCczMw5XzxxVks7sNaC-QxwQ
https://koroushak.substack.com/
To know more about NGRAVE, refer:
