Established in December 2022, Vaultody celebrates its first anniversary on the market. The 2023 was our very first full year of operations, full with a series of significant milestones achieved by our hard working team. Despite our status as a young company, we have made significant progress for the short period of just 12 months. But why Vaultody development was necessary, and is it relevant to the modern days in which we live in?

The year 2023 has been characterized by continued turbulence in the crypto market, marked by persistent episodes of security breaches and crypto hacks. Notable incidents include Euler Finance in March, experiencing a hack resulting in the loss of $197 million in crypto funds, an amount surprisingly returned by the hacker. Multichain reported a $130 million loss of assets sent from its cross-chain protocol to an unknown wallet. Poloniex faced a drain of value amounting to $114 million from its hot wallets, while HTX and Heco Chain witnessed a theft of $97 million. KyberSwap also suffered a loss exceeding $50 million due to the exploitation of a smart contract vulnerability. A series of security breaches in Ledger has impacted various DeFi protocols, such as SushiSwap, Lido, Balancer, Zapper, Phantom, and more. This resulted in the theft of $484k in funds.

These incidents from 2023 highlight the critical necessity that led to the establishment of Vaultody as a dedicated project concerned with the funds protection and funds flexibility. Our primary goal is to proactively prevent hacks and cryptocurrency losses, addressing vulnerabilities which are both external and internal to organizations. Our journey has been very hectic and full with milestones, but we've successfully reached a point where we managed to deliver MPC solutions that are market-leading. This achievement allows us to empower our business clients with the utmost secure wallet experience, providing them with highly versatile control options to effectively protect against various types of threats.

How Vaultody is concluding the 2023

We dedicated most of the time this year to work on the development and implementation of numerous features. Features that are not available on many of the rivalling platforms, but will ensure that our statement of providing the highest security and privacy level is our promise and commitment. Here is what our 2023 from a development perspective looks like:

Multi-Party Computation (MPC) - We designed our own multi-party computation solution that not only serves multiple purposes in safeguarding our users and their assets, but also comes equipped with a range of features aimed at empowering wallet/vault account owners with enhanced control over fund management and oversight of individuals handling the funds. Backed-up by quantum cryptography and employing the Threshold Signature Scheme (TSS) we ensure ultimate protection against hack attempts as well as insider threats, as there is no single party that can gain access to the wallet without the input of all wallet/vault members. 

Vaultody Approver - We developed a bespoke mobile application compatible with both Android and IOS platforms, serving as an additional layer for enhanced control and security of funds. Owners of Vaultody accounts can effortlessly authorize or decline transactions linked to their wallets, as well as approve system actions related to their wallets. The Vaultody Approver feature adds an extra level of security by ensuring that accessing your account from a PC is impossible without the associated mobile device. Even in the event of your mobile device falling into the wrong hands, Vaultody Approver is protected with PIN and biometric data, providing continuous and smart defence mechanisms. In addition, internal threats are also completely eliminated with the enhanced provided visibility and the level of control granted to account owners. 

Same address all EVM chains - One of the common errors users make is sending funds to the wrong blockchain. To mitigate the risk of fund loss, we've introduced a feature that assigns the same address for all Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chains. If you happen to receive funds mistakenly sent to a different blockchain, rest assured, we have you covered. We offer multiple options for managing these funds, including the possibility of returning them to the sender.

Transaction history - The transaction history feature of Vaultody is remarkably versatile, serving multiple purposes to benefit account owners. Its primary functionality involves providing comprehensive 360-degree information on all transaction details, enabling users to monitor expenditures and balances seamlessly. Additionally, the secondary feature focuses on bookkeeping transaction history, facilitating the tracking of both internal and external transactions. This simplifies accounting activities for users, enhancing the overall utility of the transaction history feature.

Advanced API keys - Utilize Advanced API keys to efficiently manage and control various activities on your account. Enhance security with features such as unix time stamps, a 30-second window for request time stamps, API as a string, base64-encoded signature, passphrase linkage, IP address whitelisting, vault selection, and pre-defined expiration times. This robust system allows customization of API key permissions for generating deposit addresses, creating transaction requests, or engaging in other vault-related activities, providing secure and flexible access control.

Team Roles - The implementation of team roles within Vaultody is a pivotal feature aimed at providing users with enhanced control and flexibility. Vault owners have the authority to determine the number of team members to add to a vault, allocate specific roles, and regulate access and permissions according to role definitions. In addition, users can further exert control over their accounts by creating custom rules and policies through another significant feature, the transaction policy. This empowers users to tailor the management of their vaults to their specific preferences.

System actions - Integrated within the Vaultody Approver, the system actions feature empowers team members assigned to a vault to initiate requests and seek approval for various activities. This feature enables users to activate their wallet, mandatory backup creation, request updates to personal details or email addresses, seek distributed access to transaction policy rules, switch vault roles, and perform various other actions. It's important to note that while team members can make requests through system actions, the feature is designed to ensure that only the account owner holds the authority to accept or decline these requests.

Hardware enclaves - Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) or also interchangeably called hardware enclaves, are isolated environments that we provide to our clients. The hardware enclaves are especially beneficial in scenarios when sensitive computation operations are undertaken and when there are potential risks of breaches. This means that data that Vaultody stores in the TEEs is encrypted and cannot be obtained even in times when hackers have gained access to the server OS. We achieve these by relying on not one, but two separate enclaves - AMD SEV and Intel SGX.    

Backup and recovery - In our ongoing commitment to protect client funds, we implemented the mandatory vault backup and recovery option in 2023. Users are prompted to create a backup upon opening an account, with the account owner having the discretion to approve or decline. We also provide the Vaultody Recovery Tool, an open-source tool that, while optional, is highly recommended. This tool serves as a valuable companion, aiding in the completion of vault backups and secure storage of backups on a local device.

What is coming in 2024?

2023 was a very ambitious and successful year for our team, but we continue to set the bar higher as we look into the set milestones for 2024. This year, we will be focusing on the following:

New Blockchains - In the coming year, we are excited to announce the introduction of new blockchain integrations, significantly broadening the spectrum of digital assets that you can securely manage on our platform. Among the additions planned for 2024 are Solana, Arbitrum, Polygon, Base, and Optimism blockchain networks, providing users with enhanced flexibility and options for their digital asset management.

Smart Vaults - Smart Vaults represent our cutting-edge EVM-powered vaults, set to launch in the first half of 2024. These innovative vaults offer three distinct advantages to our users. Firstly, they eliminate wallet dust, resolving the problem of small amounts of crypto left in your wallet. Secondly, they are highly efficient, enabling batch transactions to be placed with a single transaction. Lastly, users will benefit from significant gas fee discounts, reaching up to 50% on individual transactions and an impressive up to 90% discount for batch transactions.

Smart Automations - Smart automations will empower vault owners by enabling them to implement a precise set of governing rules that automate asset management and improve transaction optimization. These rules are fully customizable, designed to align with the preferences of each vault owner. Upon meeting predetermined conditions, transaction requests are automatically executed in accordance with the owner's configured settings.

Hot & Warm Vaults - As part of our 2024 roadmap, we will introduce two distinct types of vaults - hot and warm, both providing an unparalleled level of protection. Responding to business needs, our hot vaults are suitable for daily operations, ideal for safeguarding smaller amounts of cryptocurrencies. For larger transactions or storage of substantial amounts, users can use warm vaults.

AML/KYT - In order to comply with regulatory requirements, and to ensure detection and rejection of high-risk transactions, we will complete a Know Your Transaction (KYT) integration in 2024. This integration will also allow vault owners to investigate, manage, reject and report unwanted, risky or suspicious transactions directly from their vaults. The AML integration directs all incoming suspicious transactions for review, holding them in a pending status until they successfully pass all checks. This mechanism ensures restrictions on high-risk transactions.

Contacts - This upcoming feature allows users to customize their address book with detailed contact information for individuals and businesses, categorized by specific blockchain networks. This optimizes the digital vault management and improves transaction request processes, including the option to whitelist specific addresses. For address book integrity, input from account owners is vital. While team members can initiate requests, final approval lies with vault owners, granting them the authority to accept or decline submissions.

Freeze Vaults - Better control over vaults can be granted with the freeze vaults upcoming feature. The "Freeze Vaults" function allows account holders to temporarily lock their vaults for unspecified durations, offering asset protection in risky, emergency, or unforeseen situations. Activating this feature halts all vault activities, deactivates transaction requests from team members, and can be applied to a single vault or all vaults. Account owners have the autonomy to unfreeze and resume normal operations at their discretion.

Working hours - Users (owners) will be able to introduce designated working time periods and restrict activities outside of these hours to prevent unwanted behavior. This feature limits transaction requests and other system actions during unusual times. The working hours functionality blocks transaction requests made through both the dashboard and APIs outside of the pre-set active hours. Requests within the designated working hours are sent for approval through the Vaultody Approver mobile application and processed based on the set governance rules.

Operational Log - This feature will let you track comprehensive account activity and team member operations effectively. Utilize filters for author, action, source, date, and time to refine your monitoring. Examine activity details, audit system actions and transactions, and enhance overall supervision. This tool serves as an excellent auditing resource for meticulous tracking of transactions and account activities.

Conclusion

During our first year of operations we achieved a very significant progress addressing challenges within the crypto market through our features release. We introduced MPC, Vaultody Approver, Advanced API keys and many other features in order to concentrate our efforts in funds protection and flexibility. Throughout the year, our commitment to user security and privacy resulted in a robust platform with versatile control options.

Entering 2024, our focus remains on enhancing user experience and security with plans for new blockchain integrations, release of our innovative Smart Vaults, AML/KYT integration, and many more. Vaultody is dedicated to providing a secure platform for digital asset management, adapting to the crypto landscape, and ensuring protection against potential threats. Anticipating another year of innovation, we continue to work and expand upon our successful foundation that we managed to build in 2023.