Leading the Web3 wallet track, OKX Wallet's three core product philosophies

Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and Zhang Xiaolong are undoubtedly the "godfathers" of product management, having created the tech giants of the Web2 era—Tesla, the world's most valuable car company; Apple, the world's most valuable tech company; and WeChat, the communication platform with the most users globally. The product philosophies they proposed, such as returning to the essence of problems through first principles, relentless innovation, and starting from human needs, have profoundly influenced generation after generation of product managers. Even in the wave of transition from Web2 to Web3, these product concepts remain universally applicable.

In leading Web3 products like the OKX Web3 Wallet, one can intuitively feel the innovation and user demand-oriented product concepts inherited and promoted from the Web2 era. As a "product of OKX," the OKX Wallet team bears both a halo and a burden; while gaining attention through the OKX brand, they are destined to shoulder higher and stricter expectations. In an environment where MetaMask leads the way and competitors are in hot pursuit, the OKX Web3 Wallet team meticulously refines the product, from UI details to product models and strategies, advancing step by step, delving deeply, and ultimately taking three years to evolve from inception to a central position, becoming a builder and leader in the Web3 wallet space. For example, according to data from DefiLlama, nearly all of the top 100 DeFi protocols have integrated with the OKX Web3 Wallet.

In 2008, influenced by the decentralization ideology brought by Bitcoin, personal data sovereignty and trust awareness began to awaken, and the tide of Web3 has become unstoppable, with freedom and fairness ultimately becoming the choice of the era. As a leading Web3 product, this article will explore a new Web3 product philosophy through the lens of the OKX Web3 Wallet, including the user perspective, values, and worldview embedded in the product.

Deeply Understanding and Meeting User Needs

"Every day, 500 million people say we are not doing well, and another 100 million want to teach me how to make products," said Zhang Xiaolong, the founder of WeChat, during a 2019 WeChat public class speech. Despite the multitude of voices, no one in China has more authority on product philosophy than Zhang Xiaolong, as Tencent's Q3 2022 financial report shows WeChat's monthly active users reached 1.309 billion.

Zhang Xiaolong once mentioned in discussing WeChat's product philosophy that often when we make products, we only satisfy users' "functional needs." Products created this way cannot be said to be useless, but their value is limited. If the product you create not only meets users' "functional needs" but also satisfies their "psychological needs," those deep-seated human desires, then your product has the foundation to become popular.

The ultimate goal of Web2 products is to satisfy human nature, that is, to understand and meet user needs, and this product philosophy is equally applicable to Web3. Regardless of whether Web3 pursues fairness and freedom, trust transformation, or something else, returning to the essence of the product still means serving users. However, many current Web3 products have begun to deviate from this essence, some are Web3 for the sake of Web3, decentralization for the sake of decentralization, or passively iterating to follow competitors, rather than starting from user needs. For instance, many Web2 gamers are not interested in "P2E" blockchain games, but many crypto enthusiasts express a liking for them, indicating that "P2E" may not be the demand of Web2 gamers. Products should start from the needs of target users and strive to understand them.

The OKX Web3 Wallet always insists on starting from user needs and quickly refining those needs into product requirements, rather than using its own needs as user needs. In fact, this product viewpoint aligns with Musk's first principles, which return to the essence of problems. For example, for many crypto users, they want to interact with early projects to obtain potential airdrops, that is, to earn potential high returns at low cost and low risk, but they face difficulties in project selection and excessive time consumption. To address this, OKX launched a one-stop DApp exploration and reward interaction platform—Cryptopedia, which regularly introduces activities themed around different blockchain networks and collaborates with relevant partners to set DApp interaction tasks, helping users reduce search costs while allowing them to interact precisely in fragmented time.

Similarly, many users want to participate in on-chain investments, but the mixed quality of on-chain projects and the inability to form intuitive comparisons pose challenges. The OKX Web3 Wallet has launched a DeFi section, which serves as a one-stop on-chain investment platform. It aggregates over 10 public chains, 60+ projects, and 200+ protocols, supporting V3 liquidity pools, one-click cross-coin investments, automatic yield calculations, and more efficient gas usage, making DeFi investment extremely simple.

The Web3 industry itself exists outside traditional frameworks, and there is little reference information available. A deep understanding of technology, users, and application scenarios is necessary to truly create valuable services. The OKX Web3 Wallet team has early on stepped outside traditional frameworks and insisted on being user-centric, ultimately winning the trust of industry partners and users.

As of September 20, the latest ecological overview released by OKX Web3 Wallet shows that its wallet section has integrated over 70 public chains, supported more than 120 protocols in the DeFi section, and aggregated over 30 NFT marketplace platforms, supporting multiple ecosystems including Game, Social, MEME, and Tool, totaling over 300 supported platforms and protocols.

Protecting User Asset Security is the First Principle

What is the second step after meeting user needs? Undoubtedly, product security. Just as safety is the lifeline for car companies like Tesla, protecting user asset security is also the first principle of the OKX Web3 Wallet. Web3 addresses trust issues through decentralization, but it also faces trust crises due to frequent on-chain security incidents and incomplete decentralization. Especially as a primary tool for managing user assets, Web3 wallets bring personal data sovereignty back while also facing on-chain and off-chain security risks such as lost or stolen private keys, airdrop scams, problematic contracts, and phishing links.

Since its launch, the OKX Web3 Wallet has gradually built a robust product security system operating 24/7, maintaining a record of zero security incidents. The security issues of the wallet itself can be categorized into two types: for users, the main concerns are loss or theft of private keys; for the wallet itself, issues often involve the misappropriation of user private keys or insider theft. Regarding whether there is a "self-theft" issue, the OKX Web3 Wallet proves it has not misappropriated user private keys through direct measures such as fully open-source multi-chain signature SDK, open-source MPC keyless wallet core algorithms, open-source AA wallets, and open-source BRC 20-S.

In terms of user private key loss or theft, the OKX Web3 Wallet supports various mnemonic/private key backup methods, including iCloud/Google Drive cloud storage, manual backups, and hardware wallets like Ledger, Keystone, and Onekey, ensuring that private keys are firmly in the user's hands. Additionally, the OKX Web3 Wallet has pioneered the development of an MPC keyless wallet and an AA smart contract wallet that allows private keys to be recovered through social means, achieving a transformation of private key security issues "from prevention to cure."

On-chain security issues for Web3 wallets are another challenge following the wallet's inherent security problems. These issues, much like telecom fraud, fall outside the realm of product security and are primarily caused by third parties. However, the OKX Web3 Wallet has prioritized this by building a robust KYT (Know Your Transaction) security system. For example, one of the system's functions is risk authorization reminders. The current system has a library of over 3.2 billion on-chain address labels and is continuously updated, allowing for effective risk detection and automatic alerts when users interact with malicious addresses or suspicious transactions. In the future, address labels will be processed in layers, with whitelist addresses receiving ordinary prompts, graylist addresses receiving general risk warnings, and blacklist addresses being directly intercepted. If users encounter phishing sites or scams, the KYT security system will automatically identify them and provide risk alerts to prevent risky transactions.

Another feature is the one-click authorization management function, which is straightforward: if users make erroneous operations involving risk contract authorizations during on-chain interactions, they can use the OKX Web3 Wallet to manage risk contract authorizations with one click, regularly clearing risks and avoiding pitfalls in advance.

Recently, the OKX Web3 Wallet also supported Flashbot to protect users from MEV attacks. Users can click "more" in the ETH chain SWAP transaction of the OKX Web3 Wallet and enable MEV protection, effectively preventing MEV attacks. The OKX Web3 Wallet sends transactions to trusted third-party nodes (such as Flashbots private pools) instead of conventional transaction pools to ensure that transaction order remains unchanged.

The entire Web3 industry and all projects revolve around "trust." Trust is one of the core product philosophies conveyed to users by the OKX Web3 Wallet and is a key point for its brand longevity. When trust forms a positive feedback loop between users and the product, it may help the OKX Web3 Wallet become a "super application" in the Web3 industry, but the prerequisite for generating trust is—product security.

Continuous Innovation, Leading Innovation

In the Web2 field, innovation has been a steadfast principle for Steve Jobs and a key to Apple becoming the world's most valuable company. In the Web3 field, innovation is the core driving force of the OKX Web3 Wallet and the secret to maintaining its industry leadership.

In 2023, terms like "first," "leading," and "the first" have become labels for the OKX Web3 Wallet, representing its significant innovations. For example, in April of this year, the OKX Web3 Wallet announced that it became the first multi-chain wallet to support Ordinals BTC NFTs and pioneered the one-click address switch for paying network fees, allowing users to use balances from other addresses in their current wallet to pay gas when transferring BTC NFTs, ensuring the safe transfer of NFTs.

Also in April, the OKX Web3 Wallet launched the MPC keyless wallet. This keyless wallet, developed based on MPC technology, is the first 2/3 multi-chain keyless wallet on the market, supporting 37 public chains. It also introduced an emergency exit function, allowing users to export private keys and withdraw assets in emergency scenarios using two private key shards managed entirely by themselves, achieving a truly decentralized self-custody keyless wallet. Users can easily create this wallet using their OKX account without needing to manage complex private keys or mnemonic phrases, making it easy to explore the decentralized Web3 world.

On August 2, the OKX Web3 Wallet casually launched the AA smart contract wallet, which the industry regards as the "iPhone moment" for Web3 wallets. It helps lower the participation threshold for users while bringing more playability to Web3 wallets and opening up vast imaginative possibilities, potentially forever changing the blockchain industry, just as the greatness of the iPhone was not merely in pioneering smartphones but in making them a mainstream product.

The innovation of the OKX Web3 Wallet is deeply integrated into all aspects of product design, functionality, and experience. A glance at the iteration history of the app version is essentially a history of innovation.

Dreams Persist, Passion Endures, Focused on Building

In addition to the three product philosophies discussed above, simplifying complexity, providing a one-stop solution, being comprehensive, and not making choices for users are also product philosophies upheld by the OKX Web3 Wallet.

Currently, abstract Web3 concepts, cumbersome operational processes, and lagging product experiences have become major obstacles for Web2 users transitioning to Web3. Vitalik Buterin has tested using ETH to buy coffee in various locations worldwide, but due to gas limits, network delays, and other reasons, several payments ended in failure. He himself has expressed that compared to the smoothness of Web2, the Web3 product experience is lacking and needs significant improvement; poor experience is the "original sin" of Web3 products. The OKX Web3 Wallet continues to insist on simplifying complexity, aiming to bring 1 billion users into Web3.

For example, to address the cumbersome gas fee exchange process, the OKX Web3 Wallet supports one-click "exchange gas" for balances, allowing users to easily pay gas anytime and anywhere; by supporting over 70 public chains, it enables seamless switching among major ecosystems, enhancing user experience.

When Zhang Xiaolong discussed the "bottle drift" feature of WeChat, he also mentioned an interesting daily perspective: "We should not make choices for users but rather place them in an environment where they can choose for themselves." Initially, they discussed whether to create a special drift bottle, such as one that only people from a certain place could receive, or one that only men or women could receive.

However, after consideration, they decided to only implement the most basic functionality and leave room for users to express themselves. If users want a special drift bottle, they can operate it themselves. This aligns with the product philosophy of the OKX Web3 Wallet, which is to provide the product without making choices for users. The OKX Web3 Wallet encompasses five major sections: wallet, DEX, DeFi, NFT market, and DApp exploration, meeting users' one-stop Web3 needs, allowing them to choose the features they want according to their needs and explore Web3 in their own way.

As a steadfast builder and leader in Web3, the OKX Web3 Wallet is continuously meeting the diverse needs of users in its own way. They firmly believe that Web3 will ultimately bring freedom and fairness, and they will continue to move forward, fulfilling their mission over time.