Mysten Labs has unveiled a revolutionary method enabling individuals to send and receive cryptocurrency via email, even if the recipient lacks a digital wallet.
Founded by five former Facebook engineers two years ago, Mysten Labs aimed to complete projects initiated during their tenure at the social media giant. One of these projects focused on simplifying the process of sending money or cryptocurrency over the internet, akin to basic online communication.
According to Adeniyi Abiodun, co-founder of Mysten Labs, the vision to make sending money as straightforward as email was not realized during their time at Facebook (now Meta). However, this vision is now becoming a reality with the introduction of Sui, the Layer 1 blockchain developed by Mysten Labs.
Sui’s innovative features, such as the “zkLogin” verification system, eliminate the complexities associated with cryptocurrency transactions. Abiodun explained that Sui allows individuals to send money globally using a standard web2 identity, even if they don’t possess a crypto wallet. The verification process employs two zero-knowledge proofs, making Sui a user-friendly mechanism for sending assets without the need to grapple with the intricacies of cryptocurrency.
Abiodun highlighted that the complexity of cryptocurrency has deterred widespread adoption, with only about 60 million active crypto wallets compared to over 5 billion people using web2 accounts. He emphasized that the requirement to download a wallet or deal with gas fees is nonsensical for the average user.
While acknowledging Ethereum’s dominance among public blockchains, Moody’s noted its adoption challenges. Mysten Labs, with a valuation surpassing $2 billion, aims to overcome such hurdles by offering an open standard in Sui, enabling anyone to build on the blockchain.
In a competitive Layer 1 space, Mysten Labs secured significant funding in September of the previous year, raising $300 million from major venture capital firms, including Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z crypto unit, Jump Crypto, Apollo, Binance Labs, Franklin Templeton, and Coinbase Ventures. Mysten Labs aspires to avoid closed-loop systems, contrasting itself with initiatives like Coinbase’s, and hopes Sui’s use will scale exponentially as more companies and applications build on its open standard.
