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In an interview with VICE, Metamaskās founders voiced explicit criticisms against the rampant scams and the gambling nature of certain projects in the crypto ecosystem. In terms of addressing security issues that potentially expose users to cyberattacks, co-founder Dan Finlay said there is only a certain extent to which the company can go to protect users from exploits.
Crypto as a Casino
When Metamaskās co-founder Aaron Davis launched the popular decentralized wallet specifically for the Ethereum Blockchain, he did not picture that the layer-one network could be āso primarily financialā as it is now.
Instead, he expected the protocol would be used more for solving real-life issues, like those only resolved by national governments. For instance, the idea of collective organization could be pushed further to spur a state of āself-regulationā beyond the crypto community, he added.
Unlike many industry leaders shedding an unrestrainedly positive light on digital assets, the duo ā Aaron Davis and Dan Finlay ā held a relatively cautious and realistic view of the ecosystem.
Not surprised about the bloodbath getting unfolded quickly across various fields in the space, the pair noted that it has demonstrated the ecosystem is like āan unsafe casino,ā where people gamble with little knowledge of the risks theyāve put themselves in. Both blame it on some bad actors ānot acting in line with the crypto ethos of transparency.ā
Metamaskās Limitations
As a primary facilitator of the rise of DeFi and NFTs in the past years, Metamask enables users to have custody of their digital assets conveniently. The rising popularity of decentralized wallets also led to the soaring cases of phishing hacks in NFT, thus causing a large sum of money to be stolen by exploiters.
Though dedicating āall his timeā to solving such a critical issue for his clients, Finlay said there is a limit to how much the firm could do to protect clientsā interests. He attributed such a reality to the fact that crypto has āunfortunatelyā revealed how unsafe everything is in the modern computer system.
āWe kind of uncovered the nasty truth that our computer systems are basically not very safe, and the average person, if directly targeted, can be exploited. And weāre kind of starting to reverse engineer a secure computing stackā
Metamaskās Dilemma
Regarding the overwhelming number of Ponzi-like projects registering their own tokens through Metamask, Finlay admitted that his firm couldnāt impose a ban on such projects. All they can do is to ādeprive them of the precious oxygen of exposure.ā
The ongoing market correction is challenging for most crypto firms, as many have chosen to trim workforces to reduce operational expenses. We also witness a sharp decline in activity as Metamaskās overall performance is closely linked to the market condition, said Davis.
To incentivize users to use its services more often, the company could add the feature of āprediction marketsā to boost activity simply by ānudg[ing] user behavior a bit,ā but the co-founder soon found it as a dangerous power equivalent to entice people to gamble.
āIf we were to be bad actors, we could encourage people to gamble. Thatās not what we want to be.ā
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