How 'Status' Combines Blockchain With Crypto Wallet And Web3 In A Single App

Status app

With more people communicate digitally, there is no saying how many of the data is sensitive and can be leaked to third-parties.

Privacy has been in the headlines for years. For good reasons, there are just too many data breaches happening throughout the globe, and an increasing number of people wish that there are more tech companies they could trust with their data. Among them, there are many who want to have better control of their data.

Due to the fact that user data is stored encrypted in a server somewhere on Earth, this means that data is actually "centralized", simply because the server is under someone's control.

But what if that "server" is made "decentralized"?

This is what the Status app is aiming.

Status has been around for years. This time, it wants to provide a gateway to support decentralized apps (dApps) ecosystem.

Here, the company that has its employees work in swarms, wants to decentralize user data in a privacy-first iOS and Android app, that combines blockchain with instant messaging, cryptocurrency wallet and a Web3 browser.

According to Corey Petty, senior security engineer at Status:

"There's definitely a renewed interest in the concept of privacy and security."

"What's changed is a larger awareness of selective disclosure—having the ability to choose where I'd like to release some of the requirements or restrictions that I have on my privacy and security."

Because Status focuses on privacy, setting up an account of the app is not as simple as some other social apps.

Upon launching the app for the first time, users need to choose a suggested three-word combination for identification (like for example: "Pushy, Outlandish, Squamata", or other uncommon word combinations). If users want a more recognizable name, they have to first set up an ENS address, which means that they need to load their wallet.

After that, they need to provide a password.

Once the initial setup is done, users are free to enter the app’s public chat channels or invite others for a chat.

To make this happen, Status uses a peer-to-peer protocol, rather than a standard client-server model. What this means, it doesn't involve a server for communication. And add that with end-to-end encryption, Status wants to put a greater privacy to its users, by making whatever topic its users are discussing, resistant to censorship.

At the same time, using blockchain means that users have a greater control over how their data is used.

Status is initially built on the Whisper protocol. And on Status version 1.2, it introduces 'Waku', a fork of Whisper.

“We’ve forked the original Whisper protocol to make it more scalable and amenable for resource-restricted devices,” said Petty. That means Status can scale its user base without compromising on privacy and security: “People can use a private and secure messenger on their mobile phone without destroying their battery.”

On top of its messaging feature, Status supports ERC-20 wallet and dApps that can be accessed through its in-app browser.

This way, users can send and receive ETH and other ERC-20 tokens, or use them to power dApps running within the Status browser. Status’ own SNT token is used for in-app purchases like sticker packs, or to upvote and downvote dapps in the rankings.

And as for the web browser 3.0, Petty said that “we wanted to build an application that provided a window to the Web3 vision, which was decentralized value transfer, decentralized messaging and decentralized storage, as promised by the Ethereum platform. Over the past few years, they've definitely delivered on the blockchain part, but there hasn't been a lot of resources on the initial implementation of decentralized messaging and storage.”

“We've played around with a lot of ideas,” says Petty. “Like having chat rooms that are dedicated to a specific amount of proof, so you can't enter the chat room until you prove that you have some specific NFT, or number of tokens in your wallet.” Other possibilities include staking to make contact: “You can't contact this person unless you pay them, so people can monetize their influence. Even just seemingly subtle and simple things like replying to someone's message in a public chat with cryptocurrency itself as a tip, instead of an emoji.”

In the meantime, this kind of browser is its early stages and yet to see a wider audience.

“I think everyone that's building on Web3 today is those early enthusiasts trying to get over that barrier and—to use a common phrase—flatten the curve,” says Petty.

“Maybe the user experience still has a large enough barrier that we haven't yet figured out,” he adds. “With the way things are going Web3 should be booming in terms of people jumping in because of their lack of happiness in traditional ecosystems. We'll keep trying to make it better; we'll keep trying to onramp more people. Now that we're ready to bring more people to the application, maybe we'll start seeing that over the next year.”

Status app on iOS
The Status app for iOS. (Credit: Status/Apple)

While Status promises a lot, it has two big disadvantages.

First, its selection of decentralized finance (DeFi) apps are limited.

"The majority of the audience who we're trying to reach with crypto-related stuff is DeFi people,” said Petty. “The people who are trying to interact with these things, but don't have a good interface on their phone.”

“It should be very easy to get from one crypto to the next without relying on third parties,” added Petty. “Using decentralized exchanges within the Status browser is a very easy way to go from one to the other, based on what you need, without having to go through any intermediary. So I can look at my wallet, I have ether in it. With a few clicks, I could be on a decentralized exchange and have whatever thing I need to interact with whatever dapp that I want.”

Second, the Waku fork of Whisper eliminated some unnecessary information broadcast across the network. While this can make the app use less resources, it also means that there is junk data being transferred across the network

"It should be stressed that every message is still encrypted multiple times depending on its recipients, and a relaying node does not have personal information about the contents of the message," Petty told Decrypt in response. "The information a node can gather about its peers is still severely limited to network level metadata."

Third, if users sign up for an ENS name, their identity can be exposed, even when a pseudonymous name is used.

What this means, it's possible for third-parties to track the flow of money between accounts, and even people's movements, using their activity on the blockchain.

"This is a selective disclosure process; someone is choosing to attach something that's public and searchable to both their chat key and the wallet address that purchases that chat key," Petty said, suggesting that the degree of exposure caused by one's activities on the blockchain is something the community needs to know.

Status is working to eliminate its drawbacks.

Published: 
17/04/2020