A New Era
The Internet was created mainly in a centralized architecture that we call Web2, whose content is visualized in Web Pages and Social Networks/Apps, but who data is stored in Databases. These components make part of the evolution of the internet as Chris Dixon calls it, “Read era, Write era and the Own era”. Since the inception of Bitcoin in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto, the world is going through in inflection point which we call the Ownership Era, led by blockchain technologies who have provided users with ownership and economic benefits, with an aim of decentralizing trust and eliminating counterparty risks with intermediates.

Problem
Most companies in the world guard the content, assets (fiat/crypto) and private/sensitive data of end users through centralized systems known as Databases. These legacy systems have inherent risk that only grows as networks grow. The readers might ask, how much risk? The answer is a lot more than you might think, as is well explained by George Gilder on his master work, Life After Capitalism:

Metcalfe’s law, conceived by Ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe, dictates that the value of networks increases by the square of the number of nodes. But there is also Metcalfe’s law of cryptography. It inverts the law of the network, turning it upside down. Metcalfe’s cryptographic law states that network vulnerability increases with the size of the attack surface, which is also the square of the number of nodes. The hacking capability is present in all interfaces between them.

“Each additional user of a centralized system, such as Visa or Mastercard, Google or Facebook, reduces security. New users bring new potential attack vectors. Every new user is a potential hacker or victim of a hack.

As cryptography expert David Kruger points out, the effectiveness of the existing “layered point defense” (a patchwork of software) grows only additively. Stops one attack vector at a time. Meanwhile, attack vectors expand across Metcalfe Square. Defending them with patches is a useless or fraudulent task. The result is the scandal of network security and money: the more we spend on Internet security and the more we expand the network, the more vulnerable it becomes.

The centralization of all those billions of identities is the reason the network is neither secure nor trustworthy. All data is on relatively few target-rich sites, potential hackers number in the billions, anonymous and ethereal. This is not a problem that can be solved with one more privacy patch or even doubling the cybersecurity industry’s projected $256 billion in annual global revenue by 2027, up from $172.5 billion in 2022.”

To add insult to injury, since 2009 $109B worth of crypto has been forever lost[1] due to loss to wallet access and before the year 2024 is done, there will be $1.2B lost[2] to hacks and scams. At current rates, that is approximately $570M dollars worth of crypto lost per month, clearly a value that only will increase as the market cap of crypto assets follow their exponential trajectory to replace the current monetary system.

The reader might have the impression that this has already been solved with current self-custody applications, who boast millions of downloads in the apps stores, however, the hacks continue to increase to the point that the developers of these apps have openly cautioned against using these apps installed in our daily device and also from generating backups with the most trusted cloud computing companies of the world. This is all due to the fact this legacy architectures rely in storing the seed recovery phrases (or mnemonic phrases) in the device’s hardware, essentially making all legacy hot wallet inherently insecure and obsolete.

Solution
The initial product of Zelf is a novel wallet architecture intended to lower the barrier of entry for crypto assets. However, many may not know that among our goals, we intend for ZK-Face Proof® technology to be adopted through all web architectures due to its unique feature of being web agnostic. As mentioned above, we believe that legacy architectures are suffering a systematic security problem which George Gilder calls, the Scandal of Net Security.

The solution lies in fully embracing Satoshi’s vision of a more secure and decentralized system — and this is where Zelf steps in. Unlike traditional approaches, Zelf does not store seed recovery phrases within a device’s hardware, enabling seamless access to the Zelf Name Service on everyday devices. Furthermore, we democratize the use of zero-knowledge proofs (ZK-Proofs) by empowering individuals to encrypt and decrypt data using elliptic curve cryptography — the same cryptographic standard used by Bitcoin. Leveraging advanced Face Recognition and Liveness Detection technology, Zelf has created a new standard named ZK-Face Proof®, which ensures that only the rightful user can access their funds, delivering both security and convenience.

All companies speak in terms of mass adoption, at Zelf we take pride in being the first company that can speak in terms of universal adoption. We make this claim because the technology we offer will enable 8 billion people conveniently secure their crypto assets, return power to the individual and communities without sacrificing the privacy and security of end users.

To conclude, the master plan is to:

1. Build a domain wallet powered by ZK-Face Proof®
2. Use that money to become the standard on self-custody wallet architecture
3. Bring self-sovereignty to 1 Billion users
4. Preserve the privacy and security of all users, while doing the above.

Ultimately, Zelf is a financial extension of the sovereign individual.


Author: Johan Castellanos