“After the investment, BitKeep will continue to operate as an independent organization,” - Moka Hahn, CEO of BitKeep

In March, cryptocurrency exchange Bitget became the main investor in the custodial wallet BitKeep. This transaction was included in the list of the most important investments, along with raising funds in the eToro wallet and others. We spoke with BitKeep CEO Moka Khan and asked about her vision for the development of the company as part of Bitget.

1. Has BitKeep invested in the top of the largest deals since the beginning of March? Why did Bitget decide to become the main investor of the wallet? Who was listed as an investor before?

We believe that this is a mutually beneficial financial decision for both BitKeep and Bitget. From BitKeep's side, we see this investment as beneficial in further enhancing our security infrastructure. This strategic investment will allow us to leverage upon Bitget's established technologies and infrastructure to bolster our existing integrated web3 trading features to the next level to once again better cater our services towards the needs of our users, and expand our footprint in Asia to include more major global markets. BitKeep has established itself as a reputable wallet service globally and is the top crypto wallet in Asia, and we wanted to source for additional layers to provide our users with a more meaningful and intentional suite of product services.

BitKeep grew together with the DeFi boom in 2021, significantly increasing our user base, range of provided services, and profitability. This consequently placed us on the radar for a lot of potential investors, and in May that same year, we completed a $15M fundraising at a valuation of $100M which was led by Dragonfly Capital.

For Bitget, this investment allows the company to further enrich its product offerings, which is in line with Bitget's Go Beyond Derivatives strategy. As a top 5 derivatives trading platform, Bitget has proven their leading role in the sector, and will be transforming into a one-stop crypto investment service provider in 2023.

To this end, Bitget is actively expanding the variety of digital assets in its spot market, re-launched Bitget Launchpad, and is also adding more options on Bitget Earn. Additionally, this investment in Bitkeep will also enable Bitget to expand their reach from CeFi to DeFi.

2. What features make BitKeep different from other wallets?

When we first started as a wallet, we were working on the basic functionalities of what most Web3 users have come to expect from a wallet, which were mainly in the realms of asset management and security. As we moved forward into an increasingly inter-connected Web3 space of multi-chain interoperability, we realized that positioning ourselves merely as a wallet was not enough to keep our users at the forefront of innovation.

We also realized that as a wallet, we had a responsibility to serve as the primary gateway for users coming into the Web3 space and also for existing users to have all the features they needed at their fingertips. We therefore began to focus our attention on challenging stereotypes and expectations on what it means to be a crypto wallet in today's day and age. To do this, we began to incorporate more and more services and functions into BitKeep Wallet, such as working with multiple different chains to offer robust swap and trading services for our users, building up a booming NFT marketplace, offering a purpose-built DApp browser within our wallet, and integrating additional features such as OTC trading and launchpad, to essentially provide everything that our users will possibly need to navigate the Web3 space.

What this means, ultimately, is that we wanted to not just serve as a secure repository for users to manage their digital assets. We wanted to provide innovative, seamless, and functional ways for users to utilize their funds beyond just storing them.

3. After the acquisition of BitKeep, will it cease to be a custodian and be integrated into the Bitget platform?

Following the investment, BitKeep will continue to function as an independent entity both operationally and structurally, and will utilize these resources to continue expanding and improving its product offerings.

4. How many wallet users today? How many blockchains does it support? How many coins can you store?

We currently have 9.5 million users, and we provide support for 90 mainnets, 255,400 different tokens, and 220,000 NFTs. Our platform also supports 78 mainstream DEXes and OTC functionality in 47 countries.

5. What new features are planned to be launched in the future?

With Bitget's strategic investment, we are committed to expanding our product offerings in the DeFi and Web3 space, with a focus on improving user experience, strengthening decentralized trading functions, and expanding its ecosystem to support more blockchains.

One of the key ways to achieve this is by building a positive user experience that can accommodate one billion users, which is indeed a large and heavy undertaking. As such, we are planning to integrate MPC (multi-party computation) into our wallet to allow a large number of users to manage their assets in an easier and more secure manner. We are also looking at offering full support for the ZK-Rollup ecosystem, which is expected to significantly improve the speed and scalability of our DeFi applications.

Another key feature is improving our decentralized swap functions to allow users to easily discover the best assets available, as well as provide them with greater autonomy and agency over their transactions.

Our NFT Marketplace is also expanding to include access from more wallets as well, which will help to enrich our NFT trading scene with a greater number of users. Additionally, our NFT Marketplace will also be supporting more blockchains, such as Solana, Aptos, and Sui, which will give users access to interact with NFTs from those popular networks and transact on them with a greater diversity of tokens.

BitKeep is also exploring Web3 DID (decentralized identity) and SBTs (soulbound tokens) to provide our users with ways to build their Web3 identity, which can lead to more secure and privacy-focused applications in the future.

6. Last year, hackers hacked into a wallet and withdrew about $8 million of users? How have systems for protecting user data and funds improved?

Moving forward, and in particular in relation to our strategic partnership with Bitget, we are pursuing the following actions:

○ BitKeep is revamping our security team, and is also leveraging upon and including the addition of several security experts from Bitget to upgrade our overall safeguards and security.

○ BitKeep will also partner with leading security firms such as Certik to conduct robust and thorough smart contract audits for all our services, such as wallet function, swap services, and NFT marketplace. We are also looking to further expand our internal smart contract auditing team to ensure that all new incoming updates undergo stringent auditing and review before they go live.

○ Bitget's investment in BitKeep will also provide us with access to Bitget's 300M User Protection Fund, further providing an additional layer for users to protect them against any further potential security threats or risks.