Introducing Louise Ivan Payawal, the young Filipino in the team that created the first ever social wallet Ryder
By AJ Sison
‘The next wave of crypto users is changing, and we can see it. They use NFTs as an access pass, a status symbol in real life, and even integrate them into their healthy lifestyle. Still, there’s a major challenge: none of the wallets today are designed for these cases. This is where Ryder comes in. It is designed to merge the physical and digital world.’
By now, most of us are probably familiar with or have at least heard about cryptocurrency. The foreign distinction among blockchains, cryptocurrency, virtual currency, and bitcoin, however, may still confuse many. Let’s try to make sense of it all.
Blockchain is the underlying technology that makes cryptocurrencies possible, a ledger that maintains a secure and decentralized record of transactions. Virtual currency (VC), on the other hand, is a general term that covers different types of online money, a digital representation of value, depending on certain business models.
Cryptocurrencies, a subset of virtual currencies, employ cryptography, the practice of encoding information so that it can be decoded and processed only by its intended recipients to secure and verify transactions.
One of the most popular cryptocurrencies, bitcoin, was first introduced in 2009. Since then, a growing number of people have been exploring how to integrate cryptocurrencies into their routine social environments.
A revolutionary startup co-founded by Filipinos, Ryder, is among the frontrunners in new generation crypto wallets. It is slated to launch its so-calledsocial wallet. Think wallet but electronic. Instead of keeping credit cards and paper cash in it, it’s a wallet in which to keep your digital assets.
According to reports, Filipinos rank first among 20 countries in non-fungible tokens (NFT) ownership. The imminent reinvention of crypto adoption brings good news to Filipinos who have embraced cryptocurrency and NFTs.
Over a decade after crypto was conceived, the concept is still perceived as too technical and complex. For the average person, the user experience is time-consuming and cumbersome. These are some of the barriers that the team of Ryder aims to overcome. Its north star is simple: to bring crypto to the next billion users.
“The next wave of crypto users is changing, and we can see it. They use NFTs as an access pass, a status symbol in real life, and even integrate them into their healthy lifestyle. Still, there’s a major challenge: none of the wallets today are designed for these cases,” explains Louise Ivan Payawal, co-founder of Ryder. “This is where Ryder comes in. It is designed to merge the physical and digital world.”
The young Filipino entrepreneur obtained a double master’s degree in Green IT in the Netherlands. He is among the driving force behind the expansion of the Stacks Foundation, a nonprofit that works to liberate Bitcoin's full potential via governance, research, and education in the field of cryptography. As one of the founders of Ryder, Louise has traveled around the globe to share his experience and knowledge about the open-source technology.
The world’s first social wallet combines the simplicity of established software wallets with the safety offered by hardware wallets—the best of both worlds. This creates an opportunity for those who want to enter the world of crypto to begin their journey, prevent theft and loss, and simplify identity management.
Users can use on-chain assets in the physical space with a simple touch by incorporating their decentralized identities into the Ryder platform, including fully integrating to Web3 applications or events, allowing secure purchases, and more. In the event of a loss, users can safely distribute their master keys to a group of Ryders, such as friends or family members, to reclaim their assets.
Along with Louise’s fire-starting growth in his field is Ryder’s success, as it has raised $1 million from SBX, Capital, DeSpread, Trust Machines, and more. This milestone signifies a step closer for Ryder to fulfilling its mission of bringing simple, secure, and social web3 experiences to millions of users.
“If we look at the technological paradigm, we can see that it is always a combination of hardware and software. Web1, the information age, was catapulted by the PCs; Web2, the user-generated content, was forefronted by smartphones,” says Louise. “The question is, what is it for Web3? We’re betting on our thesis, that’s Ryder, the world’s first social wallet.”