DLT Science Foundation, Hashpack, Oasis Protocol Foundation, and Palisade also join ecosystem-wide initiative to bolster security and trust in the web3 industry
05 September 2024 — Research and engineering company & Cardano developer Input | Output, and Hedera, the open source, leaderless proof-of-stake network, have joined Algorand Foundation, Hashgraph (formerly Swirlds Labs), Ripple, and XRPL Labs, as the final Founding Members of the Decentralized Recovery (DeRec) Alliance, with two-year seats on the Technical Oversight Committee (TOC). DLT Science Foundation, Hashpack, Oasis Protocol Foundation, and Palisade have also joined as Alliance members, to advance the DeRec Alliance’s mission of creating an interoperability recovery standard to facilitate the widespread adoption of crypto and other assets.
Charles Hoskinson, Cardano founder and Input | Output CEO, said: “We’re delighted to be joining the DeRec Alliance to help contribute to this important new cross-platform protocol. Input Output has always been committed to open-source principles, cross-industry collaboration and blockchain interoperability. As an industry seeking to drive wider adoption, we should all be committed to the relentless pursuit of security, accessibility, and improving the user experience. We’re excited to be joining with other industry leaders to collaborate on this initiative to develop and drive common standards for our space and new utility for web3 users.”
Web3 users currently navigate complex processes to safeguard their digital assets, accounts, keys, and passwords, requiring a high level of technical expertise. Launched in January 2024 by Hedera Co-Founder Dr. Leemon Baird, along with leaders from the Hedera and Algorand ecosystems, the DeRec Alliance introduces a new open-source, industry-standard protocol for simplifying and securing digital asset recovery. DeRec provides solutions for protecting various types of data, including keys for any blockchain or ledger, passwords, photos, notes, identity credentials, and cryptographic keys. By addressing the intricate technical challenges hindering Web3 adoption, the DeRec Alliance aims to unite leading organizations in creating user-friendly, accessible experiences for everyone.
“We are happy to welcome Input Output as a founding member. Their deep expertise and insight will be a great asset to the DeRec Alliance,” said Dr. Baird. “It is exciting that the industry is working together this way, across many different ecosystems, to bring to the world the decentralized recovery that it so desperately needs.”
“Web3 and crypto promised to decentralize and make accessible the systems that matter most. That power comes with a significant responsibility to safeguard your private keys. Web3 has fallen short in delivering a great UX for securing and recovering key material,” said John Woods, CTO of the Algorand Foundation. “We co-founded the DeRec Alliance as part of our mission to improve the UX for the entire ecosystem, from regular users to developers, delivering a better, more accessible, and more secure experience for all. Streamlined key recovery is vital, as is further decentralization of other important infrastructures.”
Founding Members – leading oversight and governance
Founding Members take on a leadership role in oversight and governance. Input | Output and Hedera will hold two-year terms on the Technical Oversight Committee (TOC), offering critical input on the Alliance’s governance structure and core policies. Their leadership ensures that the Alliance maintains its strategic focus and effectively addresses the needs of its growing community.
Charles Adkins, President of Hedera, commented: “From the very beginning, Hedera has been at the forefront of digital asset security. The DeRec Alliance takes this one step further by introducing an open-source protocol that simplifies asset recovery, aligning closely with our mission to enable a new era of trust and transparency. We are proud to join this alliance and make asset protection more accessible and user-friendly.”
Alliance Members – providing policy and overseeing input; building DeRec based solutions
Alliance Members play a crucial role in shaping the DeRec Alliance’s direction by providing policy input and overseeing the development of DeRec-based solutions. They nominate candidates for and vote in Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) elections. Members also engage in quarterly meetings and contribute to policy discussions for TOC voting. Additionally, they represent a diverse range of organizations that adopt DeRec Alliance standards and best practices, facilitating decentralized recovery and ensuring its accessibility to a broad user base. Alliance members joining the DeRec Alliance include:
Dr. Paolo Tasca, Founder and Chairman, DLT Science Foundation, said: “Managing digital asset secrets can be cumbersome and risky for users. DeRec revolutionizes this by utilizing a secret-sharing protocol with trusted helpers, ensuring secure and reliable recovery. We at DLT Science Foundation are proud to have co-developed this protocol, which eliminates single points of failure, providing both security and peace of mind.”
May Chan, CEO at HashPack, said: “As the leading non-custodial wallet on Hedera, HashPack is honored to be part of this innovation in key management technology. DeRec has the potential to solve many of the issues users face around managing and recovering their accounts, and we’re excited to one day be able to bring these features to our users.”
Jernej Kos, Director of Oasis Protocol Foundation, said: “Since its inception, the Oasis Protocol Foundation has aimed to enhance the sophistication and user experience of web 3 DApps. For the industry to achieve true adoption, DApps must match web 2 counterparts in flexibility, confidentiality, performance, and user experience. A major challenge has been private key management and recovery, which remains relatively unexplored. Our unified mission is to remove this long-standing friction point and make web 3 more accessible to everyone.”
Tom Kiddle, Co-founder at Palisade, said: “Joining the DeRec Alliance as the first regulated custodian is a critical step for us at Palisade, signaling to the industry that we are passionate about safeguarding assets and private keys—not just for our clients, but across the entire ecosystem. We firmly believe that the future of Web3 hinges on providing users with reliable and secure mechanisms for key recovery. By contributing our expertise in private key management and wallet infrastructure alongside other members of the DeRec Alliance, we are helping to prepare Web3 for mass adoption.”
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The Protocol
The Decentralized Recovery (DeRec) open-source protocol is a standard approach to secret management, based on secret sharing among a set of helpers (e.g. friends or businesses), who can assist the user in recovering their secret when needed. Each helper’s share reveals no information about the original secret, and half the helpers can give the user their shares to reconstruct the secret, even when a user has lost their phone or other two-factor recovery device. The protocol includes automatic regular confirmations that helpers still have shares of secrets, and automatic re-sharing when secrets change or helpers join or leave. The user never reveals who the helpers are, nor even how many helpers there are, and even the helpers won’t know that.
Organizations interested in joining the DeRec Alliance, or in adopting technology that leverages the DeRec Alliance protocol can visit https://derecalliance.org/.
About The DeRec Alliance
The DeRec Alliance is a group of forward-thinking companies from across the Web2 and Web3 ecosystems that are committed to making the process of securing and recovering digital assets, accounts, and other secrets as simple as existing Web2 experiences. Leveraging a new open source standard, these organizations are working together to help their users and the broader world realize the promise of Web3, without the complexity. For more information, visit https://derecalliance.org/.
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