Meet Okto, CoInDCX's latest disruptive move to bring DeFi to the masses

Decentralised finance, a fledgling concept only a few years ago, is booming. As compared to just $10 billion in early 2020, over $100 billion are bundled up in tokens inside financial smart contracts that have applications in decentralised finance or are deposited to earn yields. The figure is expected to be worth $231.1 billion by 2030.

But for all its vaunted potential, DeFi has not entered the mainstream yet. And Web3–an idea for a new iteration of the world wide web which incorporates decentralisation–has not been adopted by the masses. Its promise for being the “future of the internet” may well be true but it needs to see more traction. CoinDCX, one of India’s leading and most valued crypto companies wants to contribute to that change.

This will entail a series of innovative offerings that will provide access to users across myriad Web3.0 applications across Non-fungible tokens and decentralised finance. It will also include cross-chain bridges that connect independent blockchains and enable the transfer of assets and information between them.

Meet Okto

The app named, “Okto” is a first-of-a-kind mobile app that will empower millions of consumers to access Web3 with ease. It would also offer better control to individuals over their assets. Its innovative keyless self-custodial wallet is backed by multiple layers of security that allows native access to over 100 decentralised apps.

Often in any disruptive applications such as DeFi or novel concepts such as decentralisation-led Web3, it takes time for the technology to evolve before it starts seeing adoption at scale. Now is the time to scale up. For instance, as technology matures, enthusiasts are building use cases to create value with the vision of making the internet a level-playing field for everyone.

The idea is to enable a democratic financial system. Decentralised finance is built on blockchain technology which is public in nature. All of the software is open source making the entire end-to-end process fair and transparent. More crucially, centralised finance and DeFi will eventually complement each other. CeFi brings in the customer experience and DeFi ensures transparency, efficiency and openness.

Okto, inspired by the Octopus, an inherently intelligent animal, is a small but important step in that direction. Over the next few years, centralised platforms will eventually have a DeFi arm.

Today, there are roughly 300 million crypto investors globally. But active customers in Defi are just around 15 million which could scale up to 100 million in the next three to five years. Domains such as finance and entertainment will be powered with decentralised protocols. Once the “User Experience” issue is fixed, mass adoption will no longer be a pipe dream.

Okto itself will pioneer this vision by offering access to consumers to over 20 chains and 100 protocols. Indian investors would be able to access the Okto app with the CoinDCX Pro app to securely navigate various new applications in DeFi. Globally, a standalone Okto app will be launched.

Given the fact that smartphones have become ubiquitous in India, the Okto app will offer its consumers access to thousands of tokens from various Decentralised Exchanges (DEXs) across blockchains through the mobile phone and enable users to discover high-yield generating opportunities.

What was once a preserve of the techies will now be enjoyed by the time-starved investor and enthusiast without any technical background. Okto vies to take bold steps in a direction where knowledge of technology or a lack of it won’t come in the way to serve the customer who has other priorities.

The confidence to do so comes after having catered to 13 million investors on a user-friendly interface. Application of the latest technologies and design thinking principles are at the heart of innovation at CoinDCX.

For instance, to make decentralised investment opportunities further accessible and user-friendly, CoinDCX has integrated Multi-party computation (MPC) technology. MPC is a cryptographic protocol that distributes computation across multiple parties where no individual party can see the other parties’ data. This further illustrates how security and user experience can go hand in hand and need not be a trade-off.

The utility and economic value offered by DeFi protocols are immense, however, it has remained incredibly underpenetrated. Okto is our first step in a much larger expansion on the horizon. We will continue to build efficient, convenient, and secure platforms that put the customer experience at the centre.

Fundamentally, this ties back to CoinDCX’s mission to build services allowing value distribution, increasing transparency and putting back control with the users. This space is ever evolving and our eventual goal is to capture the full Web3 spectrum.

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