Essentia is one of those projects that benefits the entire crypto ecosystem if it were to succeed in its mission. In fact, not just crypto specifically, but the entire ‘decentralized web’. Today more than ever, the importance of a decentralized web cannot be overstated. We should do everything in our power to make the move away from centralized behemoths – the Facebooks of the world, towards a decentralized web where users are in control – the Blockstacks of the world.

Problem of ‘Too Much’

So where does Essentia fit into this picture? On the user and adoption side. To start off, just think of just the crypto-asset space, i.e. your favorite tokens. If you were to hold the keys, which is how you should do crypto, how many wallets do you need to download? What if a new crypto interests you? Is each of them secure enough to download on your own computer? What a user experience nightmare! No wonder people just don’t bother and leave their coins on an exchange, which has been a terrible idea throughout the short history of this industry.

To be sure, this is a big problem. People who are new to crypto for example cannot be expected to download a hundred wallets and store them safely on their computers with appropriate backups. It is just not feasible for mass adoption.

The Essentia Solution

Now, what something like Essentia does is still let the user be in charge of all the crypto, data, apps, etc. but through a single master seed. Everything else flows deterministically from this seed. The user has the seed and keeps that one single seed secure and backed up. This would automatically keep everything else the user does secure and backed up as well. No need to trust a third-party to manage keys or data anymore.

Already, Essentia has integrated several of the most prominent crypto-assets and crypto-applications into its platform, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, IPFS, Status, Gnosis, etc. This means that a user who wants to transact in Bitcoin, pay for a DApp in Ether, store some data in IPFS and participate in some prediction markets can do all of that via a single entry point through Essentia.

This is a powerful way to interact with this new and emerging decentralized web, because the user doesn’t need to follow every single isolated app in isolation. Instead, for the user, they can just log into their Essentia, with their ID, and everything else just flows naturally from there. It brings down the user experience gap between centralized and decentralized applications.

If you’re interested to learn more, check out the Essentia website and their whitepaper.

Photo Credit: Georgie Pauwels