Crypto A.M. shines its Spotlight on NGRAVE

NGRAVE is a blockchain security provider offering a secure and user friendly end-to-end solution for the self-sovereign management of individuals and businesses digital assets and cryptocurrencies.

The blockchain space is about to see some solid innovation with the advent of NGRAVE, a blockchain technology company on a mission to make owning and managing digital assets radically more seamless and secure. To that end, the startup has aligned world leading players behind its cause and has developed a unique and jaw dropping product suite.

NGRAVE’s flagship product – the NGRAVE ZERO – is a completely offline touch screen device that can create a cryptocurrency wallet out of thin air. Even for receiving and signing transactions, the device remains fully “airgapped”, meaning no USB or network connection (e.g. Wifi, 4G, NFC, Bluetooth) is required. Moreover, the secure firmware of the apparatus has earned the highest security certification in the world: EAL7. The ZERO looks “Apple”-esque and, following the same philosophy, has hidden all complexity – including the most advanced contemporary cryptographic protocols – behind a high-end 4 inch touch screen.

NGRAVE’s story starts with CTO Xavier Hendrickx entering the crypto space in 2013. A year later, he is among many victims of the third largest hack in crypto history, when 850,000 bitcoins are misappropriated from the leading crypto exchange Mt. Gox. Valued at a whopping $450 million at the time, the amount of stolen bitcoin is worth an astounding $3 billion today.

As if that wasn’t enough, one of Hendrickx’s later blockchain endeavours became one of the most impacted projects from another high profile hack. The project he worked for, Swarm City, lost 44,000 Ether (approximately $10 million) in the Parity hack in 2017. However, this time around, different teams put their heads together, figured out the vulnerabilities that led to the hack, and the ethical hacking team saved 500 projects and over $200 million from suffering the same fate. In the aftermath, Hendrickx became CTO of SwarmCity. Yet, he had found a new and growing passion for security.

Fast forward to April 2018. The three co-founders brainstorm for the very first time on resolving the remaining challenges of managing digital currency portfolios. Two months later, they are pitching their vision to the world leading R&D institute for nanoelectronics, Imec. Over the summer, they also join forces with COSIC, a leading research group on applied industrial cryptography and hardware security, known for a.o. successfully hacking the Tesla cars, more than once. 

Meanwhile, NGRAVE has attracted some other known names in the industry. One of them none other than Jean-Jacques Quisquater, second reference of Satoshi’s 2008 bitcoin paper, and acclaimed cryptography professional with over 50 years of experience, 200 published articles, and 20 patents.

Ruben Merre, co-founder and CEO of NGRAVE, did a great job in multitasking throughout his career. He worked as a strategy and management consultant, conducting projects in several countries leveraging a fluency in six different languages. Meanwhile Merre kept studying in parallel with his job, obtaining several postgraduate degrees in business topics. He also successfully finished Oxford’s Blockchain Strategy Programme. Furthermore, Merre did his part of entrepreneuring by a.o. launching and scaling the first automated online investment platform in his country, and leading the development of a multi-million dollar new group wide fintech business unit for an international financial institution.

Edouard Vanham, co-founder and COO of NGRAVE, comes from a background of both IT and business consulting. Back in 2015, Vanham was already fostering blockchain adoption by setting up a blockchain taskforce in one of the international consultancies he worked for. It was also he who got Merre enthusiastic about blockchain technology. Merre also credits Vanham for bringing the founding team together.

The NGRAVE team emphasizes that the ZERO is one of three parts in their end-to-end solution. The second part serves as the backup of a user’s private access key. To that end, today’s incumbent solutions provide a piece of paper – also commonly referred to as a “paper wallet”. NGRAVE believes this solution is far from perfect to do the job. Spill some water on your backup and it’s gone. Therefore, the company introduces a new kind of backup called the NGRAVE GRAPHENE, a cryptographic puzzle that consists of two stainless steel plates. The rationale is that the steel plates are extremely resilient and durable, and that an “attacker” would need to find both parts to reconstruct the key. Finally, NGRAVE also offers a mobile app, referred to as the LIQUID, for consulting your crypto positions in real time.

NGRAVE is now in the industrialisation phase and is set to launch an Indiegogo campaign in the coming weeks. Click to subscribe as an early VIP or to learn more about the product and the company.

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