Ethos relaunches as Ethos 2.0 to give the crypto industry an alternative to centralization and give power back to the people

Crypto was born in 2009 out of the defiance against the centralized financial system and the desire to create a better, and more equitable financial system built atop a blockchain infrastructure that’s inclusive, and accessible to all. But the trust in crypto was shaken after the recent collapse of companies like Voyager Digital, which filed for bankruptcy in July.

Even before the collapse of these crypto companies, other reckless centralized crypto exchanges have hijacked control and eliminated transparency, costing customers billions in lost assets. Now, one crypto startup wants to bring trust, control, and transparency back to the people by making self-custody easier and safer than ever.

Enter Ethos, a people-powered decentralized blockchain technology platform that started in 2018 with the creation of a self-custody on-chain Universal Wallet, that quickly garnered 100,000+ users. Then, in 2019, Ethos’s decentralized technology was acquired by a popular broker that pledged “trust” and “transparency.” But the technology was instead used to centralize assets, putting customers at risk. We believe there is a better way. Now, Ethos is relaunching to give the crypto industry an alternative to centralization and give power back to the people

Today, Ethos announced it is relaunching as “Ethos 2.0.” to deliver on the promise of Voyager Digital Assets, as well as the original value proposition of Ethos. The original vision of decentralization, transparency, and customer protection remains the primary focus, and the team aims to build Voyager “the right way.”

Ethos 2.0 relaunch comes on the heels of Voyager Digital Assets’ bankruptcy. Despite merging with Ethos to use its decentralized technology, Voyager eventually moved to its own separate centralized solution. The company recently announced its bankruptcy after a period of suboptimal business conduct and the effects of the latest market contagion caused by 3AC capital.

The Ethos 2.0 product primarily caters to novice and intermediate crypto users with an account on a centralized exchange that looks to take full control of their funds or prefers not to rely on these entities’ ability to protect customers.

With this evolution, Ethos also plans to help crypto investors who have lost money to the Voyager collapse. “If you have lost money with Voyager as a creditor or a VGX holder, you may be eligible for an ETHOS Recovery Airdrop. We are allocating up to one billion ETHOS to be distributed to those affected—no strings attached,” Ethos wrote on its website.

Ethos team also hopes to aid DeFi users overwhelmed with the complexity of some DeFi apps, as well as users looking for easy and quick access to trading and order-making. Many crypto users also remain unsatisfied with user experience across crypto apps and are encumbered by the difficulty of transitioning to self-custody solutions. By making self-custody an easy and frictionless experience, Ethos will tap into that audience and remove the hurdles.

The rebranded Ethos, or Ethos 2.0, will focus on providing a robust product that will help make self-custody easy and accessible by making it available to everyone. In addition, there is a frictionless trading experience as users do not sacrifice market access for security. All this is achieved through Ethos’ secure key backup solution ‘Magic Keys’, that lets users “unlose their keys”. The service features enterprise-grade key encryption, sxharding, and backup services. Moreover, it focuses on helping users explore self-custody without compromise. The experience will be fun and engaging and will reward ecosystem participants.

Under the hood, Ethos lets users create their keys, but only if they want to trade. Should the user lose their key, they can upload the encrypted version, answer their security questions, and complete two-factor authentication. Ethos will release the third shard to restore the keys. Ethos cannot reconstruct this crucial data without user permission and has no access to user keys or funds. Instead, Ethos never has access to customers’ keys, and the customer remains in control at all times.

The splitting of keys is possible through enterprise-grade key sharding. It is a big step toward letting users secure their holdings through a sleek and convenient security solution.

Other crucial features provided through the Ethos platform include Ethos Vault, a feature to keep coins safe as a self-custody crypto vault. The new Ethos platform also features additional security measures including 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) and social guardian technology.

That’s not all. Ethos users will also have access to Live Trading, a 100% self-directed trading on the blockchain with zero counterparty risk. The platform also includes Best Price Execution. Ethos crawls dozens of decentralized exchanges to provide the best trading ratio executions. As such, trades can be split across multiple providers for optimal price execution.

Another feature that users would enjoy is Ethos Rewards, meaning users can earn Ethos tokens for every trade and unlock bonus tokens for leading about DeFi. Holding more tokens reduces ecosystem fees. Finally, Ethos also provides Yield Seeker which enables investors to discover staking opportunities and generate personal smart contracts. Staking returns are deposited automatically in your Vault.

Additionally, Ethos will offer “recovery tokens” to victims of the Voyager bankruptcy, in a bid to help users who’ve been impacted by centralized entities in a decentralized world. One billion ETHOS tokens are set aside for these efforts. More information on their distribution will become available soon.

Below is a video of the Ethos relaunch.