Can you tell us a bit of the history of Sprout? Why was it made?

Juliun — Sprout is something we have been talking about since summer of 2018. Not in the way it exists today, but the concept came from conversations we had then about how we were going to distribute rewards, specifically how people would redeem SEED. We wanted to make sure the process was done transparently and fairly. The process that was developed then was novel and has worked for over 2 years. But as Sesameseed has gone multichain it has faced challenges.

The core of what Sesameseed and SEED are is backed by its ability to redeem the pegged value of SEED. It’s the provability that the rewards that Sesameseed earns do truly go to the peg and are truly redeemable at any time. That ability to be transparent is central to Sesameseed and is first and foremost what Sprout is trying to solve. So I am happy to see it moving forward and become the fulfillment of that promise.

That ability to be transparent is central to Sesameseed and is first and foremost what Sprout is trying to solve.

Danny: Sprout is unique. There are many wallets that offer traditional blockchain features like sending and receiving tokens, dapps, etc. But Sprout does more and I cannot wait until more people start using it. So far we have had a great number of people testing it and it has been going great.

Humpty — I think anyone who is familiar with Sesameseed is also familiar with the many technologies it has built, starting with SEED. Sprout just seems to be a natural evolution of these technologies in keeping things simple, accessible and continuing to bridge blockchains through staking.

Let’s talk about the features packed into Sprout. Can you give us a walkthrough of what we can experience using the wallet?

Danny — The most important feature is staking. It’s something that we worked on heavily to make sure was user-friendly and accessible to everyone no matter their level of understanding blockchain. With just a few clicks they can start staking, and maximizing their rewards. Be it on TRON, Ontology or Harmony the experience should be the same. Harmony is particularly interesting as Sprout will be one of the first wallets to support staking and earning rewards.

Sprout also supports transacting 7 different tokens at this time: TRX, ONT, ONG, ONE and SEED from all three blockchains. In addition, Sprout supports features enabled by SEED: crosschain swapping and redeeming of the pegged value.

Juliun — We saw a lot of great things come out of TRON from the very beginning as that is where we started. One of those being how easy it was to create a wallet. Most people who use TRON today probably are familiar with Tronscan and likely made their first wallet there too. Tronscan is a project that was built by friends of Sesameseed and members of the community. We saw how easy it was to make a wallet with it and realized it was a core utility we wanted to bring to all of the new chains that we’re expanding to.

Just as it is simple to make a wallet on TRON with a private key, we also make sure to do that for Ontology and Harmony. I don’t think there is any method to do that today on any of those blockchains, so we are happy to bring that. As well as the mnemonic wallet, which will be the simplest way to manage wallets across all the blockchains where we operate today and where we will operate in the future. No downloads, no plugins required. Sprout offers the simplest way to make a wallet.

No downloads, no plugins required. Sprout offers the simplest way to make a wallet.

Some of the other utilities that Sprout has are core to Sesameseed. Swap will be a fantastic way to move across blockchains. But, redeem steals the show! That is what Sesameseed and SEED are. Like I have said before, it is a fulfillment of a promise. We no longer need a system that we rely on, instead it has become a utility that permeates across all of the blockchains where we operate allowing you to convert SEED into the entire basket of tokens that comprise it at any time live based on the peg. As the peg updates, the redeem updates too, ensuring people are able to extract the entirety of their reward at all times if they so choose. I am not aware of anyone doing anything like this on-chain today so it is pretty exciting to see.

As the peg updates, the redeem updates too, ensuring people are able to extract the entirety of their reward at all times if they so choose.

Humpty — My takeaways from what you both shared are that simplicity and transparency are important to you.

Why are simplicity and transparency important to Sesameseed?

Juliun — Simplicity is important because the blockchain is complicated. People have made it complicated either because they are very familiar with the technology and that is how they are accustomed to describing and interacting with it or as a deliberate method to not be transparent. I think any complexity you see in blockchain today is a disservice. It does not need to be complicated. Describing things simply and plainly is transparency. And for us those two things go hand in hand. Maintaining a high degree of simplicity in staking, redeeming, swapping, and wallet creation and making sure it is easy to understand fulfills that example of transparency, which is very important to us. If you see something that doesn’t make sense or brings into it a question that is an opportunity for us to be transparent.

Danny — I can speak to ease of use. Coming into blockchain there was a huge learning curve. It is very different from the traditional finance space. Learning about exchanges, hot wallets, cold wallets, there is a lot to navigate through. When we were researching how to make a better wallet with Sprout we focused on ease of use no matter what your level of expertise. If someone is creating a wallet for the first time and sending TRX to it, for example, it will be simple to do. They can then very quickly start staking and earning rewards too.

Humpty — I think any of us who have been participating in the blockchain space for a significant amount of time forget how difficult it really is for a beginner. That is likely because we are interacting with it regularly. For those of us who are active on several blockchains we can see that different blockchains brings with it different complexities too. For example, if you are active on blockchain X you may think it is simple enough, and that could be because you are familiar with it but also because you have nothing to compare it to. However, when you go to blockchain Y many times you have to learn everything from scratch. And that is something Sesameseed has focused on. How can we deliver parity or similarity across all blockchains so that you can easily start staking and earning rewards the same way everywhere?

The mnemonic wallet is really special in that it seeks to be the simplest way to participate in the blockchain experience. Not only does it simply create a wallet on every blockchain that Sesameseed is on today, but also into the future.

Juliun — The mnemonic is future proofing sprout. It generates wallets for many more blockchains than are now listed on Sprout. It is designed to unlock additional wallets as Sesameseed operates on new blockchains. A new key phrase is generated for the user, and Sesameseed does not have access or stores those keys. After the user records their seed phrase they can access all those wallets at the same time. By having that they can log into TRON, Ontology and Harmony at the same time. In the future we can easily add new blockchain wallets and users wont have to do anything. No need to generate a new mnemonic, etc.

Danny — Sprout is proud to enable the ownership of your keys. Creating individual wallets on each blockchain you get your private keys. With a mnemonic wallet you get a seed phrase, which gives you access to three different blockchains and every blockchain where Sesameseed goes to next. If Sesameseed operates on 10 blockchains, then Sprout enables access to 10 different wallets using the same seed phrase. I think using a single seed phrase to access multiple blockchain wallets is more secure instead of using 10 different private keys and securing each of them. Sprout will allow you to retrieve the private key from your mnemonic phrase. There will be a page that will allow you to enter your mnemonic key and extract your private key. Staying true to the ownership of your keys, you will be able to easily log in to your wallet with a single seed phrase, but can also do so with your individual private keys.

Speaking of private keys, Sesameseed has made a great effort to not store private keys. Can you talk about why this is important?

Danny — Sprout doesn’t store any user data. Not private keys, not mnemonic phrases. That is important to encourage safe blockchain practices and not have access to user funds. We are not creating a honeypot where user accounts can be compromised and extract their funds.

Sprout doesn’t store any user data. Not private keys, not mnemonic phrases.

Juliun — It is important to maintain that. The more people who have access to your keys is another potential weakness and vector of attack. Controlling your own keys allows you to maintain your own security.

Humpty — Owning your private keys is one of the founding principles of cryptocurrencies. Sprout reinforces that. It goes beyond using applications that enable access to private keys, but truly give you complete ownership of your keys without storing your data and compromising your funds.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this informative AMA.