What would you do if you found yourself the victim of massive crypto theft? That’s exactly the situation that faced Sentinel founder and CEO Patrick Kim, who was the victim of an Ether wallet theft. In 2016, he lost 7,218 Ether (approximately $2 million USD at recent price points) from a geth-mist wallet.

But the technology frontrunner was not alone. In fact, a substantial number of attacks and thefts have taken place in the Asian crypto market. including the now record-setting Coincheck hack in January of this year. While massive, this attack is just one of many that the Asian crypto market has seen in recent years.

Because of the substantial concerns that cryptocurrency threats have created, many enterprise users and large-scale investors have been unwilling to venture into the marketplace. This has substantially limited the potential for growth and price increases that such investors would be able to bring to the table.

However, the power of decentralization in blockchain technology may have just the solution the cryptocurrency market needs to recapture these types of investors.

Victims finding solutions

Kim, a Korean native, was no stranger to Ether or cryptocurrencies generally, and so, as a technology leader, he set out to create a crowd-sourced system that would create an elegant but robust solution to the problems facing cryptocurrency security, not only in Asia, but worldwide.

With substantial awareness of the crypto marketplace, Kim developed a team of blockchain industry leaders, white hat hackers, developers, and others who work to create threat protection for cryptocurrency users. Kim’s foresight created Sentinel Protocol, an cooperative intelligence platform. By working directly with security vendors and other security professionals (called “The Sentinels”), the company has created a viable way to provide security in the crypto-sphere.

The Sentinel Protocol has built a variety of protection systems including malformed transaction protection, hacker/scam filtering, real-time alert mechanisms, end-user protection, and anti-theft systems, in order to provide a comprehensive fraud detection platform.

The platform functions around a host of ‘Sentinels’ which validate reported hacks and potential thefts. As the Sentinels offer contributions regarding potential security threats, they earn Sentinel points. Members of the Sentinel community are also able to share security news and tips for other users in order to gain Sentinel points.

Sentinel has also developed the Uppward Chrome Extension which is exclusively created for secure participation in initial coin offerings (ICOs). Uppward users are able to search and validate wallet address, specific website URLs, and gain certainty regarding the social media accounts of desirable ICO platforms in order to certain that transfer contributions are sent to the correct digital addresses. The data derived from this research is then provided to Threat Reputation Database (TRDB), providing users with an organically grown white and black list of potential investment vehicles.

With the Sentinel Protocol and Uppward Chrome extension both contributing to the TRDB, the database is able to collect and house threat data, creating a system where data integrity is genuinely possible through the collective intelligence and crowdsourcing of the community. The data that is obtained from a number of sources (cryptocurrency exchanges, wallets, payment services, and IT and security companies) is then made available to the community in order to provide a working model for threat levels in the crypto sphere.

Creating safe crypto spaces

By crowdsourcing and then incentivizing international threat data and protection through professionals, the Sentinel Protocol is able to put the functionality of the crowd to work in the protection of cryptocurrency users.

Because the potential for theft and fraud within the crypto space has been so great, genuine protection from these risks will result in larger investors and enterprise users being increasingly willing to enter the cryptocurrency marketplace. This movement of larger scale investors into cryptocurrency will substantially increase adoption levels, providing a basis for increasing usability and price stabilization.

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