Something that often gets ignored in the crypto space is user-friendliness.

Tech announcements? New dApps? Extra features? These are the things that usually get people excited - yet could they be distracting us from our ultimate shared goal of mainstream adoption? Because, if adoption is really what will supercharge the crypto industry, we need to take user experience seriously. After all, few would question how valuable user experience is to any successful, customer-facing technology company. It is the very journey a customer takes when interacting with a product.

At Energi, we’re on a mission to make crypto as accessible as possible for everyone. While we know there’s a long way to go, we’re working every day to get there. And it’s why user experience was so relevant when it came to creating Gen 3.

In this blog, we’ll go behind-the-scenes to see what we’ve been up to.

Rewiring the Way Masternodes Work

Our masternodes are the pillars of Energi; they support the entire network. Their importance cannot be overstated, yet we know setting them up and managing them can seem intimidating. That’s why, with Gen 3, we’ve moved as many of the administrative processes as we could online. By doing so, we wanted to make the process as seamless and intuitive as possible.

There are some new changes from Gen 2. Firstly, you can manage masternodes via our new web portal, Nexus. Whereas before, you needed to use a debug console and manage configuration files manually to setup your masternodes, this central hub makes it a one-time activity.

Secondly, with Gen 3, you can set up any amount of NRG from 1,000 NRG to 100,000 NRG — as long as it’s in increments of 1,000 — all on one server. This means there’s now a lower entry point to own a masternode, as well as more flexibility since it is much easier to use larger masternode collateral with a single instance now.

Added to that, Gen 3 features an automated process that automatically increases your masternode collateral as soon as you accumulate enough funds. Now, you don’t need to do anything since it’s all automatically done for you.

All of these innovations have one aim in mind: to make setting up and managing nodes as easy and streamlined as possible. If you’d like to read more about masternodes for Gen 3, check out our recent blog post.

Rethinking the Crypto Wallet

When it comes to using, storing, and transferring your crypto, a good wallet is essential. So why are so many wallets unintuitive and hard to use?

While we know this is a challenge for the whole cryptocurrency industry, we’re doing our best to build a new and improved Energi wallet for Gen 3. It’s web-based — much like MyCrypto or MyEtherWallet — and can be used on your mobile or through the desktop app.

Previously, our Gen 2 wallet required you to download the whole Energi blockchain. With the new web-based and desktop MyEnergiWallet, you simply have to open it, and you’re good to go. No more synchronizing and no more waiting. And now, with the web-based wallet being designed for mobile viewing, you’ll be able to use it on the go too.

Where Next?

As you can probably tell by now, this discussion about user-friendliness is much bigger than Energi: it’s a debate for the whole crypto space. More than that, though, it’s a key challenge for us all if we want to see cryptocurrencies go mainstream. It’s why we built Nexus, our one-stop hub, which we’ll continue to improve as we grow the Energi ecosystem with Gen 3.

If you haven’t already, you can explore Nexus here.👇

Until next time!

The Energi Team