Opt Out Sponsor Special w/ Vik Sharma from Cake Wallet
Sep 15, 2021
Vik Sharma, founder of Cake Wallet and executive director at Liberty Steel, builds privacy-focused mobile crypto tools and brought Monero to iOS. He discusses what drove his privacy work, creating accessible Monero apps, running wallets on-device and connecting to personal nodes. He also previews upcoming privacy features, decentralized swaps, and broader crypto integrations.
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Coinbase Kickout Sparked Privacy Journey
- Vik Sharma describes being kicked off Coinbase after buying antibiotics, which exposed Bitcoin's traceability.
- That experience led him to research privacy coins and discover Monero as the accepted alternative on darknet markets.
Early Privacy Apps Preceded Cake Wallet
- Before Cake Wallet, Vik built privacy apps like an email client behind a calculator and Photolocker for anonymous local photo posts.
- Those early projects show his long-standing interest in practical privacy tools and led to creating Cake Wallet for Monero.
True Blockchain Wallet Principle
- Cake Wallet's core value is providing Monero on mobile while keeping private keys and view keys local to the phone.
- This 'true blockchain wallet' approach reduces third-party exposure and supports connecting to your own node.