Popular Ethereum wallet interface MyEtherWallet (MEW) has released a unexpected alternative product, MyCrypto.com, one of MEW’s original developers announced in a blog post Feb. 9.
MEW has become one of the most popular Ethereum and ERC20 token storage management tools over the past year, and will continue to exist along with a new project, which has an almost identical interface.
In the blog post, one of MEW’s original developers Taylor Monahan gave a brief history of the project and the impetus behind her creating MyCrypto, while remaining silent on relations between herself and her fellow co-developer of MEW, known as Kvhnuke.
“MyEtherWallet LLC was sufficient for the early stages of growth. MyCrypto is designed with next-level scaling in mind from the beginning,” Monahan explained in the post, adding she had spent nine months assembling a team to oversee all operations. She also added:
“Kvhnuke remains in control of the MEW github repository, the MEW domain, the AWS instances, and the MyEtherWallet social media accounts.”
MEW’s structure has allowed it to avoid the common pitfalls ‘true’ wallet providers have struggled with increasingly as cryptocurrency has gained value and an influx of new users.
Ostensibly designed to serve even more users via a similar setup, MyCrypto will enter public beta testing in the near future, Monahan nonetheless stating she was “terrified” about the road ahead. She continued:
“I was terrified — am terrified — at the potential harm this change will have on myself, the team, and/or the Ethereum community but ultimately, the risks created by continuing down the road we were on are greater than the risks of splitting to a new brand, new company, new name, and new domain. While contemplating this decision, I began to see that my inaction would be the only thing that guaranteed my failure.”
Online, the circumstances surrounding the changes continue to cause suspicion and confusion among users.
MyEtherWallet's abrupt change in branding to MyCrypto should have been announced using MyEtherWallet's social media accounts first. This is a very amateurish way of handling it. This is coming from an everyday user of MEW and its biggest fan.
— Joseph Young (@iamjosephyoung) February 9, 2018
While MEW has not yet published any comment about the new brand, curious statements about what staff describe as an “unlawful social media account switch” on Twitter have coincided with the release of the MyCrypto news.