Self-sovereignty, in the context of cryptocurrency, refers to an individual having ownership and control over their own crypto assets. Academics have noted that self-sovereignty, “is frequently associated with the right of individuals to own and control their own identity online and be the final arbiter of who can access and use their data and personal information.” This is different from the norm which people are used to, which is handing over control and ownership of their assets to a custodian. Today, centralized crypto exchanges and lenders are preventing people from withdrawing their funds. This makes self-sovereignty more important than ever!
A custodian is a third party which owns and or controls an individual’s asset or assets. Examples of custodians include traditional banks which take ownership of an individual’s financial assets and centralized cryptocurrency exchanges which have control over crypto assets. Giving a custodian control over an asset may seem convenient but it is not an ideal state of affairs especially from a security perspective.
Ndau and Self-Sovereignty
The cryptocurrency ndau was designed to give owners self-sovereignty over their currency and as a result be able to exercise complete personal control over their assets. A recovery phrase is used to ensure that an individual will always be able to access their ndau and use it in any way which they see fit. The self-sovereignty which ndau allows is facilitated by the ndau wallet app which provides users with ownership and control over their assets as well as their recovery phrase. The recovery phrase also controls all of an individual’s private keys.
The ndau wallet application generates a master private key which is used to generate the recovery phrase for the wallet. This is to ensure that an individual has complete control over their crypto and is able to recover their wallet should something happen to their phone or their access to the application. The master private key can be used to create subsidiary private keys which in turn can be used to generate public keys. These public keys can be used to trade crypto with others. Each public key has a corresponding private key so that the blockchain is aware of who the crypto belongs to when transactions are made. This system is built to ensure a significantly high level of both privacy and security. These features allow ndau owners to feel more secure in their transactions and their stored ndau. Storing ndau also has certain benefits which are applicable to the owner of the ndau.
Earn Staking Yields Safely with No Custodian
An individual will not need to transfer their ndau to a custodian such as a cryptocurrency exchange to be able to generate staking yields on their assets. Simply by holding ndau in the ndau wallet app, an owner is able to generate staking yields on their assets. Once an individual has ndau in their wallet they are given the option to lock their ndau for a certain period of time. This feature enables users to generate a return on their ndau without needing to trade or exchange it. The ndau platform incentivizes its users to lock their ndau for a longer period of time with a higher degree of returns. For example, locking ndau for three months will generate a 7% return but locking ndau for a year will generate a 15% return. The duration of the lock is entirely dependent on the needs and wants of the owner of the crypto. Additionally, once an account has been locked it cannot send or receive ndau during this period.
An important feature of the ndau app which creates a greater degree of security against fraud is the one hour recourse period after receiving cryptocurrency. This period is similar to the process which traditional banks use to ensure that a transaction is legitimate and not a result of fraud or other wrongdoing. After the one hour period is over an individual can access and trade their ndau as they wish.
Final Thoughts
The ndau cryptocurrency has built self-sovereignty into the core of the philosophical and mechanical backbone of the currency. This was with the intention of providing users with the ability to have complete control and security over their crypto assets. Self-sovereignty to this extent is something that many consumers are unfamiliar with and something that is becoming increasingly more prevalent in the decentralized finance ecosystem. Ndau is leading the way in this regard and providing its users with a sense of freedom which few other cryptocurrencies can claim to match.