Unlocking Decentralized Access Control: An Interview with Omer Sadika of Odsy Network

The Odsy (pronounced Odyssey: od-uh-see) Network provides a secure, programmable, decentralized access layer to all of web3 through dynamic, decentralized wallets (dWallets). The dWallet concept transforms how digital assets are stored, used, accessed, and connected to the real world by adding a fully decentralized layer of dynamic and stateful access control. This opens the door to new possibilities, including multi-chain DAOs, granular access sharing, and interoperable infrastructure for DeFi. dWallets will also allow for a full transfer of wallet ownership, which was impossible before.

At DCG, we’re always looking for novel primitives that will unlock new use cases for blockchain technology. Soon after meeting the Odsy team, we recognized the potential for its dWallet ecosystem to meaningfully improve access control. We participated in the company’s $5M pre-seed fundraise to allow them to continue to build out a team of cryptography and cybersecurity rockstars that can execute on its bold vision.

To help us understand dWallets and the Odsy Network, we invited Odsy Network founder, Omer Sadika, to walk us through the vision.

Can you tell us a little about your background and what led you to founding Odsy? How did you meet the other founders? How did your path lead you to working on dWallets and the Odsy Network?

I started coding when I was 11 years old, and my experience and expertise for the past decade has been in the cybersecurity space, where I invented a new category called API Security and founded the first company in that category, which is now a unicorn. When I was very young, I was fascinated by Bitcoin, both by the technology and how it could change the world.

Looking at crypto from a cybersecurity perspective, it’s clear that there’s an access control problem. Users are forced to choose between poor decentralized access control and centralized solutions that provide access control but defeat the purpose of being decentralized in the first place.

Access control is so fundamental in our daily lives — from simple apps to financial products — that we take it for granted. Providing access control in a truly decentralized way, without relying on centralized solutions, is a huge challenge, requiring deep cybersecurity expertise and cutting-edge cryptography, a challenge I feel my path in life has destined me for.

David Lachmish and I have known each other for over a decade, and we had worked on a venture together for three years before Odsy. Sean Lee, the former CEO of the Algorand Foundation, met with us as part of our lead investor due diligence efforts, and we were so excited about working with each other that we decided to join forces. I then heard about Yehonatan Cohen Scaly through my cybersecurity network, a math genius and one of the top cybersecurity researchers working on a Multi-Party Computation (MPC) project at the time. I met with him, and right then and there, we knew we would be partners.

The dWallet Labs team has the most experienced and talented cryptographers and cybersecurity experts in Israel, with extensive backgrounds in both offensive and defensive cybersecurity, as well as modern cryptography such as MPC.

Can you talk through the issues with access control today and what spurred your interest in solving these problems?

Blockchains today offer a binary and rigid access control — your private key gives you irrevocable 100% access. That inelasticity, for any modern user, is unacceptable. Real-world use cases require robust, flexible, and dynamic access control, and that void had to be filled somehow. Centralized solutions, holding the keys and/or assets for the users became increasingly prevalent, in correlation with the rise of digital asset adoption.

But this is not sustainable. The merits of decentralization are squandered when access to crypto is managed in a centralized way, and the next phase of crypto maturity and adoption must leverage decentralized access control. As a cybersecurity expert, it is clear to me that creating decentralized access control is a great challenge — but one that has the potential to connect crypto to the real world and change the paradigm of what is possible with crypto.

As a side note, recent events are proving to us once again what happens to our assets and investments with centralized access — censorship, locked assets, and even effects that go back to hurting decentralized networks because of pooled assets with a small number of PoS validators. These are reminders that we should all strive for a more decentralized future for Web3.

Describe the concept of the dWallet and how it solves these issues with access control.

dWallets are a blockchain-agnostic primitive that serve as a universal access control layer for web3, enabling robust and dynamic access control without compromising on decentralization.

A simple way to think about them is as transferable, programmable signing mechanisms corresponding to specific public keys that live on a blockchain. Building the access control logic is done with Wallet Contracts, which are dedicated smart contracts for dWallets, they are Turing-complete and blockchain agnostic — so a transaction is signed based on a signing algorithm, for example ECDSA. Combining all of that results in a natively multi-chain, interoperable, and robust infrastructure.

Any access control logic one can think of is now possible in a completely decentralized and trustless way. I envision dWallets as the crucial infrastructure to enable the future interoperable multi-chain world.

What are the defining characteristics of dWallets?

First and foremost, the dedicated blockchain that enables dWallets must exhibit strong decentralization. That means that everything from the creation of the dWallet, to signing transactions with the dWallet, and the access control engine should be decentralized. Of course, the blockchain itself must also be fully decentralized. A network that has a small number of nodes or is not permissionless cannot support the dWallet primitive.

Second, the dWallet must be able to generate a digital signature for any valid message, regardless of what the destination or purpose are. So a dWallet that supports the ECDSA signing algorithm can be used to sign a transaction of any blockchain that uses ECDSA — which many popular blockchains do.

Third, the dWallet must have a Turing-complete and dynamic access control mechanism, and must strictly follow that mechanism when signing transactions.

And lastly, a dWallet owner must be able to completely transfer the ownership of the dWallet to someone else, and have their ownership revoked.

I’m most enthusiastic about the use cases that totally reimagine the way things are done today within crypto.

What are some of the use cases for dWallets that you’re most excited about?

There are many potential use cases for this new primitive, like decentralized retail and institutional custody, interoperable infrastructure for DeFi and gaming, and even a dWallet marketplace.

I’m most enthusiastic about the use cases that totally reimagine the way things are done today within crypto. One example is DAOs that will now become robust multi-chain organizations, capable of dealing with many real-world scenarios and live up to their full potential. Another example is self-custody — I’m very excited to see how dWallets are going to change the cold/hot wallet paradigm that has been in place since the beginning of crypto in new and exciting ways.

It’s also safe to say that some of the most imaginative and exciting use cases will be those coming from the community, utilizing the dWallet infrastructure to reimagine things and make crypto more connected to the real world.

All of this will lead to a reality where building interoperable protocols on top of the Odsy Network is as simple as building a smart contract on Ethereum.

How does the Odsy Network fit into this picture?

Odsy is a security-first network of dWallets — utilizing the power of dWallets combined with cutting-edge security to become the access control layer for all of Web3. Building a blockchain of dWallets requires both a specific design, multiple layers of security, and dedicated capabilities that will enable them in a very secure way.

The Odsy Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Zug, Switzerland, initiated the launch of the Odsy Network and is dedicated for the further development of both the Odsy Network and the future Odsy ecosystem built around it, utilizing dWallets in different protocols and solutions.

Can you talk about the Odsy SDK and how you’re making it easy for developers to integrate Odsy Network functionality into their solutions?

The way the access control logic is built is by Wallet Contracts, wallet contracts are a new type of smart contracts, each one of them contains code that determines the access control logic of a specific dWallet. The process of utilizing wallet contracts will be simplified through the Odsy Wallet Contract SDK, allowing developers to simply write any logic they can come up with, and reduce the barrier for building complex decentralized access control mechanisms.

The Odsy Network SDK will allow developers to interact with the Odsy Network itself, and of course, it will also be used to interact with the wallet contracts that are written. All of this will lead to a reality where building interoperable protocols on top of the Odsy Network is as simple as building a smart contract on Ethereum.

Crypto founders should have more restrictions than traditional startups, not less, and we want to play our part in setting appropriate standards for crypto founders.

Can you talk about the rest of the team and who is building this alongside you?

The dWallet Labs team has the most experienced and talented cryptographers and cybersecurity experts in Israel, with extensive backgrounds in both offensive and defensive cybersecurity, as well as modern cryptography such as MPC.

I have met and worked with many technical leaders and cybersecurity experts, but Yehonatan, my co-founder and the CTO of the company, is without a doubt the only person I would want to lead the research and development of such an ambitious project. He has a deep understanding of large-scale threat modeling, and extensive experience with math and cryptography, which makes him perfectly suited to lead our research and development efforts.

Can you walk through the Nostos 10-year lockup model for the team and why you decided to take this approach as you embark on this ’10 Year Odyssey’?

We know that what we are building is a long-term project. We also believe that as part of the maturing of the space, crypto founders need to start thinking about their projects as long-term — 2 and 3-year vesting schedules are insufficient. Crypto founders should have more restrictions than traditional startups, not less, and we want to play our part in setting appropriate standards for crypto founders.

The name was chosen because of the Nostos theme, the main theme in the Odyssey, in which a hero must overcome obstacles and power through in a long journey until they finally get to their destination — and we believe nothing is more comparable to a founder’s journey than that theme.

What does the Odsy team need to get right in the next 3–6 months?

We are currently working on tailoring the state-of-the-art MPC to meet the unique requirements and needs of the Odsy Network. We also aim to lay down the foundations for the future Odsy ecosystem by developing the testnet and the SDKs — the Odsy Network SDK to interact with the network, and the Odsy Wallet Contract SDK to simplify the development process of new protocols utilizing dWallets on top of the Odsy Network. Most importantly, we need to get the right partners — we started off with the best partners we could ask for in the crypto space, and we need to keep that momentum going.

How can folks learn more about dWallets and the Odsy network?

On the project website — odsy.xyz — you can find our Litepaper and read more about dWallets and the Odsy Network, as well as Nostos 10-year lockup model and our token allocations.

When can they expect to be able to use the project themselves?

Developers should look out for our testnet and SDKs launch in the next few months, when they’ll be able to start building multi-chain interoperable protocols and leverage the new dWallet infrastructure. A few months later we expect to launch the first version of the mainnet, which will allow all Web3 users to finally use dWallets.

In the meantime follow our announcements on our official channels to stay posted!

Want to learn more about the Odsy Network? Visit their website at odsy.xyz and follow them on Twitter at @odsyxyz.

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