The crypto world has a dirty little secret. For all the talk of decentralization and “not your keys, not your coins,” millions of users are currently living in a state of digital sharecropping.
If you’ve used a sleek, embeddable wallet in a decentralized app (dApp) lately—the kind that lets you sign in with your Google or Discord account—you’ve likely been using Wallet-as-a-Service (WaaS). It’s convenient, sure. But as Human Tech (the team behind the Holonym Foundation) points out, these wallets aren’t actually yours. You’re just renting them. If the app stops paying the service provider, or if the provider goes bust, your “self-custody” vanishes into the ether.
Enter Wallet-as-a-Protocol (WaaP).
Human Tech is launching what they call a “structural inversion” of the last decade of crypto onboarding. Instead of treating your digital identity as a subscription service for developers, WaaP aims to turn the wallet into a fundamental layer of the internet—one that belongs to the human, not the platform.
The Problem with “Rented” Wallets
To understand why this matters, you have to look at the current state of “embedded” wallets. Over 100 million keys have been created through WaaS providers. These services made crypto usable for normal people by hiding the complexity of seed phrases and private keys behind familiar social logins.
But this convenience came with a hidden cost: vendor lock-in. Because these wallets are “services,” they are siloed. Your wallet in App A doesn’t talk to App B. More importantly, your access is contingent on the developer’s relationship with the service provider.’
“Most of these wallets are not owned. They are rented,” Human Tech explains in their latest manifesto. “If the app stops paying, the user loses access. This is a quiet reversion to the old internet model.”
WaaP: The Universal Interface
WaaP is an open protocol. Think of it like SMTP for email or HTTP for the web. It’s a set of rules that allows for protected self-custody that is universal and portable across any app or blockchain.
The technical wizardry behind this involves Two-Party Computation (2PC) and Multi-Party Computation (MPC). In simple terms, your private key is split into two pieces. One piece is derived from your own “human attributes” (like biometrics or identity) and secured by the trustless Human Network. The other is locked in the decentralized Ika network behind security policies you control.
Because no single entity holds the full key, there is no single point of failure. Even if the Human Tech team disappeared tomorrow, the protocol remains, and your assets stay yours.
Why This is the “TechCrunch” Moment for Crypto
What makes WaaP particularly compelling is how it handles the “human” side of technology. Traditional self-custody is brutal—lose your 12-word seed phrase, and your money is gone forever. WaaP offers a “practical self-custody” model. It allows for trustless recovery without seed phrases, social engineering risks, or reliance on a single device.
But the real kicker is portability. Imagine having one wallet that follows you across every chain, every app, and even into the world of AI.
As AI agents begin to transact on our behalf, the stakes for security have never been higher. WaaP allows users to safely delegate authority to these agents. You can tell an AI, “You can sign this transaction for a specific game, but you can’t touch my life savings.” It turns AI into a controlled extension of the human, rather than a security liability.
The Post-WaaS Era
The launch of the WaaP SDK and WaaP.build (a white-labeling platform for developers) marks the beginning of what Human Tech calls the “post-WaaS era.”
For developers, the pitch is simple: stop paying for your users’ wallets and start giving them true ownership. WaaP is free to create and use, composable, and resistant to the common attack vectors—like phishing and “blind signing”—that have plagued the industry for years.
It also brings powerful “plug-ins” to the table. Developers can embed Zero-Knowledge (ZK) identity verification, allowing for KYC or age checks without ever seeing the user’s personal data.
The Bottom Line
For years, the crypto industry has struggled to balance security with usability. We’ve oscillated between the “Wild West” of seed phrases and the “Gilded Cage” of centralized services.
Human Tech’s Wallet-as-a-Protocol suggests we don’t have to choose. By building the wallet into the fabric of the internet itself, they are making a bet that the future of the digital economy isn’t built on services we subscribe to, but on protocols we own.
In a world where our digital lives are increasingly under surveillance and our assets are often at the mercy of platform whims, WaaP feels like a necessary return to the original promise of the web: a space where humans, not corporations, are the source of trust.
The protocol is live, the tools are ready, and for the first time in a long time, the keys to your digital kingdom might actually stay in your pocket.
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