Self-Custody Has Won the Argument, Now It Has to Work: Trust Wallet CEO (Interview)

Crypto has spent a few years asking customers to settle for complexity in change for possession. But as self-custody strikes nearer and nearer to the mainstream viewers, Trust Wallet’s new CEO, Felix Fan, argues that the actual problem is now not proving why individuals ought to management their property – it’s making that management really feel easy.

In the following interview, we talk about the product classes shaping Fan’s management, why wallets should take extra accountability for person safety, how funds, buying and selling, stablecoins, AI brokers, and clear regulation are pushing crypto right into a extra mature section.

His message, nonetheless, is obvious: self-custody could have received the philosophical argument, however the person expertise has some catching up to do.

You’ve stepped into a brand new position at Trust Wallet at a second when self-custody is turning into each extra mainstream and extra advanced. What components of your personal journey ready you most for main a product utilized by tons of of hundreds of thousands of individuals?

My experience lies in product, complemented by my expertise as a serial entrepreneur. Before Trust Wallet, I spent years occupied with how to make advanced monetary instruments really feel easy to individuals who don’t have time or persistence to turn out to be specialists.

Leading at this scale is completely different. Trust Wallet already has hundreds of thousands of customers. The job isn’t solely to persuade those who self-custody is the future. It’s to make that future really feel apparent in the product expertise each day. That means listening, transferring quick, and being ruthlessly sincere about the place we fall brief so we will repair it rapidly.

The a part of my journey that ready me most? Learning that the greatest merchandise don’t have to clarify themselves. If a person has to learn a information to perceive what simply occurred, we haven’t completed constructing but.

Before becoming a member of Trust Wallet, you have been often known as a product chief. How does that background form the means you consider management, particularly in a sector the place person belief, safety, and velocity of execution all matter directly?

Product considering means you begin with the person downside, not the answer. That sounds apparent, however it’s genuinely uncommon in crypto, the place the default is to lead with know-how and hope customers catch up.

When I have a look at belief, safety, and execution velocity as competing priorities, I don’t see a rigidity. I see a product sequencing downside. Security can’t be a tax on velocity — if it slows customers down in a means that’s perceptible, we lose them to worse selections. So the reply is to engineer safety that protects customers earlier than they know they want safety.

That’s what our Security Scanner does $458 million in prevented losses from malicious contracts. Users didn’t have to turn out to be safety specialists for that to occur. The product did the work. That’s what good product management seems like on this sector.

Crypto has gone by means of a number of identification shifts — hypothesis, DeFi, NFTs, institutional adoption, stablecoins, AI brokers, RWAs, and extra. How would you outline the present section of the {industry}?

I’d name it the infrastructure coming of age. For years, crypto had the imaginative and prescient, however the expertise was too tough for most individuals to keep. The phases you describe, “hypothesis, DeFi, NFTs”, every added one thing actual, but in addition got here with a lot friction that solely the dedicated stayed.

What’s completely different now could be that the rails are catching up with the concepts. Onchain liquidity is deep sufficient to compete. Stablecoins have real-world utility. Tokenized RWAs are extra accessible. AI is beginning to work together with onchain techniques in ways in which weren’t doable two years in the past.

We’re at the level the place the query isn’t “Can crypto do that?”, it’s “Can we make it easy sufficient that the subsequent hundred million individuals don’t want to already consider in it to attempt it?”

Self-custody is commonly framed as a precept, however for mainstream customers it could nonetheless really feel intimidating. What has to change for self-custody to turn out to be as intuitive as cellular banking with out compromising possession?

Three issues, so as.

First, the language has to change. “Private keys,” “seed phrases,” “non-custodial” and many others, these are phrases that imply one thing to insiders and nothing to everybody else. We have to construct merchandise that shield customers deeply with out requiring them to perceive the underlying mechanics. That’s how cellular banking labored. You don’t understand how your financial institution’s authentication stack works. You simply really feel protected.

Second, restoration has to really feel protected. The factor that stops most individuals from making an attempt self-custody isn’t the setup — it’s the concern of shedding entry completely. Better restoration choices, designed for actual people, not cryptographers, are certainly one of the most essential issues the {industry} wants to clear up.

Third, the surrounding expertise has to match what individuals already use. If buying and selling onchain is tougher than utilizing an app they have already got, we lose. The hole is closing, although there’s nonetheless work to be completed.

The precept of self-custody is already successful the argument. The product expertise is what has to catch up.

Trust Wallet now sits at the intersection of wallets, DeFi, funds, stablecoins, and AI. Where do you see the largest near-term use case for crypto: buying and selling, funds, financial savings, identification, AI brokers, or one thing else?

Payments and buying and selling for the close to time period.

Trading as a result of onchain liquidity has matured. With integrations like Hyperliquid for perps, prediction markets, and tokenized shares by means of bStocks, customers can do issues inside a self-custodial pockets that they’d have wanted a conventional brokerage account or CEX for just a few years in the past.

AI brokers are the class I watch most rigorously for the medium time period. The means to automate methods inside guidelines you set, whereas retaining keys in your machine, may meaningfully change the monetary panorama. But we’re at the early-infrastructure stage there. In the close to time period, funds and buying and selling are the place the actual use is occurring.

Security stays certainly one of crypto’s largest boundaries to adoption. What accountability ought to wallets soak up defending customers, and the place ought to the line be between person sovereignty and platform-level safeguards?

Self-custody wallets ought to take vital accountability for safeguarding customers, and I’d push again on the concept that this creates a rigidity with sovereignty.

The false model of person sovereignty is: “we provide you with whole freedom and whole publicity.” That’s not empowering; that’s abandonment. Real sovereignty means customers have full management over their property and actual safety towards threats they’ll’t all the time see.

Our Security Scanner characteristic has flagged over $458 million directed at malicious contracts, and helped alert customers to greater than $191 million in suspicious transactions in 2025 alone. Our Address Poisoning Protection, a characteristic that detects lookalike rip-off addresses in real-time and alerts customers earlier than they ship funds, is the newest addition to Trust Wallet’s industry-leading safety stack. Users don’t have to perceive handle poisoning or malicious good contracts to be shielded from them. That’s what we must always anticipate from a pockets.

The line I draw is that this: we warn, we shield, we give customers the info to decide — however we don’t make choices for them. If a person desires to work together with one thing our safety techniques flag as dangerous, we inform them clearly, after which we respect their alternative. Sovereignty with info is the purpose. Sovereignty with out info isn’t freedom, it’s publicity.

Regulation is turning into clearer in some markets whereas others stay fragmented or unsure. How ought to pockets corporations like Trust Wallet navigate the stability between decentralization, compliance, and person entry throughout completely different jurisdictions?

Regulatory readability is genuinely good for this {industry}. Uncertainty can create extra issues than it solves; for customers, for builders, and for the long-term credibility of crypto.

What’s essential to perceive is what Trust Wallet is and isn’t. We’re a self-custodial software program interface. We don’t maintain buyer funds, we don’t function markets, we don’t match orders, and we’re not anybody’s counterparty. That’s a special regulatory dialog than the one centralized exchanges are having.

Our method is to interact constructively the place wanted, be clear about how the product works, and ensure the customers have entry to the greatest out there companies. When regulation creates actual readability, it helps us by setting clear expectations for the {industry}.

What I’d push again on is regulation as a barrier to entry. The populations who profit most from self-custody — individuals with out entry to conventional banking, individuals in economies with forex instability — are sometimes the least served by fragmented regulatory environments. Good regulation ought to shield customers, not exclude them.

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