Argent – DeFi in a tap 4+

Argent Gets Crypto Storage Right

This is the rational way for average consumers to approach the new paradigm of self-sovereign custody over crypto bear-assets.

As a consumer/user of crypto tokens you have three options:

1. Trust only yourself (if you forget your password and lose your recovery phrase your funds are lost forever)

2. Trust an institution. This is the same as a bank. *Most* people trust (*some*) bank to have their money upon request.

3. Trust your friends and family. *Most* people have at least some friends or family who they can trust to independently confirm that “you are you” and not a random criminal pretending to be you if/(when) you get locked out of your account because you forgot your password.

*These trusted people need not know or regularly associate with one another.

IMO The future of money is crypto. And personal finance security methods will default to the current model (#2, leaving the money with a big institution, and ideally being insured against losses).

But at least you have a choice now if you don’t want go that way. You can trust your friends and family (#3) or only trust yourself (#1).

Argent gives you that freedom of choice and that’s really cool. But choose wisely... ; )

The Fees Are Prohibitively High

Argent states that they use 10+ exchanges to find the “best” gas prices, but the word “best” is an arbitrary term as it doesn’t specify if it’s best for the customer or best for Argent. Their whole model appears to be centered on keeping any and all assets on their platform, which I understand, I just feel that the way they appear to go about it is not immediately apparent to their customers. Purely as an example, who in their right mind would transfer $100 worth of Ether off their platform if they have to pay ~$30 in gas fees? That same transfer into Argent is ~$5 in gas fees. That’s a MASSIVE disparity if they are using the 10+ exchanges with the best price for customers, and one that I, for the life of me, am unable to account for. OK, so how about staking? Well converting your Ether to another token is also excessively pricey. Your assets are effectively locked on the platform due to the exorbitant fees. Unless you own tens of thousands of dollars of crypto assets and want to centralize them on Argent, this platform is not for you. I intend to take a sizable hit in fees just to get completely off this platform which is unfortunate because, as others have stated, it is very well designed and easy to use.

Developer Response ,

Hi, unfortunately it is the case that current Ethereum network fees make small investments uneconomical. We're launching a Layer 2 wallet this summer to bring cheap, quick transactions to Ethereum. In the meantime, people use our existing wallet to secure large amounts of assets. Our on-chain security model offers the best protection for crypto. We're soon also upgrading this existing wallet to streamline the amount of gas it uses.

An Absolute Sham

I RARELY feel compelled to leave 1 star reviews but Argent has done their utmost to warrant it. So here it is! Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. Argent is insanely expensive. Their gas fees are nearly TRIPLE (three times! That’s cold hard math!) That of Metamask, or literally, any other platform I’ve used. They have no explanation for this that makes any sense. Now let’s get to the nitty gritty. I experienced a complete application failure with Argent that resulted in me losing around $450. Their app debited my account twice, with no explanation, during a token swap via UNI. Look, I’ve been swapping for years, and this has never happened. Sure in 2018 it would’ve been $12 and I probably wouldn’t have cared or written a review. But it’s not and application failures are expensive. Argent completely abdicated responsibility for this. They blamed UNI, and then when I called them out, they ignored me. Still waiting for a response. Look, all I can take away from this experience, is that Argent is a bottom line company who doesn’t give a darn about customer experience. Period. USE METAMASK! Avoid this sham at all costs.

Developer Response ,

Hi there, Argent requires more gas than MetaMask as we're a smart contract wallet with a robust, on-chain security model. We don't profit from gas. The tradeoff (a bit more gas for lots more security) is best suited to those needing to protect large amounts of assets. On Uniswap, we'd be happy to look into it for you. We've replied to all support tickets on the subject (usually within an hour or two) so please contact us again. When using a Dapp via WalletConnect there can be issues arising from the Dapp's side but we'd be happy to investigate further.