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.

Fiat purchase does not work

I was looking forward to using this wallet, because I think the developers have the right approach for making cryptocurrency accessible to more people. Unfortunately, as it currently stands, it failed spectacularly to clear the very first hurdle.

I was unable to purchase coins with normal money. I have tried using ApplePay with two different debit cards as well as the ACH option. Both debit card transactions failed repeatedly and their payment partner, Wyre, was unable to link to my bank account. I even tried sending money to my address from the Kyberswap desktop site, which still failed. I suspect that there is a problem with Wyre. If I am using it incorrectly, the payment widget is very unintuitive. I didn’t even realize there is a sign in button until after a few attempts, and it makes no difference.

I have not tried to send currency from another wallet, but I still need to convert fiat money to crypto and not being able to do so in app defeats the purpose of getting new users (like me) involved easily.

Until this problem is fixed I cannot recommend this app. I can’t even evaluate the rest of the app because I need coins to try out all of the functions. I think it looks nice but I can’t use it. If the developers of Argent or maybe Wyre can fix this, I will be happy to re-evaluate.

If it helps, I am using an iPhone SE (2016 version) running iOS 13.4.1 in the United States.

Developer Response ,

Hi there, I'm sorry about the issues with Wyre and for us not replying to this earlier. Please email support@argent.xyz and we can work with you and Wyre to resolve this ASAP.