Meet Kirobo. The Israel-based startup claims its solution can retrieve cryptocurrency that has been sent to the wrong address.
The company aims to add an extra layer of logic to give users and crypto service providers new capabilities. Kirobo ‘provides a unique code to every transaction that must be entered by the recipient in order to receive the transfer’, the company notes. ‘Until the right code has been provided by the recipient, the sender can retrieve the funds at any time.’
This feature, called Retrievable Transfer, is currently available on Ledger for Bitcoin transactions, with further integrations promised in the coming months. The feature is free for all transactions for ‘a limited time’, after which it will be free for amounts up to $1,000 USD.
Kirobo cited a 2019 report (pdf) from the Foundation for Interwallet Operability (FIO) which found more than half of respondents had experienced stressful human errors when sending cryptocurrency. Almost one in five (18%) admitted to losing funds in this manner.
As can be seen on support forums across the industry, many providers are unable to resolve issues where users have sent cryptocurrency erroneously. Take a support article from crypto exchange ShapeShift published last month as an example. “Once funds are sent to a wrong address, there is nothing we can do to recover them,” the article reads, suggesting users could get their money back if they ‘somehow’ sent to a ShapeShift address, or failing that go cap in hand to Reddit, Twitter… ‘anywhere where people will listen to you.’
There are potential workarounds, however, albeit at the user’s risk. Writing as far back as 2017, Anton Bukov noted a method for Ethereum which saved $2000 from disappearing by exploring the nonce number – the number of transactions sent from a given address.
Regardless, Kirobo is looking to ‘remove the fear from crypto transactions’, as Adam Levi, CTO at DAOstack and an advisor to the company, put it. Interested parties can email info@kirobo.io for more information.
Interested in hearing more in person? Find out more at the Blockchain Expo World Series, Global, Europe and North America.
