Launch HN: Multis (YC S19): online business bank account for cryptocurrency
Hi HN,

We're Théophile and Thibaut, and we're building Multis (https://multis.co): an online bank account designed for companies holding cryptocurrency. We're helping them store it, spend it and earn interest.

We have been in this industry for the past 3 years. Thibaut used to lead sales at Stratumn, a Nasdaq-backed company helping companies securing their shared workflows through cryptocurrencies. Théo built several decentralized applications before starting the company in 2018.

Wallets are the cornerstone of the industry: you need them to store and transact with cryptocurrencies. But these wallets are not designed for business. You cannot perform simple business operations like running a payroll, paying vendors, or earning interest, which you can currently do from your modern business bank account.

Cryptocurrencies - and particularly stablecoins - are a reliable, fast and cost-efficient medium of exchange. It’s a technology that enables anyone to move value and assets across borders, with no intermediaries. We believe it can help companies save a lot, since most of them are now actively transacting with partners abroad, from suppliers to foreign contractors.

The number of companies building and transacting with cryptocurrencies is growing (e.g. Stateofthedapp listings grew by 250% since 2017), despite still being in its infancy. Most of these companies are operating in the cryptocurrency industry, or are e-merchants willing to reduce payment fees and optimize working capital.

These companies struggle to manage their assets and make the most of them. They typically have between 5 and 10 wallets, none of them being designed for a business environment. This makes business spending and accounting still to painful and time-consuming. And cryptocurrencies sit idle, because there are just too many frictions.

We realized what was really needed: an application to manage cryptocurrency the same as a modern online business bank account, with features and financial services powered by both crypto and traditional currencies. In short, a crypto-first bank. Here are our main features today:

- Store - multi-user wallet with dashboard and transaction history

- Pay - spending policies and streamlined payment flows (1)

- Exchange - swap 70+ tokens with ethers, dollars and euros (2)

- Earn - savings account yielding interest on stablecoins (3)

- Soon: EUR and USD bank accounts

We will make revenues through commissions on financial services like fiat ramps, and through monthly subscriptions for premium features like accounting exports or fiat accounts.

Our goal of making a unified front end that works like a business bank account is challenging to achieve because the technologies we're using are very heterogenous:

- we have two databases: the Ethereum blockchain and Cloud Firestore

- we have two backends: smart contracts and Firebase Cloud functions

- we have two authentication systems: private keys stored on individual wallets (we're self-custodian) and email addresses

- we have two authorization systems: the multisignature contract owners and the owner/guest roles in our security rules

- we have two type of assets: cryptogoods and traditional currencies

- we will have two storages: IPFS and Firebase Storage

You can read more here about our architecture (4) and our approach to security (5).

Cryptocurrency is still a recent technology that generates understandable skepticism.The ICO craze did not help. We feel that payment is becoming a tangible use case though, and companies ranging from Facebook to JP Morgan are now actively investing in it. We believe more will join. There are still many uncertainties about regulations, accounting, and each new SEC or FinCEN guidance make the teams' hair turn grey. But things are moving forward on the ground, despite the excess of hype in the space.

We want to make Multis useful, so we have one question: what would be the key features and financial services you would expect as a company? They don't have to be related to crypto directly. We'd also love your feedback, your questions and your ideas. Thanks!

(1) https://medium.com/multis/introducing-direct-transfers-a-new...

(2) https://medium.com/multis/multis-launches-first-token-swap-c...

(3) https://medium.com/multis/our-new-compound-integration-lets-...

(4) https://medium.com/multis/imagining-a-leaner-way-how-to-ship...

(5) https://medium.com/multis/security-at-multis-9609d346c91b