When Ethereum first launched, the only way to send your Ether was via command line.
MyEtherWallet started with just two people, kvhnuke and tayvano (Taylor Monahan) who developed a simple interface that provided a simple solution to this problem.
Recently, MyEtherWallet (MEW) has unexpectedly released an alternative product, MyCrypto.com, one of MEW’s original developers announced in a blog post on Feb. 9. MyEtherWallet.com still exists but one of its two founders Taylor Monahan in other posts at medium.com, justifies the need to launch MyCrypto.com.
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It looks like the hot new trend when it comes to cryptocurrency is to announce things pretty much at the last minute.
Both wallets are pretty much identical at this point but we will see what is going to happen in the future.
We have seen this with Coinbase when they added Bitcoin Cash. We saw this with Binance as well. Now, there has been a wallet war between MyEtherWallet (MEW) and MyCrypto since a developer went solo to upon launching MyCrypto. This was announced a few days ago.
Who is part of the MyCrypto team?
MyCrypto has currently 20 people in the team including product development and management personnel, blockchain experts, and a dedicated education & support team. She has been gathering the team for at least nine months but the launch was announced pretty much at the last minute.
The founder and CEO of MyCrypto is Taylor Monahan. In her recent business split with Kosala and MyEtherWallet, some MyEtherWallet team members decided to join the MyCrypto team voluntarily. There are also new comers in the team. Among who joined is Kevin Monahan, Taylor’s husband and an original part of the MyEtherWallet team. The full list of MyCrypto team members is published on their website.
Why did the split happen? Why was MyCrypto launched?
MyEtherWallet LLC was sufficient for the early stages of growth. MyCrypto is designed with next-level scaling in mind from the beginning. The team assembled over the past 9 months and Taylor will now be building, providing support, educating, and ensuring the security of https://mycrypto.com and all future products. Source
It is also said that Kvhnuke (the other founder) remains in full control of the MEW domain, the MEW github repository, the AWS instances, and official social media accounts of MyEtherWallet.
Taylor and Kosala launched MyEtherWallet almost three years ago. It was a great partnership for a majority of that time but ultimately, this partnership mutually ended in an agreement. They cannot publish the terms of the mutual agreement, but both founders were aware of the split and the transition process. In her new endeavor, Taylor has aunched MyCrypto to continue providing the best and most secure blockchain services for the community, according to their Q&A.
This year, MyCrypto has established this specific set of goals:
Find a balance between safety and control, ease-of-use and privacy, as well as decentralization.
Remain true to MyCrypto’s privacy-minded, open-source, transparency-focused and client-side roots.
Empower people to interact with the blockchain by creating the best product.
Establish a well-equipped team that can make choices best for Ethereum, the larger blockchain space and the community, as well as to continue operating as a fully transparent, compliant, and legitimate organization capable of satisfying the interests of all the parties involved.
Ensure that users/members understand the risks of using the blockchain and empower them to make informed decisions when choosing between their product and alternatives.
Establish MyCrypto with the proper legal structuring and business mindset from the start to avoid these types of circumstances in the future (they have already hired a Compliance Officer and qualified lawyer).
Engage with their supporters in the most effective ways possible — listening to suggestions, adapting their product and providing support, regardless of customers' technical abilities or communication skills.
Perhaps one of the biggest issues it that their Twitter account with more than 81K followers was taken by MyCrypto. MyEtherWallet has to start over. Also, most of the team apparently joined Taylor Monahan. We can only speculate but for the whole team to leave, something must’ve gone really wrong.
During the transition yesterday, however, MEW’s Twitter account was switched from
to
, and tens of thousands of MEW followers were left scratching their heads. Indeed, the change was unexpected, and I’m still in the process of determining the justification behind the switch, and how this issue will be resolved.
Source: Official MyEtherWallet announcement
There's also no way for us to tell how their stakes was split, including the donations made to their previously shared wallet.
The good thing for us users is these are only interfaces. There’s no need to switch to the new one and using the new MyCryptoWallet is completely voluntary as also elaborated in the announcement. There is also no need to transfer funds and users are not affected by whatever happened behind the scenes. Without a doubt, MyEtherWallet has been one of the most popular Ethereum wallets. It’s ERC20 compatible meaning it can be used to fund ICOs. But now, It has a competition: MyCryptoWallet. We will eventually see which developer is going to take each of their wallets further and which one is going to become more successful in the future.
