Blockchain Startup Cubist Launches Wallet-as-a-Service Product CubeSigner

According to CoinDesk, Cubist, a blockchain startup co-founded by computer science professors at Carnegie Mellon University and University of California San Diego and a former fintech chief operating officer and security expert, has publicly released a new wallet-as-a-service product called CubeSigner. The product aims to solve the challenge of making account keys readily available while keeping them secure. CubeSigner allows users to request signatures through revocable signing sessions instead of giving direct access to raw keys, ensuring that users can't accidentally leak their keys and attackers can't steal keys as key material stays locked in secure hardware during generation and signing.CubeSigner was released earlier this year and is already in production as a key manager for Ethereum validators. The project's website details a collaboration with another startup, Ankr, in the arena of liquid staking. The latest announcement highlights that CubeSigner is now being rolled out to other blockchains and projects. Co-founder and CEO Riad Wahby, who is also an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon, told CoinDesk that the new CubeSigner wallet-as-a-service was designed to be configurable for any blockchain, including Bitcoin, Solana, and Avalanche, in addition to Ethereum. The new wallet could compete with existing wallet-as-a-service providers, such as Fireblocks, Coinbase, Magic.link, and Privy.A differentiator for CubeSigner is its anti-slashing features, designed to automatically avoid errors and faults that might lead to blockchain validators getting penalized under the rules of a crypto-staking protocol like Ethereum. In March, Cubist raised $7 million in a seed round led by Polychain Capital with investors including dao5, Amplify Partners, Polygon, Blizzard, and Axelar. Cubist's first offering was a software toolkit designed to help users write cross-chain applications. The company pivoted to focus on CubeSigner based on feedback from prospective clients for that initial product.