Everest is a platform and ecosystem that empowers users and businesses to ‘build the future.’ The platform has found a way to uniquely use digital identities so that its users and businesses connected to the platform can verifiably engage in any transaction. This means that users of the Everest platform are doing business and other related services in a more transparent and economical manner than ever before.

The company is the creator of the ID token, which gives users access to the Everest platform and this comes with the digital identities and wallets that they control. ID tokens also come along with rewards and it gives the ability to participate in governance. The ID token unlocks various capabilities of the Everest platform for holders and acts as a governance utility for the future development of the ecosystem.

Nairametrics spoke with Bob Reid, the CEO and Co-Founder of Everest, who gave us insights into Everest and its business model.

About Everest

Reid, before beginning his Everest journey, was previously an advisor to Kai Labs and the General Manager of Licensing at BitTorrent. He has gone through two IPOs, two acquisitions, and millions of dollars raised in financing, including founding a startup based on two of his own patents. According to him, “I was born and raised in Silicon Valley and I have done a host of startups. The most recent one before Everest was BitTorrent where I was the GM of licensing.”

On the Everest website, it stated that the platform offers an ‘end-to-end financial inclusion solution.’ Reid shed more light on this as he stated, “We built a platform that basically looks like an e-government or e-bank platform, with the four major principles of biometric digital identity, which is attached to an account which can do fiat or crypto and can also hold documents like your house title deed.

“We then have a ledger that is really fast and cost-effective. Then we have a licensed programmable stablecoin and I think we are the first in the world to actually be licensed to create a stablecoin. We can take different fiat currencies in, program it to be redeemable. So the entire stake makes up your end-to-end, identity plus financial inclusion platform.”

He further stated, “A lot of ecosystems for example say, I want to do fiat onboarding with one of those vendors offering the service or they do ledgers with other protocols but at Everest we did a vertical integration of these services and the only outside parties we deal with is the banking system so as to get fiat in and out.”

The Ecosystem

Giving a brief overview of what the Everest ecosystem was all about, Reid stated, “What I just earlier described is a vertically integrated financial inclusion platform. However, it also has a ledger that others can program onto, for example, like Ethereum; and also we are EVM compatible. As we open up the API, people who want to, can run their businesses on our platform like supply chain, healthcare, insurance and so on, where users and developers can verify your identity and transact with you. We are broadening the ecosystem to more than just, what I will call, money.” 

The ID Token

Since Everest core and token is based on identity, Reid attempts to explain what the ID token is all about and how it works. He explained that the ID token is a way for a user to create an identity and attach it to a wallet.

“Think of it as your face but more like a private key to open up your account. Each user has varied levels of tokens to get different levels of access. At the bare minimum, users who have their identity attached to their account will get access to services on the platforms,” he said.

The total supply of ID tokens is 800 million. The ID token gives holders rewards, voting and governance rights and enabling access to the network and the myriad of applications and services that are available in the Everest economy.

The EverChain

According to Reid, the EverChain is a layer 2 solution chain that bridges to the Ethereum mainnet and what it does is it runs similarly to Polygon so that that platforms can deliver faster and cheaper transactions. He added, “as we get more opened, it will basically look like a layer 1 solution.”

When asked about the high transaction fees plaguing the Ethereum blockchain, he stated, “the EverChain is a side chain, off the Ethereum network, which makes our transaction faster and much cheaper than that of, for example, polygons. The transaction cost is closer to BSC and like I said before, we have done a bridge to the Ethereum mainnet and we are building another bridge and as we open up EverChain, it will be like… for example, all the Layer 1 solutions are confined in their own ecosystems and when you have EverChain which runs at 5 second transaction at a very cheap rate, you then have bridges into other blockchains, from the user point of view, they wouldn’t care if you are operating on BSC, Solana, Ethereum or any other network.”

The Everest Wallet

The Everest wallet is an extensible wallet framework designed to include other wallet technologies and provide a unified solution to the user. On the wallet, you are able to spend, save, lend and spend in fiat and crypto, store documents, medical records and sensitive data locked with your biometry, in which you never lose your keys or access again.

Speaking about how the Everest wallet is different from other wallets, he stated, “Everest wallets act like one component to an entire stake while other wallets stand on their own however, they do not have an entire network attached to it like Everest along with identity. On a technical level, what really makes Everest stand out is you do not require a smart device at all in a way. What this means is my biometrics work like wallet keys and therefore, I can go and scan my face, put my pin and get access to my account.”

Network Security

Since Everest’s key business model is based on identity and biometrics, there is a cause for concern as to how secure the network is, especially now that there is a hack in the cryptocurrency world almost every fourth night.

On the network security of Everest, Reid stated, “Everest itself and the platform is built and founded in Europe and it is GDPR compliant. This also means we have audits done regularly by the government and they make sure the policy we implement are in place.”

“On the architecture of the platform, for instance, if we have a million users, it does not mean we only have one database. What we have is a million mini data stores around the planet. For my identity, I have my biometrics, pin, proof of address, proof of age, bank balance and so on. Each of these identities are encrypted. Think of it like an onion in which each layer is encrypted. If a hacker was to look into our system, they will see a million things where they are not sure if they are getting for example the proof of address of a kid in Indonesia or if they get Bob’s proof of address for example.

“In addition to this, we have had banks and government-run pen tests on the platform. Also, the most important aspect of this is, Everest itself does not have the keys to open up a users’ identity. This is like a genesis block and we separated the keys for that.”

Bob Reid went on to tell us more about the CRDT stablecoin, cryptocurrency regulations, how banks have too much identity and his top 5 cryptocurrency picks. Catch the full interview here.