A lot has happened this past year, and if you've followed Hive account@keychain account posts, you know that we've never stopped building features and improving our projects, whether our mobile Apps (available on Android and iOS), our extensions (available on all Chromium browsers and Firefox), or our other projects.
Let's start with some numbers to put Hive Keychain in perspective:
The current proposal is coming to an end soon, but there's still much we want to do to help the Hive ecosystem thrive, hence this new proposal.
Hive Keychain DHF
This new proposal will start on May 15th, the date at which the current one will expire, there will be no overlap between the two proposals.
Our vision remains unchanged, meaning that this proposal will continue to focus on three different main goals:
Development: Maintaining, improving, and adding features to our extensions, mobile Apps and other products, based on the ecosystem needs and popular user demands. This will always be our first priority.
Cooperation with services and dApps, inside and outside the Hive ecosystem
Bridging Hive to the broader ecosystem with multichain integration
I. Development
Developing new features for our Hive products is and always will be our core objective. Here is an overview of what has been achieved in the past 12 months, and what we want to do next.
From a single extension a few years ago, we are now working on the nine projects described below, plus a few minor ones.
1/ Keychain Extension
Our extensions (available on all Chromium and Firefox browsers) are at the forefront of our development efforts, and as such, are the first to come with new features. Here's a summary of what we've worked on this year:
Added automatic staking for Hive Engine tokens
Improved multisig detection and integration
Added 2FA integration using Hive Multisig. Your active transactions can now have an additional security layer by requesting a One-Time Password
You can now use Keychain in detached mode, making sure the extension popup will not close by itself
We reduced the package size by refactoring the project (using hive-tx instead of dhive). This became necessary due to the Firefox add-ons requirements
Implemented a domain blacklist
Implemented the hive-uri scheme support: Add a hive:// URL to your post to have the link transformed into a Keychain request.
Export all your accounts via QR code: convenient if you have multiple accounts you want to export to mobile at once
Refactor some more features to use keychain-commons, allowing us to have the same code running in more and more places for the extension and mobile Apps (better maintainability)
Finished the integration of OpenPeak Notifications
Improved the Onboarding tutorial based on user feedback
Released the vesting routes security feature into production
Export transactions: lets you export all the transactions of monetary value between given dates. Convenient for accounting
VSC Integration: now that VSC has launched its mainnet, we are making a few adjustments based on their new documentation, and will release VSC requests for developers soon, followed by a UI for our users to perform transactions on VSC
Fixed account import when several keys are identical
Updated which tokens appear in the portfolio based on user preferences
RPC Handling: we've started reworking the way our automatic RPC handling could work, using the excellent Hive Beacon from OpenPeak team (under development)
Keyless extension (under development): a really cool feature that will let you use Keychain on "unsafe" computers by transforming every dApp request into a HiveAuth request for you to sign from the safety of your mobile device
External buy/swap (pending additional integrations and release, see II.2)
Here's a non-exhaustive list of what we plan to work on, on the extension side:
Finishing the development of the VSC, RPC, and Keyless features (see above)
Pushing the external buy/swap feature to production once our partners are ready
Improving upon the existing notification feature to add parametrizable push notifications
Making the notifications configuration easier through templates
Add a ticker and graph to token pages
Safari extension: this has been requested by several users, so we'll study whether this is feasible or not
Changing keys: an easy way to change your account keys, directly from Keychain
Uniform warning system for dApps requests and Keychain popup, using badges that we started developing for EVM
Adding a contact list: Add contacts and associate a memo, handy for frequent transfers to users or exchanges. A warning will be displayed if the user is not in the contact list yet.
Adding missing requests to Keychain (i.e. savings requests). Although these are already doable on Keychain using a generic broadcast, specific requests have the advantage of having a specific confirmation page, much more readable for the user than the raw transaction
Adding NFT values to the portfolio
Modifying hive-uri schemes to also work with Hive Engine operations
Adding shortcuts for faster navigation in the extension
Adding the receiver's profile picture on the confirmation page for better verification
Additional support for "anonymous" requests: only a handful of Keychain requests are currently accepted without a targeted username. Following developer's request, we will authorize this for additional operations
Adding a gamification dimension to Keychain for better retention in the ecosystem
Working on a directory of main account recovery providers, to better guide users whose accounts have been compromised
Hardware wallets integration: we are still waiting for Ledger to complete the Hive App update review, after which we will be able to allow Ledger operations on the posting key. Similarly, if other hardware wallets become Hive compatible, we will do our best to implement them promptly
Implementing community feature requests
Keeping up with new features introduced by Hard Forks
Users / Devs support
2/ Keychain Mobile
Since our mobile user base keeps growing, there are a lot of features we want to provide to make Keychain a great mobile App that would help the whole Hive mobile ecosystem thrive. As such, we put a lot of work into the mobile side this year :
Added Hive Multisig integration
Implemented 2FA (with One-Time Password) through Hive Multisig
Added notifications through OpenPeak Notifications
Export transactions features
Import/Export multiple Accounts by QR Code
Key/vesting routes change detection for a better account security
Hive Engine automated tasks (autostaking)
External buy/swap (pending additional integrations and release, see II.2)
VSC support (pending release)
Peer-to-peer onboarding: new users are now able to choose a username, generate their keys, and create a QR Code. Their friend or the person who onboarded them can then scan the QR Code and pay for their account creation with either HIVE or an account creation ticket, and include a delegation if needed.
Increased support of the hive-uri scheme
Added a domain blacklist
Added a "Receive transfer" form and corresponding QR Code
Improved the in-App browser, most notably regarding its URL detection capabilities
Improved the Portfolio and Ticker widgets to follow Keychain branding
There are many more things we want to work on the mobile side this year, including:
A big refactor: this will take some time but will save more time in the future by importing more code from keychain-commons (having more code in common between the extensions and Apps), using Expo for easier React Native version management, and improving the overall code quality
Modifying the login system to use either PIN or biometrics instead of having to use both
Giving the possibility to change the Keychain PIN
Keeping the browser state between sessions
Improving the browser based on user feedback: downloading images, reorganizing tabs, improving the responsivity when possible, adding shortcuts to favorite dApps, etc.
Implementing a contact list (see 1/)
Integrating the Hive Debit Card
Showing the balance change and the user profile picture on the transfer confirmation screen
Implementing real-time notifications (see 1/)
Adding missing Keychain requests (see 1/)
Linking to a centralized account recovery tool (see 1/)
Adding NFTs value to the portfolio widget
Considering the development of a V4V Android widget
Translating the App
Keeping up with new features introduced by Hard Forks / requested by the community
Users / Devs support.
3/ Keychain Store
We've completely refactored our Keychain Store App, the Android and iOS mobile App for store owners who want to accept payments in HIVE and HBD.
The App is now using Expo and following Keychain branding:
We've added the possibility to automatically convert the fiat value to HIVE/HBD, and to export invoices.
Big thanks to Hive account@jonsnow1983 for helping us add stores to our Keychain Store map, for a new total of 77 stores worldwide accepting HIVE/HBD payments
Most of these stores are in Venezuela, but we're glad to see that it has already reached 3 continents! We are happy to connect with other communities who want to push for our tokens adoption!
We're looking forward to improving the Apps based on the stores' feedback, and working with the community to onboard more shops on Hive to facilitate everyday payments.
We also plan on adding a way for shops to export the list of payments, for easier accounting.
4/ Keychain Swaps
In case you are not using it yet, Keychain Swap is our one-step swap between HIVE, HBD, and all Hive Engine tokens. It compares different providers to ensure the best rate possible and performs all the steps needed to realize the swap.
We've processed over 50,000 swaps, with a combined value of over $2,000,000. The most swapped tokens are HIVE and HBD, followed by SWAP.HIVE, SPS, DEC, and LEO.
This year, we've introduced a swap widget that dApps can integrate easily to generate some revenue. The widget is easy to configure from our playground.
After the Hive-Engine incident, we also improved the robustness of our backend when nodes fail.
5/ Keychain SDK & Playground
We've added new features to our Keychain SDK, most notably functions related to the VSC integration.
These functions are also available for testing on our playground and will be available in production soon. As mentioned above, we also added a Swap Widget customization tool to the playground.
This year, we will work on adding the missing Keychain requests (see 1/), such as Savings operations, to the SDK and playground.
6/ Keychain Commons
After toying with the idea of a monorepo, we've decided it would take too long to refactor and kept working on extracting common code between the extensions and Apps to keychain-commons instead.
We've refactored the project to use hive-tx instead of dhive to reduce package size (see 1/), and added code as we ported extension features to mobile.
Our planned refactor of the mobile Apps (see 2/) will allow us to extract more code there, making our entire codebase much more maintainable.
Keychain commons is available on Github and npm
7/ Landing page
We've completely redesigned our Hive Keychain landing page, available here. Hive account@manuphotos did a great job adapting it to our branding.
Additionally, it now provides shortcuts to many small tools we developed over the years, and a way to share invoices in the hive-uri format.
We plan to add more of these tools as we go along, and better integrate our documentation and playground into the site.
8/ Tutorial
Last year, we introduced our tutorial page, shown to new users on both the extensions and mobile Apps to ease them into our Hive ecosystem.
Since then, we've adjusted it based on user feedback, and are now planning to add some actions to make it more interactive.
The corresponding repository can be found here.
9/ Keychain Backend
On the backend side, we've created new APIs for our Beacon RPC integration (see 1/) and our domain blacklist.
We are also creating many new endpoints for our multichain development.
The corresponding repository can be found here.
II. Cooperation
1/ On Hive
To improve the usability of our chain, we've started getting more and more involved with the ecosystem. A few examples :
We continued working with the community to onboard more physical stores to accept HIVE/HBD payments through Keychain Store
We are working with the Hive account@vscnetwork team as mentioned earlier, and will release updates to our Apps and SDK soon to enable seamless VSC transactions
2/ Outside of Hive
Because Hive shouldn't be an island, we are also working on connecting with more third parties.
We are still waiting on a third-party to launch their Hive On-Ramp, but we already implemented their API, so we will be ready to provide it fast once it is approved.
We recently made one more partnership for Hive/Other-cryptos swaps and will begin integration soon. We were initially looking to release this feature with the on-ramp, but we might release it first since it is taking so long.
Additionally, we try our best to support Web2 services that want to make the move to Hive, when they are referred to us by community members.
III. Multichain
As you may know, following a great majority of users' support, we've started putting a small portion of our time and resources towards making Keychain multichain, by first working on EVM chains integration.
It is taking more time than we previously anticipated, but we are making good progress, notably thanks to Hive account@cedricguillas work. At this point, Keychain can import or create accounts, auto-detect tokens and NFTs, display tokens, transfer, and show their history. It can also display NFTs and transfer them. More importantly, we've finished preparing Keychain to respond to the different EVM requests to connect to Web3 dApps.
There is still some work to be done before we are ready to deploy it. In the meantime, here's some eye candy:
IV. Additional work
1/ Support
We are always striving to give a timely response to issues and feature requests reported on our Discord.
Big thanks to Hive account@thekittygirl for her commitment to helping users on our channel and others!
2/ Community management
Hive account@manuphotos is doing an amazing job growing our X/Twitter presence and promoting both Keychain and the whole Hive ecosystem through his daily tweets.
Thanks to his work, we gained another thousand followers this year.
Additionally, we are regularly holding giveaway events to push forward Hive's presence on X, with around 100,000 HP delegated in the past year.
3/ Translation
Translations are nearly up to date in five languages on the extension, landing page, and tutorial pages.
On top of some more translations for the latest features, we will work on adding more languages and translating the mobile Apps as well.
4/ Infrastructure
We are maintaining several auto-scaling servers for our API backend, Keychain Swap, and our other services.
V. Budget
For this new proposal, we are applying for the same daily budget of 600 HBD for 12 months, since our team size and overall expenses remain the same.
We commit to writing regular updates. We hope you enjoyed following our development updates so far.
VII. Downloads and Contact
You can find download information for the Apps and extensions, as well as links to different resources on our landing page.
As mentioned above, we can be reached on our Discord server
to develop our "Friend onboarding" feature
of the 
team to see how to best integrate the Hive Debit Card on Keychain
team as mentioned earlier, and will release updates to our Apps and SDK soon to enable seamless VSC transactions
