Explore the mechanism advantages and 5 shortcomings of the DeFi platform Infinex

Author: c4lvin , ChainLight Analyst

Compiled by: Felix, PANews

Perhaps most people learn about Infinex through Kaito Connect votes. It has been nearly a month since the Infinex dashboard was added to Kaito AI, and I haven't seen much research articles about Infinex. This article aims to analyze the structure of Infinex and its project vision.

What is Infinex ?

Infinex is a wallet (or portfolio management) platform designed to provide an excellent user experience (UX) focused on seamless cross-chaining in a variety of computing environments, but the number of chains supported is not yet very large. For EVM chains, Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon, Unichain, Base, Blast and Berachain are supported, while for non-EVM chains, only Solana is currently supported.

Infinex can be roughly divided into two parts: Wallet and Vault. Wallet is often referred to as the disposable wallet “Burner Wallet.” (Note: Burner wallet is only used to store cryptocurrencies that are sufficient for one or several interactions, i.e., the temporary place for liquidity). On the other hand, a Vault can be considered a wallet into which funds can be passively deposited without the need for operations such as redemption.

Infinex is implemented as a web application and is optimized for the PC environment. As can be seen from the menu on the left of the screenshot, in addition to basic wallet features such as wallet, Vault and activities (such as transactions), Swidge (multi-chain exchange), separate airdrops for Infinex users, and Earn functions for checking deposit points/interests.

Why choose Infinex ?

If Infinex is considered a wallet attribute, it is difficult to find outstanding features compared to other wallets. Multi-chain wallets such as Phantom and OKX Wallet are considered very useful for both EVM and non-EVM chains, and are already equipped with airdrop inspectors, Earn inspectors, and multi-chain redemption capabilities. CEXs like Binance and Bybit also offer these features, as well as additional benefits like separate Earn plans. So, what are the advantages of using Infinex actually offer?

Security

For users who rely on CEX as liquidity centers, it is not uncommon to have funds stolen due to SIM card exchange attacks or email hacking attacks. Similarly, for on-chain unmanaged wallets, many wallets have been stolen due to mnemonic/private key leakage. Infinex seems to have put a lot of effort into its structure to reduce these risks. By limiting login to keys, it raises wallet security to the same level as user biometric data and physical device security. As shown in the screenshot below, attempting to log in on your Mac prompts a Touch ID request. Most importantly, it supports 2FA through an authenticator application, which makes it difficult for an attacker to gain control.

In addition, Vault can be restored through smart accounts.

Since Vault is implemented with a custom smart account, it can be restored with pre-registered on-chain addresses and emails. Each Vault is initially deployed on Base and Solana. For example:

https://basescan.org/address/0x4c77dD4e616FaDF448a8D3F22D5FeC81402A067f

https://solscan.io/account/4rbKc2pMpQeFw1QupJ8f7VRJda9WkFmRsqFmBC8DXD5p

For other chains, when your Vault needs to be traded or restored, it is deployed to the requested chain. For recovery, it won't show up directly in the dashboard, but the team will provide a link with an interface to do this, or a way to go directly into the chain via user requests. It provides better security from a user's perspective compared to CEX and other unmanaged wallets.

No transaction fee

Perhaps some people don't know yet that using built-in Swap/Bridge features in on-chain wallets often costs a high fee. For example, Metamask charges 0.875%, Phantom charges 0.85%, and Rabby charges 0.25% on its built-in Swap/Bridge feature. However, Infinex does not charge Swap/Bridge, making it as attractive as depositing funds into CEX or using a CEX-backed wallet.

Infinex seems to position its Swidge (Swap + Bridge) functionality as a major highlight. To this end, it recently integrated 1inch Fusion as an aggregator, demonstrating its commitment to providing users with the best Swidge experience.

Provide passive airdrop for users

Getting airdrops is perhaps one of the most important reasons to use Infinex. Infinex recently airdropped $PENGU tokens to all users, and given the degree of enthusiasm of its integration with the ecosystem, more passive airdrops are likely to occur in the future.

It is worth noting that Infinex's vision is to realize and replace the user experience provided by CEX. As shown in the tweet below, the Infinex team continuously compares the user experience of the platform with the user experience of CEX, emphasizing its advantages.

Apart from simple deposits, why deposit funds into CEX? Perhaps mainly because CEX has Earn plans like Launchpool and Launchpad - depositing stablecoins or specific tokens to get newly listed tokens. This can be said to be the key to using CEX.

Since Infinex has the advantage of being “better” over CEX, Infinex may also launch similar or even better airdrops or Earn plans. This is something that needs long-term attention, and it would be great if the official team can provide some information on this.

Improvement suggestions

After briefly using Infinex, I noticed that there are still several improvements to it:

More chains should be supported

The number of supported chains is still very limited. Especially as new L1 chains are being introduced more and more frequently, rapid integration with various L1 and non-EVM chains outside of EVM L2s seems to be necessary. Supporting DeFi-focused chains like Sui and Mantle may help to quickly increase users. In addition, support for Bitcoin and Ordinals should also be added.

Whitelist addresses should be supported

There is a "Move" feature in Wallet/Vault, which is a separate feature that supports asset transfers between Wallet and Vault. But whitelist transfers should also be supported in "send", which is not only applicable to Wallet <-> Vault interactions, but also to other known wallets owned by users.

Swidge user experience

The current Swidge only supports redemption between addresses in the user's wallet, and does not allow the recipient's address to be specified. The ability to specify a receiver address in a cross-chain transaction is a powerful feature, and its lack can cause inconvenience to transfer funds from the wallet to the Vault.

Lack of incentives

As mentioned above, Infinex may soon offer an attractive Earn program, but for the moment, incentive programs do not exactly match their availability. Although the official team is investing a lot of energy to attract users, I hope Infinex can provide users with a more attractive environment as soon as possible.

Limited availability

Infinex still lacks the versatility of completely replacing on-chain wallets. For example, it cannot be used with external Web services through the WalletConnect API, which limits utility. The proposal for this issue was proposed in June 2024, but due to some issues, it seems that they are still unresolved.

in conclusion

Infinex is a new integrated portfolio management platform designed to enable security and availability of CEX and on-chain wallets. As the project is still in its early stages, it has some shortcomings in community building and user experience, but the project is still a potential project worthy of attention.

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