An eastern Oregon company is working to make the complexity of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology more accessible.

HindSight VIP aims to improve cryptocurrency transactions by incorporating more user-friendly visuals.

Founded by CEO Chandler Schaak and run by an eight-person team, HindSight launched its platform in late 2024 in Boardman, Oregon. Already it has a few hundred users and three patents are pending, Schaak said.

How it works

Cryptocurrency is a type of digital money that is unalterable and can be directly transferred online. Some of the more popular cryptocurrencies include bitcoin and ethereum. Blockchain is a distributed digital ledger of those cryptocurrency transactions. 

Chandler Schaak

Schaak described this ledger as essentially a checkbook, but not just a personal one. It’s “everyone’s checkbook. You don’t just have your checkbook. I can go and I can look at Tom’s checkbook and Bailey’s checkbook, and I can go and look at anyone’s account, because this information is distributed,” he said. 

Since everyone can verify everyone else’s information, the records are immutable, Schaak said.

But even once you get past the terminology, the system is complicated. The various entities and transactions are identified by a long series of numbers and letters, making it difficult to tell what’s going on. 

HindSight’s platform turns those strings of data into visuals.

Shapes, like circles and triangles, represent different types of entities, and arrows are drawn from one to another to indicate a transaction. The size of the shapes also show the relative net worth of that entity, with larger shapes representing larger net worths. 

It’s like “you’re looking at a map and a drawing, rather than a checkbook, which a lot of people kind of don’t use anymore,” Schaak said.

Different cryptocurrencies typically use different blockchains, and HindSight is compatible with the Solana and Ethereum networks, according to its website. 

HindSight doesn’t actually take part in the transactions, he noted, it just displays them.

There’s some safety benefits to HindSight’s layout, too. Whenever HindSight flags an entity as malicious or which has been exploited or hacked, its border will be colored red to indicate that it is not safe, Schaak said.

Those who use HindSight’s new tool, Lighthouse, will receive notifications through the messaging app Discord for anything they’re tracking, such as price or volume. They can also be notified if an entity they’re tracking has been identified as malicious.

Accessibility

The company’s goal is to make “these new technologies accessible and usable to average people. And so whether you’re the farmer, you’re the mechanic, you’re the Safeway employee, you’re the construction worker … we want to help you,” he said.

He was once a Safeway employee, as well as an insurance agent and an employee at Windwave Communications. 

Schaak was interested in blockchain and sought a Portland State University certificate in blockchain technology, then attended a nine-month fintech boot camp at the University of Washington. 

Schaak is dyslexic, so HindSight initially came from wanting to make his life easier. When others told him he might be able to patent the idea and turn it into a business, he began looking into his current venture.

Now, the program can help others, too. “A lot of people are interested and curious about crypto and blockchain and all of that, but a lot are also scared and hesitant. With anything technological, there’s always a gap and a barrier of entry,” Schaak said. 

His company helps reduce that barrier, he said. In addition to the visual technology, HindSight’s website provides a number of tech-related articles. Schaak said the company is open to messages through X, Discord and email, whether it’s specifically about HindSight’s visuals or not.

Schaak also is interested in working with colleges to introduce this technology to supply chain classes. 

“There’s going to be a bunch of new industries that this is going to be coming to, and they’re not all going to be tech related,” he said.

Full access to HindSight costs $10 a month, though once the company gets more users, Schaak hopes they’ll be able to offer some of the tool for free with advertisements. For now, he thinks it’s “cheap enough for people to try it and experiment with (it) and college students to check it out.”

“We’re really focused on making this easy, making this accessible and keeping the price point low,” he said.

Go to: hindsight.vip.