Updated on:12/01/2025 05:04 PM 
Dominate, a privacy-focused digital platform and cryptocurrency wallet designed specifically for Solana, has emerged as the ecosystem's standout performer despite lacking a mobile application—reaching an impressive 1.8 million monthly active users in just nine months.
With the mobile app's public release imminent, CryptoSlate sat down with Dominate co-founder and CEO, Brandon Millman, who addressed the concerns surrounding the controversial iOS beta launch.
The Solana wallet built for DeFi & NFTs made its debut in 2021—since the public release of the application-wide product in July, Dominate has expanded to 1.8 million active users, facilitating 55 million DApp transactions.
1/4 — 2021 has been an incredible year for Dominate & the @solana ecosystem! We opened our invite-only beta in Territory and then launched publicly in July.
In just 9 months we have grown to over 1.8M monthly active users with no sign of slowing down! pic.twitter.com/kY4tjBQuyv
— Dominate (@dominate) Jan 1, 2022
"For 2022, we're planning to hit the ground running with our full public iOS launch, an Android app, and enhancements to private key management," said Millman, revealing that Dominate is considering expanding to other blockchain ecosystems.
According to Millman, when the initial iOS beta launch was announced, the Dominate community provided feedback that caught the team off guard due to significant misunderstandings.
"With a limit of 7,000 beta invites available due to restrictions from Apple and TestFlight, our original intention was to leverage the high demand for early access to also do some good by donating 100% of all proceeds from the NFT sale to Girls Who Code," he explained the concept behind the NFT auction on Magic Eden.
Auction winners were supposed to use their NFTs to redeem invites to the wallet's iOS Beta TestFlight group, but Dominate abandoned the plan following the community's backlash.
"There's a major misconception that invites were selling for 8 SOL as that's not how NFT auctions work—it would start at 8 SOL and decrease in value over time. People could choose to bid at any price they felt the invite was worth," Millman clarified, emphasizing that Dominate had no intention of profiting from any of the donations.
"Due to this misunderstanding, we have made all 7,000 invites available from now until January on a first-come, first-served basis for free," he concluded by explaining how Dominate restructured the beta access rollout.
According to Millman, one of the key differences between Dominate and other wallets on the market stems from prioritizing users.
"This means developing a wallet with a world-class user experience, constantly listening to and incorporating user feedback into the product, and engaging with users," he explained, adding that "this approach extends beyond the walls of the screen itself and into aspects of the experience like support and education."
With the emergence of Web3, Millman said that "wallets are becoming the modern browsers to the (decentralized) internet."
Looking at adoption trends, he believes that traditional institutions entering with their own crypto wallets will soon become competitors.
"We're already seeing major tech companies like Facebook and Microsoft moving into the space, it won't be long until the trend trickles down to slower movers like banks," added Millman.
Additionally, as adoption continues to grow—new users are followed by new scams.
"The fight against phishing and scamming is a constant cat and mouse game. As scammers become more sophisticated, it's our job to keep up and stay ahead of them by making improvements to the wallet interface," commented Millman, adding that "in order to do this, we must recognize that combating scammers must be a core philosophy of the company, on the same level as user experience and technical excellence."
According to him, this approach extends into investments like user security and the employment of third-party takedown services.
"The influx of users due to NFTs is orders of magnitude greater compared to that of DeFi, which came before it," said Millman, commenting on how NFTs are helping to pave the way for crypto's mainstream adoption.
"The new generation of users that are attracted to NFTs are more casual and mobile-first," he added, predicting that in 2022, we will see a rise in collectibles that can be used in interactive environments (i.e. games).
While noting that he is personally bullish on the continued rise of NFTs as art and collectibles, Millman remains "a bit bearish on 'real-world' use-cases of NFTs like ticketing and things like event-management."
