Table of Contents
At The Founder, we continuously explore the minds behind groundbreaking innovations in the tech and crypto space. Today, we have the pleasure of interviewing Sean Li, the Co-Founder of Magic Labs, a company dedicated to simplifying the on-chain experience. Magic Labs, known for its developer kit that creates crypto wallets with simple passwordless logins, has now introduced Newton Wallet, a smart wallet that enables self-driving money via AI agents across multiple blockchains. In this interview, Sean shares his journey, insights, and the vision behind Magic Labs' latest innovation.
Q. Sean, tell us a little about your background. What led you to co-found Magic Labs?
I’m a designer at heart—I love taking complex things and making them simple for users.
Before Magic, I started a company that made it easier for developers to work with containers. We ended up selling it to Docker, and that product became Docker Desktop, which millions of developers now use every day.
I was inspired by Ethereum’s vision for web3 as a way to upgrade our financial system. But in 2018, I realized how hard it was for everyday people to get started—setting up a crypto wallet felt like jumping through hoops, and a single mistake with a seed phrase could mean losing everything. So, we built a Stripe-like SDK that lets apps create wallets for users with something as simple as an email, SMS, or social login.
Since then, Magic has helped onboard over 44 million wallets, working with awesome web3 apps like Helium, WalletConnect, and Immutable, plus major enterprises like Forbes, Mattel, and Naver.
Q. What excites you the most about working at the intersection of blockchain and user experience?
We are at the cusp of the most exciting intersection in technology—where blockchain and AI, evolving at lightspeed, are reshaping how the next generation interacts with the internet. Blockchain’s programmable trust and money, combined with AI agents’ ability to make traditional UI obsolete, will redefine how everyday consumers engage with money and digital assets. Imagine a fully automated financial concierge—a robo-advisor in your pocket—working tirelessly to grow your wealth while you sleep, all in a secure, verifiable, and trustless way. This future is only possible with web3.
Q. Magic Labs started with a vision to simplify wallets. How has that journey evolved over the years?
We started Magic Labs with a fundamental belief: crypto adoption was being held back by poor user experience—especially the friction of wallet creation and security. Users frequently lost assets by mishandling wallets backed by seed phrases, making onboarding a daunting task. Our initial focus was to solve this by enabling self-custodial wallet creation using familiar authentication methods like email and social login.
That approach resonated with both developers and users, and today, we've helped onboard over 44 million wallets worldwide through partnerships with companies like Immutable, Polymarket, Forbes, WalletConnect, and Helium.
As the ecosystem evolved, we realized that simplifying initial access was just the beginning. DeFi has demonstrated the incredible potential of Web3, remaining one of crypto’s most compelling use cases across multiple cycles. Yet, onboarding remains a major hurdle—users must navigate a complex landscape before they can truly experience the magic of web3. This challenge is further compounded by blockchain fragmentation, as the proliferation of networks increases friction and complexity.
The rapid advancement of AI agent technology presents a promising solution—offering the ability to automate away these complexities. However, users need seamless solutions for cross-chain operations, permission management, and integration with emerging AI-powered tools. This realization led us to develop Newton Wallet, powered by the Newton Keystore Protocol—a natural evolution of our original vision.
Where we once focused on abstracting away seed phrases and private keys, we are now removing blockchain complexity and cumbersome UI altogether. Our journey has evolved from simplifying wallets to building a wallet infrastructure layer that makes the entire blockchain ecosystem more accessible—whether users interact directly or through AI agents.
Q. Newton is described as the trust layer for autonomous finance. Can you break that down in simple terms for our readers?
Newton allows users to create a code of law for AI agents, enabling them to operate within your set parameters, without the AI agents having direct access to your assets. Think of Newton as a universal remote control for AI-driven finance - you set the rules, and agents execute within those parameters across any blockchain.
Newton consists of a few key elements. Newton Keystore (stewarded by the Magic Newton Foundation) is the foundational infrastructure for AI-driven interactions on-chain, enabling secure collaboration between humans and AI agents through a permissions protocol. Just as Ethereum introduced programmability to blockchain, Newton Keystore brings programmability to wallet permissions. Magic Labs is building Newton Wallet—powered by Newton Keystore—that lets humans and AI agents work together safely through a system that's verifiable, interoperable, and keeps users in complete control of their assets.
Q. Newton Wallet is being positioned as “smarter than a smart wallet.” What key problems does it solve for both developers and users?
Newton Wallet brings together the most essential features users look for in a wallet: interoperability across apps and chains, configurable security through a modular architecture, and automation by other wallets or agents—similar to granting power of attorney. All of this is built on cutting-edge on-chain smart contract wallet technology powered by the Newton Keystore Protocol, designed to enable automation with built-in permissions and verifiability.
As a foundational product, Newton Wallet showcases the protocol’s vision: putting digital assets on autopilot while maintaining a high level of trust and security. It allows users to set predefined rules for AI agents to follow—without ever exposing their assets to risk by handing over a plaintext private key that could be hacked, misused, or even controlled by a human behind the scenes.
Of course, all of this is designed with multichain in mind, ensuring that assets can move seamlessly across ecosystems while drastically simplifying the user experience.
Q. One of the biggest challenges in Web3 is onboarding users seamlessly. How does Magic Labs approach this issue differently from other solutions?
As pioneers in solving UX challenges in Web3, we are unafraid to challenge the norm and take a different approach. In 2018, when the de-facto wallet standard relied on browser extensions and seed phrases, we introduced email-based wallets—onboarding over 40 million mainstream wallets.
Now, the space is evolving: from off-chain EOA wallets to on-chain smart wallets, from single-chain ecosystems to multichain, and from human-only blockchain interactions to a world where AI agents participate alongside users.
We are fundamentally rethinking what wallets can do in this new era—pushing boundaries and designing the wallet and contributing to the Magic Newton Foundation’s efforts to build the protocol from the ground up to enable the most interoperable, modular, and automatable experience.
Just as Apple builds both hardware and software to deliver the best possible UX, we believe that achieving seamless Web3 UX requires owning the underlying protocol. If you're serious about Web3 UX, you'll need your own protocol.
And we are doing all of this while staying true to Web3’s core ethos—ensuring self-custody, preserving user control, and not compromising on UX.
Q. Cross-chain functionality has been a major hurdle for blockchain adoption. How does Newton Wallet streamline this experience?
The challenge with cross-chain operations today is fragmentation. Each blockchain functions as its own isolated island, with separate wallets, configurations, and permission systems.
Newton Wallet solves this by leveraging Newton Keystore’s unified permissions, which work seamlessly across all supported blockchains. When you set up permission rules, they update atomically across networks, ensuring consistency. For example, if you want an AI to help manage your DeFi positions, your permissions will apply uniformly across every chain—without the need for separate configurations.
For users, this means they no longer have to think about which chain they're using—it just works. There’s no need for multiple wallets or redundant permission setups for each blockchain. Everything is managed through a single, intuitive interface.
Q. With security being a growing concern in the crypto space, how does Magic Labs ensure robust security and compliance?
Security and compliance have always been foundational to Magic. We built the first-ever KMS (Key Management System) infrastructure for embedded wallets that is both SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001 compliant—still remains the only one to this date. This is one of the key reasons why top enterprises like Forbes, Mattel, and Naver trust Magic.
Now, we’re taking security to the next level with modular smart wallets, which enable progressive security disclosure based on user needs, and session keys, powered by permissions, ensuring that assets can only move according to predefined user rules.
Magic Labs built Newton Wallet with security as the foundational principle through a critical architectural decision: separation of verification and asset holdings. The Newton Keystore only stores and verifies permissions - it never holds user assets.
Every transaction is verified in real-time using zero-knowledge proofs, creating cryptographic certainty that operations match user intent. This protects against both malicious attacks and AI errors.
For compliance, this architecture creates clear audit trails while preserving user privacy. The system is also designed to be modular, allowing security updates without disrupting the entire network, and permissions can implement sophisticated security policies like multi-signature requirements.
Q. Magic Labs has some major partnerships, including Immutable and Helium. How do these collaborations contribute to the growth of Newton?
These partnerships have been incredibly valuable for a few reasons. First, they've given us millions of real users to learn from. Building products in a vacuum is never as effective as getting real feedback from actual people using your technology every day.
Second, working with diverse platforms has exposed us to different use cases. Prediction markets operate differently from IoT networks, which operate differently from NFT marketplaces. This variety has helped us build Newton Wallet to be flexible enough for any application.
Third, Magic has onboarded over 200k developers to date. Through our platform and reach, we can seamlessly enable these developers to leverage the capabilities of Newton Keystore—such as session keys and permission management—for those looking to upgrade to this new system.
Q. Looking ahead, what’s next for Magic Labs? Are there any future innovations or developments you can share?
We're focused on building what we call the "autonomous multichain economy" – a future where AI agents help manage our digital lives while human users maintain control.
In the near term, we're expanding Newton Wallet to support more blockchains beyond Ethereum, including Solana, Move-based chains and others. We're also developing more sophisticated permission systems that will allow multiple AI agents to collaborate on complex tasks while maintaining security boundaries.
Longer-term, we envision Newton becoming the standard infrastructure for AI-human collaboration in crypto. Just as Ethereum brought programmability to blockchain, with Newton Wallet we're bringing programmability to wallet permissions – opening up entirely new possibilities for what can be built.
We're also establishing community forums where users and builders can help shape this future. Some of the most exciting innovations will come from our community, and we're creating the tools and infrastructure to support their ideas and easily integrate with Newton Wallet.
Magic Labs continues to push the boundaries of Web3 innovation, making blockchain more accessible and functional for developers and users alike. With Newton Wallet, Sean Li and his team are paving the way for a truly unified on-chain experience. The Founder thanks Sean for his time and insights, and we look forward to seeing how Magic Labs shapes the future of Web3.
