How Legend Labs Supports an All-In-One DeFi Superapp with Turnkey

Learn how this emerging onchain finance app simplified private key management while accelerating time-to-market with Turnkey.

• $1M+ saved by choosing Turnkey vs. building in-house
• 100% of users covered by self-serve account recovery
• 9 months of development time saved

“Turnkey just delivers where it matters most — secure key management, flexible infrastructure, and email-based wallet recovery. No bloat or unnecessary complexity involved.” — Jayson Hobby, CEO at Legend Labs

About

Legend Labs is building the future of onchain finance with a non-custodial DeFi platform that rivals web2 in simplicity. Established by former Coinbase and Compound engineers, the company has raised $15 million in funding from several prominent investors, including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Coinbase Ventures.

Challenge

Launching a secure and user-friendly DeFi app against the clock

As one of the most-anticipated DeFi apps of 2025, Legend knew it had to move quickly to capitalize on this influx of early interest. While its team had already put in the legwork to establish a user-friendly UI and smart contracts, the next crucial step was securing non-custodial wallet infrastructure, specifically within private key management.

The dilemma? Choosing whether to build this infrastructure in-house or outsource to a Wallet-As-a-Service (WaaS) provider. While building the infrastructure in-house would enable Legend to maintain complete control over its security and architecture, it would also incur a hefty upfront cost and countless hours of internal bandwidth. There was also the issue of maintenance and updates, which turn a perceived one-time investment into a perpetual resource drain. 

With these considerations in mind, alongside the desire to launch quickly, Legend began searching for a WaaS provider that was sophisticated enough to work within its system, but also would uphold similar security standards as if the team built it themselves.

When vetting WaaS providers, Legend found that many were too feature-heavy, adding unnecessary complexity while increasing integration risk. Fortunately, it wasn't long before its team discovered Turnkey — a WaaS solution built specifically to streamline private key management across DeFi applications.

“Building key management infrastructure ourselves would’ve taken months to a year — not just to develop, but to properly secure. The level of security auditing required is intense, and the cost easily would’ve crossed a million dollars, not counting the opportunity cost.”

Solution

Turnkey’s flexible and non-custodial wallet infrastructure

Legend partnered with Turnkey to offload private key management without sacrificing security, compliance, or control. By abstracting the complexities of private key management, Legend reclaimed the bandwidth needed to refine its native wallet experiences for a timely and successful launch.

With Turnkey, Legend benefits from:

• Hands-off key management: Turnkey owned key management behind the scenes via secure enclaves, trusted execution environments (TEEs) that cryptographically attest to the code running inside. Because keys are encrypted at rest and only decrypted after biometric user approval, Legend effortlessly retains its non-custodial status while ensuring secure and performant signing flows.
• User-controlled account recovery: With Turnkey's self-serve email recovery, Legend users can regain access to their wallets independently. This process ensures manual interventions are avoided while keeping the on-platform experience scalable and user-friendly.
• Faster launch, lower costs: Turnkey's secure and flexible key management infrastructure empowered the Legend team to avoid months of development and over $1M in projected resource and audit costs. But most importantly, it's accelerating time-to-market, helping Legend to capitalize on an influx of retail trader interest.

“Doing private key storage yourself is a tricky process. It’s high-stakes, time-consuming, and full of security risks. Turnkey made it easy to do it the right way by handling key management behind the scenes.”

Results

Months of development time saved and a clear path to growth

By delegating key management to Turnkey, the Legend team reclaimed bandwidth to focus on enhancing their app, which is now on track for a successful launch.

• $1M+ saved by choosing Turnkey vs. building in-house
• 100% of users covered by self-serve account recovery
• 9 months of development time saved

Moving forward, Legend is eager to continue working with Turnkey not just as a provider, but as a long-term partner in delivering secure, scalable DeFi experiences.

“Turnkey is just great to work with — collaborative, supportive, and always looking for ways to help their partners succeed.”

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