The State of Web3 Wallets — understanding the current landscape, offerings, and what’s exciting!
We can take a look at some current offerings today:
The wallet business in web3 is interesting — it operates more like safety deposit boxes than bank accounts if we were to provide web2 counterexamples.
Some macros on why the wallet business is relevant:
- 300mm people own crypto globally
- 2020: 52mm wallet users >> 2021: 80mm wallet users (54% growth)
- 371% growth in total value of transactions on Ethereum 2020–2021
- 18% of crypto skeptics have an app without trading
Understanding the way the wallet providers make money is important: topline can be generated from fees on swaps, management, trading, loans, spreads, interchanges and investment profits.
From this, we can deduct that main KPI’s are MAU/DAU, user retention, chain integrations, and distribution of swap/trading/loan/etc volume.
Some stats on notable providers:
- Metamask (2016): 21mm MAU / $2bn transaction volume over 6 months / $450mm raised / ConsenSys $7bn valuation
- Rainbow (2019): $19mm raised / $118mm valuation
- Argent (2021): $58mm raised / $205mm valuation / 70k total wallets
Offering trends
Technical
- safety
- integration
- cross chain transfer
- catalog / explore
- dApp integration
- yield
Design
- on-ramp simplicity (Rainbow)
- UI / UX (Rainbow)
- biometric access
- social recovery (Argent)
- transparency
- institutional benefits
Social
- NFTs / gallery asset display
- project transparency
- community driven
- web2 -> web3 transition (Robinhood)
Overall, providers are moving in these directions:
- safety in retaining assets with preventative protections in place
- ease and speed in onboarding and comprehensibility
- specificity in function and demographic
- joy in experience and use
