The Unbundling of Wallets
Originally published on Twitter on June 30, 2022
I firmly believe we won’t all just be using MetaMask in a few years. Let me explain why wallets are about to unbundle.
We’re seeing the most varied distribution of user personas in crypto’s history. With each innovation cycle, more and more people were brought into the ecosystem. While all these groups overlap, they come with very different preferences.
2009 (the OGs) attracted people interested in stateless money/innovative P2P computing. 2014 brought in high caliber software developers excited about the new design space of smart contracts.
2017 brought in tech-savvy finance people eager to experiment with DeFi. And the latest wave attracted more retail users buying their first and only NFT: online creators, digital artists, and gamers.
All of these groups interface with entirely different types of applications. A logical extension is that they seek different things out of their primary, interoperable web3 UI, which is their wallet.
For example, an NFT trader likely wants a wallet that displays their collection and tracks floor prices. A degen likely wants to see the health of their leverage positions across different protocols, the status of their staking APYs, etc.
And mass consumers interested in experimenting with web3 social likely want a sleek, clean UI with nothing I mentioned above to cloud their UX; it will also probably be educational. Mass retail also wants separate wallets to not share personal financial data.
This trend largely mimics what happened to marketplace businesses in the early 2000s. Craigslist focused on initial discovery for online marketplaces to find product-market fit, then quickly saw new competitors offering more curated, verticalized experiences eat its market share.
While not a 1:1 analogy, the trend is clear: when a wider base of users seek a very specific product experience, they have historically gone to a UI matching that particular need. Why would wallets be any different?
If you’re building a more verticalized wallet and want to chat, reach out — I look forward to hearing from you.
**
Originally published on Twitter on June 30, 2022
Disclaimer
All information contained herein is for general information purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation or solicitation to buy or sell any investment and should not be used in the evaluation of the merits of making any investment decision. It should not be relied upon for accounting, legal or tax advice or investment recommendations. You should consult your own advisers as to legal, business, tax, and other related matters concerning any investment. None of the opinions or positions provided herein are intended to be treated as legal advice or to create an attorney-client relationship. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by Variant. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, Variant has not independently verified such information. Any investments or portfolio companies mentioned, referred to, or described are not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by Variant, and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results. A list of investments made by funds managed by Variant (excluding investments for which the issuer has not provided permission for Variant to disclose publicly as well as unannounced investments in publicly traded digital assets) is available at https://variant.fund/portfolio. Variant makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation. This post reflects the current opinions of the authors and is not made on behalf of Variant or its Clients and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Variant, its General Partners, its affiliates, advisors or individuals associated with Variant. The opinions reflected herein are subject to change without being updated. All liability with respect to actions taken or not taken based on the contents of the information contained herein are hereby expressly disclaimed. The content of this post is provided “as is;” no representations are made that the content is error-free.