Introduction

At MIN3, we are dedicated to developing products that help our clients achieve their strategic goals. One such innovation is our Onchain Wallet Creation tool, designed to provide a seamless and familiar wallet creation experience for users, overcoming issues present in current market solutions. This article will explore what an onchain wallet is, the reasons behind our tool's creation, the benefits of our approach, and a case study of Coinbase's Smart Wallet product, which offers similar functionality.

What is an Onchain Wallet?

An onchain wallet (digital wallet/ crypto wallet) is a software application that allows users to securely manage and store their crypto assets and interact with decentralised applications (dApps) built on blockchains like Ethereum.

Why We Created the Tool

Setting up an onchain wallet is the first step to interacting with the blockchain ecosystem. Therefore, ensuring the wallet setup and usage processes are seamless is critical for the mass adoption of the technology. While the technology is improving, because blockchain technology is relatively nascent, the native user experience (UX) of existing solutions is still generally complex and unintuitive. These issues present significant barriers to entry for many users, including many of our clients’ customers. 

Common problems associated with interacting with onchain wallets include:

Wallet types: The range of wallet types — hot, cold, hardware, software, self-custodial, custodial — and the differences between each type, can be confusing.

Brand proliferation: The multitude of brands available can be overwhelming.

Blockchain compatibility: Many wallets are limited to a single blockchain ecosystem, such as Bitcoin, the Ethereum Virtual Machine, or Solana. 

Terminology: Terms like "private keys," "seed phrases," and "multi-sigs" can confuse users.

Mobile optimisation: Many wallets are not optimised for mobile devices.

Browser compatibility: Some wallets have issues with different operating systems and browsers.

Setup complexity: When setting up their onchain wallets, users often face multiple steps and cluttered, unintuitive interfaces. 

Usage friction: The need for gas tokens and digital signatures when making transactions adds friction and complexity.

Account recovery: If you lose your seed phrase there is often no way to recover your account, meaning your assets are lost forever.

We built our Onchain Wallet Creation tool to mitigate these issues by providing a user-friendly experience that hides the complexities of blockchain technology. This is often referred to as a web2.5 approach, which combines the benefits of web3 technology with the user-friendliness of web2 applications. By leveraging a web2.5 approach, we enable our clients to remove the friction associated with wallet generation and management, enabling them to provide a seamless experience for their customers.

The Benefits of Our Product

The onchain wallet creation tool offers our clients several key advantages:

Seamless Integration: We create onchain wallets automatically at appropriate points in the user journey, such as during sign-up, working closely with clients' existing teams and technologies to ensure a smooth integration process.

Familiar onboarding and sign-in options: Wallets can be set up and accessed with email and password or social log-in (e.g. Facebook, Google), removing the need to remember/ securely store seed phrases. 

No Transaction Fees: Our approach enables clients to cover gas fees for their users, removing the need for users to fund wallets with gas tokens.

No confusing terminology: Clients can control the language used around wallet setup and management. Reducing the complexity removes the need to explain confusing features like seed phrases and private keys. 

Customisation: For client engagements, we tailor the tool to meet the specific needs as required by the use case and to align with the client’s brand.

Flexibility for Enthusiasts: For those well-versed in web3, we can offer the option to transfer assets to their own wallets, providing complete control.

Account Recovery: Users have the ability to recover their accounts if they forget their login details.

Case Study: Coinbase

Earlier this year, Coinbase launched the Coinbase Smart Wallet (CSW). It is encouraging to see a Fortune 500 company following a similar approach to our own. The CSW uses much of the same underlying technology as our Onchain Wallet Creation tool, exemplifying the importance and potential of improved wallet technology in driving mass adoption of blockchain solutions.

The CSW offers many of the benefits we have outlined above and that are provided by our own onchain wallet creation tool (gasless transactions, seamless onboarding etc.). However, it also incorporates features that enhance its compatibility with the Coinbase app (which has over 50 million users), including removing the need for app users to fund their CSWs by enabling them to execute transactions with the CSW using their Coinbase app balances.  Additionally, CSW is seamlessly integrated with major decentralised applications (dApps) and supports multiple Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chains, providing users with extensive access to the blockchain ecosystem from a single platform.

While CSW showcases the capabilities of enhanced wallet technology, our approach at MIN3 offers a higher degree of customisation and requires less technical know-how from the user. We handle the technical complexities, making our solution more suitable for specific client use cases. 

Demo the Tool

To demonstrate the capabilities of our Onchain Wallet Creation tool, we automatically create wallets for everyone who makes an account on our website. This allows you to see firsthand how seamless and user-friendly the wallet creation process can be. We invite you to create an account and explore our other products (you can even mint a free AI-generated self-portrait NFT, to your wallet).