As we transition to the Web3 world, we need to ask ourselves: do we need a cryptocurrency wallet to trade and store our digital assets? The answer is yes. Cryptocurrency wallets are essential for users to be able to participate in market transactions and hold onto their assets. With the development of DeFi, GameFi, and NFTs, the use of cryptocurrency wallets has become a necessary skill. As a digital asset circulation carrier and the essential medium for reaching users, cryptocurrency wallets are no longer independent products but are instead the gateway to the Web3 ecosystem.

The number of tokens lost on centralized exchanges has been increasing in recent years. However, users still prefer to store their assets in these exchanges, because they generate significant revenues. If you want to explore the world of Web3, you need to first understand how to use a crypto wallet. In this article, CGV introduces you to the crypto wallet, its ecological development, and the role it plays in the world of Web3.

1. What is the crypto wallet?

1.1 The development path of the crypto wallet

At first, crypto wallets were only for holding crypto assets and making occasional transfers. They were more for users with a lot of assets, and most people preferred to keep their money on centralized exchanges that they didn’t have to worry about.

0 applications. Since there have been many security incidents on central platforms and people’s crypto assets are in danger of being stolen, people are choosing to store their crypto in wallets instead. With the advancement of DeFi and NFT, people are using wallets to interact with protocols that are on the blockchain. Not only does this allow people to interact with a variety of protocols, but crypto wallets also have an exchange function which makes it much easier for people to use Web3.0 applications.

. The private key is the most important part of a crypto wallet as it is what allows access to the funds. However, it is also the most vulnerable part as it can be easily lost or stolen if not properly protected.

There are three main types of cryptocurrency wallets: software wallets, hardware wallets, and paper wallets. These can also be classified as hot or cold wallets, depending on how they work. A crypto wallet is mainly made up of a wallet account, a public key account, and a blockchain network. The most important parts are the public and private keys, and the mnemonics.

Wallets for cryptocurrencies do not store digital assets- they only provide the information necessary to interact with the blockchain. This information, which consists of one or more pairs of public and private keys, allows transactions of cryptocurrencies via the blockchain. The address associated with the wallet represents the location on the blockchain where cryptocurrency can be received. The public key address can be given to others so they can send cryptocurrency, but the private key- which allows access to the cryptocurrency in the wallet- should never be revealed to anyone. The private key is the most important part of the wallet to protect.

2. What are the benefits of using a wallet to access the Web3 world?

2.1 The crypto wallet has a promising future

The layout of a crypto wallet is the starting point for building a value network and a vital traffic entry for infrastructure in the blockchain era. It is also the first step to participating in digital asset transactions and related asset activities.

So far this year, cryptocurrencies have been on a tear, with more investors turning to digital assets amid a booming market. In response, companies have been working to make it easier for consumers to buy, hold and use cryptocurrencies. PayPal reported a 40% increase in new crypto wallet users in revenue in Q4 2021 and predicted that crypto services would make more progress and double in 2022. This year’s frequent market manias have confirmed this. Recently, Robinhood officially announced the launch of a crypto wallet at the Bitcoin Conference 2022 in Miami, and Opera launched an Internet browser and a crypto wallet with built-in Web3 integration. Besides, Phantom won $109 million in equity, and WalletConnect completed the A round of $ 11 million, etc. As an important entry for Web3 projects, the market expectations of crypto wallets are very impressive.

Wallets are an important part of the crypto ecosystem and are necessary for accessing DeFi applications. Some popular wallets that work well with DeFi applications include Metamesk and Bitkeep. For example, Solana’s public chain design was appealing to users but it lacked a user-friendly wallet. After Solana released the Phantom wallet, it attracted investment from companies like A16Z and Coinbase and gained a large market share.

As digital asset management platforms continue to evolve, crypto wallets are also changing. In the past, most wallets were built for a single purpose—to hold a specific type of cryptocurrency. However, with the rise of digital asset management platforms, crypto wallets are now being built to hold multiple types of cryptocurrencies. This allows users to have a single place to store all of their digital assets, which makes it easier to track and manage them. As digital asset management platforms become more popular, crypto wallets are also changing to accommodate them. In the past, most wallets were only designed to hold one type of cryptocurrency. However, now that platforms that can hold multiple types of digital assets are becoming more common, wallets are being designed to hold more than one type of cryptocurrency. This makes it easier for users to keep track of and manage all of their digital assets in one place.

0. As the number of cryptocurrency applications grows and the market expands, crypto wallets will become more than just a place to store digital assets. They will become platforms that offer a variety of services, such as wealth management products, ID management, and one-stop asset management. This will allow users to take advantage of decentralized wallets and make them an important part of Web3.0.

CGV believes that the more features a crypto wallet has, the more it will contribute to the advancement of Web3. A crypto wallet may store assets on a blockchain and act as a collection of identities when interacting in the Web3 world. Many everyday activities will be linked to a blockchain wallet, and users may even be able to browse Web3 directly through their crypto wallets. Therefore, crypto wallets are essential to the growth of the industry. As the number of users increases, so does the demand for crypto wallets. Crypto wallets are evolving into daily digital wallets, investment/deposit centers, digital identities, Web3 social media, and chain bridges, among other things.

. Web 3 wallets provide a safe place to store digital assets in the event of a hack or data breach.

As more and more people start using wallets, there are more and more cases of people having their wallets hacked. Confiant, a security agency, has found that there is a group of hackers who have been stealing people’s private information and money by creating fake wallets that look real.

A crypto wallet that provides high performance, security, and low asset management threshold will be the next focus. It is not clear which crypto wallet should be used. Let’s take a look at several wallets that are frequently used by users in the current market:

Hot wallets are wallets that are connected to the Internet in any way. On the contrary, cold wallets are disconnected from the Internet and use physical media to store keys offline, which is more secure.

3.1 Hot wallet ecology

1?BitKeep

BitKeep is a digital asset wallet that works with multiple blockchain networks. The team behind BitKeep has extensive experience and knowledge in the cryptocurrency industry and wallets. BitKeep integrates features like a cryptocurrency exchange, NFT market, and support for decentralized applications to provide users with easy access to the world of Web 3.0. Based on public data, BitKeep is one of the most popular cryptocurrency wallets in Asia in terms of number of users, revenue, and valuation.

CGV notes that the problem for new users entering the Web3 world is that the learning threshold is too high, especially when it comes to mainnet selection for wallets, asset trading, and other issues. To lower the threshold for users, BitKeep has introduced several distinctive features:

• Buy any asset with any digital asset. BitKeep realizes quick exchange on DEXs such as Uniswap, Sushiswap, PancakeSwap, etc., and one-click cross-chain exchange for any asset of Ethereum, BSC, HECO, Polygon, Avax, Fantom, OEC, TRX, Solana.
• Save gas fees. Users do not have to deposit the corresponding mainnet tokens in advance as gas fees when transferring or trading via the BitKeep wallet, and can directly use the existing tokens to exchange, which saves the extra costs incurred by two exchanges, and simplifies the steps of exchanging mainnet tokens.
• Buy NFTs easily. BitKeep NFT Market is an aggregated NFT market with cross-platform search capabilities, as well as support for receiving and transferring tokens and bulk transfers of tokens, allowing users to purchase NFTs using any token on the same chain.

CGV sees that many investment firms are putting money into BitKeep. On May 18, 2022, BitKeep raised $15 million, with a value of $100 million. Firms such as KuCoin Ventures, A&T Capital, Matrixport, Bixin Capital, Peak Capital, and YM Capital have all invested money into the company.

2?MetaMesk

MetaMask is a crypto wallet that is easy to use and supports iOS/Android and major browsers. It has become the standard wallet for all decentralized applications (Dapps). For users, MetaMask is an “electronic bank account” that can manage crypto assets, and users can use it for online and offline consumption, transfers, mortgage loans and other operations. It is also a “passport” to the decentralized network under the Web3 concept, through which users can connect to most platforms in the blockchain field.

The difference in security lies in the fact that keys are stored on a central server rather than on the site itself. This isolation of the storage environment from the site environment makes it a more secure option. In terms of connectivity, the interface between Ethereum and various DeFi platforms is built, meaning that you can join in the construction without having to sync complete nodes. MetaMask is undoubtedly the most likely to become the Google of the Web3 era, with its initial business model, leading monthly active users and funding scale.

3?Gnosis

Gnosis Safe is a smart contract wallet running on Ethereum that requires M-of-N keys to sign a transaction request. For example, if your business has 3 key stakeholders, you can set your wallet to require approval from all of them before sending a transaction request, which ensures that no one can steal the funds.

Gnosis Safe is a multi-signature wallet that has been developed over the past 4 years. It is a critical infrastructure for Web3, protecting digital assets for DAOs, institutions, projects and individuals. Gnosis Safe users manage over $64 billion worth of assets on the Ethereum mainnet alone.

4?CoinbaseWallet

CoinbaseWallet is a great wallet for beginners because it has low transaction fees and is very easy to use. With CoinbaseWallet you can not only use it to access cryptocurrencies, but you can also use it to explore decentralized networks. CoinbaseWallet allows you to manage ETH and all of your ERC-20 currencies. As it supports BTC, BCH and LTC, you can use CoinbaseWallet to receive airdrops and cryptocurrencies, buy and store cryptocurrencies, and trade with anyone anywhere with no fees.

3.2 Hard wallet ecology

1?Ledger

Ledger is a hardware Bitcoin wallet that is moderately easy to use and has high security. Ledger is a trusted provider of hardware wallets for consumers and businesses.

Ledger’s hardware wallet is a smartcard-based device that offers the highest level of protection against manipulation and availability. The device stores private keys securely and requires the use of a software wallet to view the contents of the wallet and send transaction requests. In addition to supporting the secure storage of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other platform tokens, Ledger also offers open source resources on Github.

2?Trezor

Trezor is a secure, reliable hardware wallet that is moderately easy to use. Trezor was the first hardware wallet on the market and is still one of the most secure options available. Trezor is based on the principle of zero trust, which means that any part of the security system can be attacked.

Summary

There is no clear answer as to which crypto wallet you should use. Web wallets might be more convenient if you trade frequently, since you can access your funds quickly and conduct transactions more easily. However, if you’re holding a lot of cryptocurrencies for a long time and don’t plan on selling them, cold wallets might be a better option. These wallets aren’t connected to the internet, so they’re more secure against online phishing attacks or scams. Therefore, you should figure out the technology of the wallet before choosing one. Practical protection tools should also be considered when using cryptocurrency trading platforms.

Why Solana May Become the iOS of the Encrypted World?

3. Ecological analysis of crypto wallets

There are two types of crypto wallets, hot wallets and cold wallets. Hot wallets are connected to the internet and cold wallets are offline.

It is the best user experience.

Apple’s focus on user experience results in a smoother iOS than Android.

Other smartphone makers tried to create phones with full touch screens, but iPhone was able to overcome the technical issues that came with it, such as capacitive touchscreen and multi-touch. This gave iPhone an edge in the market and an untouchable screen experience.

The order of priorities for Android and iOS response is Touch-Media-Service-Core for iOS and Application-Framework-Library-Kernel for Android. Simply put, when the user touches the screen on an iOS device, the system will first handle the screen display (Touch); while the priority response level of Android is Application-Framework-Library-Kernel architecture, and display-related graphics and image processing (Library) are only in the third level. A host of other factors can directly affect the user experience in Android and iOS.

Despite not being the first public blockchain, Solana’s high transaction fees and TPS have attracted a growing number of developers and users, which allows it to overcome the greatest development restriction that many public chains are facing.

In other words, Solana can keep up with 50,000 transactions per second while only taking 400 milliseconds to process each one. Furthermore, they have the ability to scale their transaction-per-second capabilities even higher in the future, making it a very reliable choice for businesses. Additionally, Solana charges very low transaction fees, usually only costing $10 for 1 million transactions.

Among the various mechanisms Solana uses to ensure consensus, the most notable is “Proof of History (PoH)”. This is designed to solve the issue of timekeeping in a distributed network which lacks a single, reliable time source. PoH uses a verifiable delay to allow each node to generate its own timestamps using SHA256 calculations. This improves network efficiency and eliminates the need for broadcasting timestamps throughout the network.

The usage of different cryptocurrency wallets can show how satisfied users are with public chains. For example, Phantom, which is a very popular wallet on Solana, integrates almost all features of Solana’s ecosystem, including token swaps and the collection of NFTs. It also supports hardware wallets, has anti-monitoring features, and is compatible with Web3.0. Furthermore, users can earn income by pledging SOL.

Phantom, which offers a one-stop service, is the most popular wallet among Solana users.

Secondly, excellent UI design.

The user interface (UI) is a window that allows users to access various functions. It determines whether or not software/products are intuitive.

The platform UI design specifications for iOS are very specific and require customization, including icons and button styles. This unification of different programs’ styles helps the user to adjust to iOS software. The iconic design of the iPhone today is a rectangular design with rounded corners and just one button, with the rest of the phone being covered by glass panels.

No matter what the project is, it is always important to make sure that the UI design is up to par. This is especially true if you are working in the fields of internet, blockchain, or encryption. Furthermore, a UI design that is user-oriented will make the product more marketable and sell better. Dr. Nielsen, an expert on human-computer interaction, has claimed that usability is a requirement for success in the internet field. Websites that are difficult to use will be abandoned by users.

People only look at the logos of projects when buying tokens, which shows the importance of visual design. Solana’s logo shows that their team pays close attention to detail and is good at aesthetic design.

Solana’s logo is a mix of green and purple, two colors often found together in nature in the form of the aurora borealis. This color scheme is also popular in cyberpunk-themed sci-fi movies, which makes sense given the innovative blockchain technology that Solana is developing.

The Solana project portfolios share common features due to the same designer who has a lot of experience with color matching, interface design, and interaction design. The interface is easy to understand and use, with no required training for users to understand all functions.

Solana’s IDO platform emphasizes the UI performance of a project as its top priority. Consequently, Solana’s incubation and support of projects with excellent UI should improve users’ perceptions and acceptance of Solana.

Strong ecological support is the third.

Prigogine believed that systems should be open to exchanging energy and matter with the outside world in order to maintain a balance between disorder and order.

To create a thriving ecosystem for businesses, core companies must allow access to their resources and capabilities to partners, and make the ecosystem attractive to them. This will enable value co-creation through mutual empowerment.

Apple’s founders have always placed great emphasis on making it easy for external developers to create apps. They provide robust development tools and connect developers to users via the app store. This has led to many popular apps like Instagram, Snapchat and Uber. Compared with other platforms, Apple’s release mechanism for developers’ apps is fairer and more reasonable. Download ranking data for the software store has been reliable. It creates a great environment and competition system that allows developers to gain a better understanding of their customers.

Solana focuses on ecological construction and supports excellent projects with a variety of resources, like referrals from VC firms and technical support.