The evolution of Ethereum and smart contracts has finally enabled crypto users to get the kind of wallet they want. With their “account abstraction” features, smart crypto wallets gain essential capabilities such as the ability to recover a lost password and batch transactions to save on gas fees. They even support the payment of gas in multiple tokens, removing many of the biggest headaches for crypto users.
Smart wallets promise to play a leading role in growing the adoption of cryptocurrency, making digital assets more accessible and user-friendly while ensuring that users retain full custody. Their main benefit is that they simplify the wallet onboarding experience with the help of smart contracts, removing the need for users to manage their seed phrases.
They’re an exciting and much-needed development in the crypto space, so let’s take a look at some of the most popular options right now.
Ambire Wallet
Created by the blockchain-based advertising network AdEx, the Ambire Wallet has emerged as a standalone project in its own right, integrating account abstraction features as a basic primitive.
Ambire Wallet’s slick user interface highlights how the developers have focused on creating a more seamless experience that will be immediately familiar to anyone who is used to a traditional banking app. It’s a positive approach that makes Ambire a nice option for newcomers to the crypto world, yet it also offers plenty of more advanced features to cater to crypto experts.
Those features include things like multi-signature transactions, the ability to batch transactions and save on gas fees, plus the option to pay transaction fees in various stablecoins, instead of the underlying network’s “native” token.
As mentioned, Ambire Wallet is designed to be accessible to anyone, yet provides high-grade security features and tools for seasoned users. For instance, its innovative Gas Tank feature enables substantial savings on gas fees, making it highly appealing to those who frequently transact with crypto. It’s also the first non-custodial wallet to implement an email and password-based sign up and login process, blending Web3 technology with the familiarity of Web2 experiences. Social recovery is another option, enabling users to login via an account like Facebook or X in the event they lose access to their wallet.
DeFi practitioners will also feel at home in Ambire Wallet, with its integrated blockchain bridge for swapping assets across chains, its comprehensive catalog of dApps and its support for more than ten different networks, including Ethereum and Solana.
Perhaps the most ubique aspect of Ambire Wallet is its decentralized nature. Whereas other popular crypto wallets are owned by profit-making companies, Ambire Wallet is owned by a decentralized autonomous organization or DAO, which means users can make proposals about its future development and vote on them. Voting requires the user to hold Ambire’s native WALLET token, which also entitles them to save on transaction fees.
Ambire Wallet offers mobile apps for iOS and Android users, as well as a web app and browser extension, giving users plenty of options to access their crypto on every device.
Safe
The Safe wallet was built by the team that develops the Gnosis ecosystem. It rebranded from Gnosis Safe in 2022, having evolved from the original Gnosis Wallet. Available on Android, iOS and as a web app, it’s one of the oldest smart contract wallets around, and it’s focused on providing strong security to crypto users.
The strong security reputation of Safe has helped it to become the favored wallet of many decentralized autonomous organizations or DAOs. That’s because it boasts advanced functionality for collective asset management, including multi-sig wallets that require multiple users to approve any transaction. It supports popular wallets like Ledger, Trezor and Metamask so these can be used as a signer for collective Safe Wallet accounts.
In addition, it provides the ability to simulate transactions ahead of their confirmation, so users will be able to forecast the outcome prior to proceeding. It also supports batched transactions for saving on gas fees.
On the DeFi side, Safe has its own app store built in, allowing users to explore various lending and borrowing services, yield farming protocols and more.
Like Ambire Wallet, Safe offers extensive support for various blockchains, including 12 Ethereum Virtual Machine-based chains, making it a versatile option for those who need to interact with the wider Web3 ecosystem.
The only real weakness of Safe is its complex interface, which might be seen as a benefit for more advanced users, but is less welcoming for newcomers, who may find it challenging to navigate.
Coinbase Wallet
The newest smart contract wallet on the block is none other than the popular Coinbase Wallet, made by the cryptocurrency exchange of the same name.
Coinbase basically just updated its existing wallet with account abstraction capabilities, so it offers the comprehensive features, making them more accessible to new users.
The seamless onboarding experience entails the use of an easy-to-remember passkey, as opposed to a traditional seed phrase, which goes hand-in-hand with its email-based recovery process. It offers integrated fiat to crypto purchases, and provides support for hundreds of integrated dApps, such as PancakeSwap, Moonwell and Zora. Token swaps take advantage of the Coinbase exchange, ensuring users can always swap tokens at competitive rates.
In addition to the batch transactions and gas fee savings, Coinbase Wallet also offers paymaster integration for dApp developers, so they can offer a gasless experience to their users. There’s also a novel Magic Spend feature, which simplifies the process of spending crypto for Coinbase exchange users. Using the wallet, it’s possible to pay directly with funds from the user’s Coinbase account, so they don’t need to transfer assets held on the exchange into their wallet first.
At present, Coinbase Wallet supports eight blockchains, but more networks will be added in future. There’s also a companion web app in the works.
Argent
Targeted at newcomers to crypto, Argent is known for its extensive support for Layer-2 networks, which enables users to perform more rapid transactions at lower costs. It was built by a team of French developers who played a key role in developing the account abstraction capabilities of Ethereum and other blockchains.
The Argent wallet is strictly for mobile devices, including Android and iOS smartphones, though there is also a second wallet called Argent X that serves as a browser-based wallet.
What sets Argent apart is its user-friendly interface, which is designed to be simple for anyone to use. The developers have put a lot of focus on simplicity, believing this to be key to onboarding newcomers to the Web3 space. Originally built for Ethereum, it also supports L2 platforms like StarkNet and zkSync, which makes it great for DeFi transactions, though it doesn’t extend to other networks, meaning popular assets like Bitcoin (BTC) and Solana (SOL) are unsupported.
In terms of capabilities, Argent’s focus on ease of use necessitates easy account recovery and users won’t be disappointed with its social recovery system, which makes it possible to regain access to the wallet via trusted contacts.
Security is another big concern for Argent, which integrates multi-sig capabilities to require multiple transaction approvals and provide greater peace of mind to users. It also supports gas fee payments in stablecoins, as well as high-speed batch transactions so users can make multiple payments at once and save on gas fees.
Summing Up
In the rapidly innovating world of blockchain, it can be tough to keep up with the latest developments. However, the smart wallet trend is one that few people can ignore, with wallets like Ambire, Safe, Coinbase and Argent all offering distinct features and a dramatically simplified onboarding process that promises to be revolutionary for Web3’s adoption.
Smart wallets kill two birds with one stone, keeping things simple for new users so as to avoid putting them off, while managing to layer in some advanced functionality atop of their simplified UIs to cater to the most advanced users.
As such, smart wallets with account abstraction features may well prove integral as the crypto industry strives towards mainstream adoption. As the crypto sector continues to evolve, smart wallets will be critical to ensuring that everyone can access it.
