Guu

Unclear and complex UI, confusing signatures/transaction content—this is the complaint that ordinary crypto users express every day while using MetaMask. The poor UI and UX are issues that almost every employee from major web2 companies points out when they see web3 projects. Today's crypto is reminiscent of the peer-to-peer piracy music market from over a decade ago, where knowledgeable young people had to go to The Pirate Bay to copy magnet links, set up a VPN to avoid legal repercussions (in Western countries), download software via P2P, and then burn it onto a CD to listen to a song on the go. However, today's young people only need to click a button on Spotify to listen to hundreds or thousands of songs. This evolution from The Pirate Bay to Spotify is necessary for mass adoption in wallet applications. This article will introduce and compare several promising desktop wallets that could potentially defeat MetaMask, with only a small portion issuing tokens, which may serve as investment targets (NFA).

Since the wallets introduced below are relatively new, it is recommended to use them in conjunction with hardware wallets or newly created wallets.

Rabby Wallet#

Rabby is a product from the renowned Debank, inheriting Debank's clear and concise UI design, as shown in the image below.

Features of Rabby:

• Management of authorizations within the wallet, with labels indicating the Dapp to which the authorization belongs (Figure 2)
• Preview of transaction/signature content, making unreadable transactions readable (Figure 3)
• Address whitelist feature, which, when enabled, only allows sending tokens to whitelisted addresses, preventing hackers from tampering with the clipboard or executing zero-dollar attacks
• Website whitelist, with security warnings for addresses not listed on navigation sites like DefiLlama or Dappradar, helping to prevent phishing links
• Quick chain switching, allowing users to switch chains with a single click, and different tabs in the same browser can be on different chains, which outperforms the slow speed of MetaMask
• Full support for hardware wallets, including Gnosis Safe

Figure 1. Rabby main interface

Figure 2. Rabby allows revoking authorizations within the wallet, with warnings for dangerous authorizations

Figure 3. Transaction simulation

0xFrame#

0xFrame is developed by a foreign company. Unlike other desktop wallets we are familiar with, 0xFrame is not a browser extension but software that runs on the computer.

Features of 0xFrame:

• Supports ENS
• Good support for hardware wallets
• Focused on privacy
• Requires installation of a companion extension, compatible with various browsers (including Firefox)
• Basic transaction simulation
• Users with ENS Twitter names can directly view the NFTs held by their addresses on Twitter through the 0xFrame extension
• Omnichain concept, allowing users to use dapps without switching networks, with dapps queuing transactions for user signatures (With Omnichain, dapps can route requests to any of the user's available chains as needed, enabling users to be "on" all of their chains at the same time.)

Figure 4. Overview of the 0xFrame interface

Many foreigners like 0xFrame, but I feel the interface is still too complicated and not intuitive enough.

Trust Wallet#

Many people's first mobile wallet in the crypto space is Trust Wallet, backed by Binance. Trust Wallet recently launched a browser extension, officially entering the desktop market. The mobile version has long dominated the Crypto category in the App Store. Security needs to be monitored, as a vulnerability regarding the randomness of the mnemonic phrases generated by the Trust Wallet browser extension was recently revealed here.

Features of Trust Wallet:

• Backed by Binance
• Multi-chain support, including all EVM chains as well as BTC (Segwit), ZEC, DASH, LTC, DOGE, SOL, APT. Does not support Cosmos
• The wallet has a fiat deposit entry (Figure 5)

Figure 5. Trust Wallet fiat deposit entry

OKX Wallet#

OKX is ahead of many exchanges in the wallet space, even launching an MPC wallet on mobile, similar to Trust Wallet, supporting many non-EVM chains. However, OKX Wallet also supports the Cosmos ecosystem, including ATOM, OSMO, etc. It has basic security features and phishing website alerts. It is equipped with X routing (a major highlight of OKX Wallet), which is a wallet swap and bridge aggregator (this aggregator appears to have no fees). For example, swapping ETH from Arbitrum to USDT on BSC can be completed with just one click, making it very intuitive. https://www.okx.com/cn/web3 serves as a dedicated Web3 entry and asset dashboard for OKX Wallet. Currently, there are gas reduction activities on the mobile side.

Figure 6. X routing, DEX and bridge aggregator

Features of OKX Wallet:

• X routing, DEX and bridge aggregator
• Can send Hex, which is rare
• Supports Cosmos
• OKX's official actions are relatively quick, with many new chains (like SUI, APT) being supported soon, and the testnets are quite comprehensive.

OKX WEB3 Ecosystem Privacy Policy

OKX Web3 Wallet passed Slowmist private key security audit

Phantom Wallet#

Known as the "little ghost wallet," it was originally a monopoly in the Solana market. Recently, it has begun multi-chain expansion, starting to support Ethereum and Polygon. Many believe that Phantom's UI and UX are the best designed. After watching the promotional video below, it is clear that Phantom is ahead in UI/UX, but that does not mean it cannot be surpassed.

Features of Phantom Wallet:

• Transaction preview and phishing website alerts
• A visually pleasing NFT Gallery, with the ability to search for NFTs
• Supports EVM and SOL, but only Polygon and Ethereum
• Built-in DEX aggregation (currently seems to only support SOL)
• NFT listing can be managed within the wallet
• Supports fiat deposits (MoonPay, Coinbase Pay)

Phantom clearly understands what kind of user interface is needed for future Crypto mass adoption.
Phantom may conflict with MetaMask, which is why it only receives a 4-star recommendation index, but it is still highly recommended for beginners.

Coinbase Wallet#

Coinbase Wallet is the first wallet many foreign crypto newbies use. If I were to rank wallets backed by exchanges, the first would be Coinbase Wallet, followed by OKX Wallet, then Trust Wallet, and finally Bitkeep and others. Coinbase also launched an MPC wallet before OKX.

Features of Coinbase Wallet:

• Bridge and DEX are built into the wallet, with no fees
• Can deposit fiat
• NFT Gallery is attractive (Figure 7)
• Supports ENS
• Also has a social page where users can follow others' addresses
• Can track token prices within the wallet
• Participate in DeFi mining within the wallet
• Has transaction previews
• Multi-chain support, including SOL and many L2, alt L1s
• Supports testnets and fully customizable RPC

Coinbase Wallet, like Phantom, understands that a wallet should be an entry point for everything, and it can be ranked second in user-friendliness without anyone daring to claim first place.
There was a vulnerability in the transaction simulation part of Coinbase Wallet, which has been fixed ZenGo's security report

Figure 7. NFT Gallery, displaying detailed information

Figure 8. The wallet can browse the NFT market, with access to buy and sell on Opensea from the top left corner

Coinbase Wallet Privacy Policy

Conclusion#

What kind of wallet can be a killer for MetaMask? What kind of wallet represents the ultimate form? The industry has already come up with ideas, which involve using smart contract wallets or MPC as the foundation, positioning the wallet as the entry point for Web3, and creating a Super App where users can buy and sell tokens/NFTs/participate in DeFi all within one app, while all complex operations like cross-chain/chain switching and finding aggregators or NFT markets are handled in the backend.

Currently, the only wallets that can be considered user-friendly, in my opinion, are Rabby, Phantom, and Coinbase Wallet. Perhaps OKX Wallet can leverage the resources of the exchange to catch up, while Trust Wallet is too simplistic and basic, making it hard to evaluate.

Recommendation Index: