Innovators have started building NFT marketplaces, prediction markets, web3 gaming applications, etc. for everyday users, but these applications are held back by the complexity of using web3. Before using a web3 application, users must set up an exchange account, buy crypto, set up a wallet, write down their seed phrase, transfer crypto to their wallet, figure out how to bridge between chains, hold a native token on every chain to pay transaction fees, and more. It's an intimidating and error-prone experience.

Having spent significant time working on web3 user experience at Slide, a company I co-founded backed by top web3 investors, and at Polymarket, where I led their gas-less transaction infrastructure, I have a deep understanding of this frontier and will be sharing my thoughts in an upcoming series of posts.

There are many exciting products and solutions emerging to improve the user experience of crypto. I'll explore these efforts across five key areas:

1. Fiat to Crypto

2. Private Key Management

3. Smart Contract Wallets (Account Abstraction)

4. Gasless Transactions

5. Transaction Simulation and Security

At a high level, user experience in crypto comes down mainly to wallets. Standalone wallets will slowly incorporate new tech in these areas, and consumer-focused applications will incorporate embedded wallets and drive new crypto users to them. Embedded wallets can be broken into two categories: end-to-end embedded wallets and application-specific wallets. 

End-to-end embedded wallets are out of the box replacements for standalone, browser wallets like MetaMask and come with a UI. They are great for getting an easy to use wallet integration off the ground quickly or for an existing application to better support new web3 users without needing to build and maintain an application-specific wallet. They can also be used across different web3 applications, giving a successful end-to-end embedded wallet a powerful network effect. End-to-end embedded wallets included Sequence, Magic Connect, Peaze and Ramper.

Application-specific wallets are wallets siloed to a specific web3 application. They provide a familiar, integrated experience for users that will boost an application's onboarding rates. Many web apps will also enjoy the control over the user experience from building their own wallet. Application-specific wallets can’t be used across many different applications like you can with MetaMask, but that’s not a benefit when onboarding new crypto users. Application specific wallets include Reddit’s wallet and Polymarket’s login-with-email wallet.

With both of these embedded wallet options, users will log in using their email or OAuth, and a private key is generated and managed for them behind the scenes. As these wallets become more popular, mobile and browser wallets will develop ways for users to transition from embedded wallets to standalone mobile or browser wallets.

In the long term, we can expect wallets to be built into devices like mobile phones and laptops by default. Although large tech companies are beginning to explore crypto, they will probably wait for startups to prove the technology and demand before experimenting with wallets themselves. Startups have the opportunity now to build a moat before the big tech corporations jump in.

The future of web3 depends on creating a seamless and user-friendly onboarding experience. In the next post I’ll explore fiat-to-crypto in depth. Follow me on twitter to stay up to date.

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**Thank you to Shekar Ramaswamy and Pavel Asparouhov for the feedback on this post.