Originally posted on The Web3 Marketing Hub
There are currently approximately eleventeen million crypto wallets available on the market - and only a handful of them do not suck balls. Chances are, you’re using one of the sucky ones, so keep reading.
Your wallet is a browser extension
I’m not a computer programmer or a hacker, so take this with a pinch of salt but browser extensions are a weak link when it comes to cybersecurity. There is surprisingly little control over the extension that get published to browser extension stores. This means that if you’re an average user, you probably won’t be able to tell a legit extension apart from a spoofed one. There’s also the chance of a developer account being hacked to push malicious code as updates to extensions. Not to mention the data privacy implications of extension “watching” everything you do in a browser. And don’t even get me started on how much browser addons slow down your computer.
I’m not saying that browser extensions are inherently bad but you should be extra careful when using one. And being extra cautious is not something that you want as a prerequisite for your crypto wallet. Personally, I prefer browser-based or desktop wallets - or even mobile apps to extensions.
Your wallet uses a seed phrase
Seed phrases are groups of random words (usually 12 or 24) generated by your crypto wallet, and they are generally advertised as “the way to recover your account”. That’s wrong. Your seed phrase IS your crypto wallet as it represents a large number that unlocks or restores your wallet. Once you lose the seed phrase, you can kiss your crypto goodbye.
It is recommended that you write down your seed phrase on a piece of paper and keep it safe. Most wallets warn you not to take pictures of that piece of paper, or write the seed phrase in an online doc, or take a screenshot of it - because, you know, hacks.
Let’s be real: how easy is it to lose a random piece of paper? Humongously, incredibly, extremely easy. We. Just. Lose. Random. Pieces. Of. Paper.
Even if you somehow manage to put the paper with your seed phrase somewhere secure, if you’re a beginner and don’t understand the importance of a seed phrase, you can easily get scammed into giving it to someone else. I’ve seen that happen so many times, it’s unbelievable.
You need a crypto wallet that uses an alternative recovery mechanism. Like a multisig. Or a wallet with social recovery. But traditional wallets come with a seed phrase only and that’s that. Well, fuck.
Your wallet doesn’t speak human-readable language
Most crypto wallets are unnecessarily complicated. They ask you to sign messages that are just a bunch of gibberish code. They talk to you about gas limits, nonces, hashes, block explorers and other foreign terms. You came here to store your crypto, not to learn a foreign language, didn’t you?
You need a wallet that translates all that complexity to human lingo, using words and concepts that you know and understand.
Would you trust a banking app that asks you to confirm your payments by swarlping a trugst or only displays your bank statements after entering a woshlp? You wouldn’t. Then why do you trust crypto wallets that don’t speak human language?
Your wallet doesn’t “tell” you the important stuff
And even when you can somewhat understand what your wallet is “saying”, it still hides information from you. Not because it wants you to fail but because it’s too lazy to stop and think “Hey, maybe the average Joe doesn’t know that transactions on the blockchain are sequential and you can’t mine a transaction if you have a pending one before it”.
Wallet developers are usually well-versed in crypto and blockchain. Most often than not, they would assume you know as much as they do.
Your wallet doesn’t let you pay for gas in stables
When you’re transacting on Ethereum, you need ETH to pay for transaction (i.e. gas) fees. When you’re on Polygon, you need MATIC. Binance Smart Chain uses BNB. And so on.
Imagine you’re just getting started with crypto because your Gen-Z niece got you some USDT on Ethereum as a Christmas gift. You’re excited and want to do something with your newly acquired crypto wealth. Guess what? You can’t! Not until you acquire some ETH. But you can’t even use some of the USDT to exchange it for ETH because you still need ETH to pay for that swap. Frustrated already? I figured as much.
You’d want to get a wallet that lets you use that same USDT to pay for gas. Sounds simple, right? Well, there’s currently only one wallet that I know of that lets you do that. I’ll tell you which one it is in a minute.
Your wallet robs you of owning your own money
Custodial wallets are a smaller subset of traditional crypto wallets but they exist and many people still use them. We’re talking about exchange wallets, for example, or wallets that keep your private keys for you.
Just like a traditional bank, they can seize your funds at any given time. There’s nothing you can do about it if that happens.
Do yourself a favor and use a self-custodial (also known as non-custodial) wallet. You’ll thank me when the next big exchange collapses and your crypto goes “Poof! Disappeared!”.
Your wallet doesn’t help you save time
As much as I wish I were a woman of leisure, I don’t have any time to waste on stupid stuff. Like signing 12 crypto transactions after each other. Or connecting my crypto wallet to other dApps to just sign a bunch of transactions after that. Or going to a separate platform to look at the useless NFT I bought because I felt like spending money on a pricey jpeg.
In an ideal world, crypto wallets are respectful of our time and help us optimize whatever we choose to do in that crazy world of Web3. They let us bundle transactions together. Or have dApps straight into the wallet. Or display our NFTs right there.
But Vanina, does that ideal (decentralized) world with ideal crypto wallets exist?
It does, my lovelies. It does.
Get yourself a smart contract wallet already!
Smart contract wallets (SCWs) exist to make our blockchain journey easier, faster and generally more enjoyable.
But what the fuck is a smart contract wallet? I’ve written about that. Just click on that link and go read the article.
As I said at the beginning, there are only a few SCWs available right now but as they are indisputably the future of Web3, we will see more and more of them pop up. Or we’ll see traditional wallets use account abstractions to mimic smart wallets.
Right now, the best SCW you can use is Ambire Wallet. I’m saying that because I get paid to say that but also because it’s a really good crypto wallet.
It’s browser-based (with a mobile app and a browser extension coming too if you insist on using extensions).
It doesn't have a seed phrase but uses a multisig to let you sign up with email and password only (don’t worry, you can add additional layers of security if you wish).
It speaks a human language telling you exactly what you’re doing.
It cares about keeping all complexities under the hood - and leaving you with a super easy way to use it.
It lets you pay for gas in stablecoins and other ERC-20 tokens.
It batches transactions to make sure you save time (and gas), has a built-in dApp catalog and includes a neat NFT dashboard that’s just a click away.
But most importantly, it’s self-custodial which means that you are in full control of your crypto, and nobody can take it from you.
So there you have it. Your Ambire Wallet is just a couple of clicks away and honestly, I don’t know what you’re still doing here. Go sign up now and thank me later:
