TL;DR

• Coinbase’s new smart wallet lets you sign up/in with FaceID or email, pay zero gas fees on transactions, and automatically bridges between chains for you.

Full Story

“All wise men fear the anger of a gentle man.”

We think of that quote every time we try to get our dads to set up their own self custody crypto wallets.

The friction and complexity of having to write down a 12 word seed phrase, and re-input it with every new device you want the wallet to live on had Chevy’s dad digging out his Nokia 3310 from the ‘stuff’ drawer in his office, before using it to text him:

“You’re un-invited from Christmas lunch this year.”

Well. Those days are over.

Yesterday, Coinbase announced the soft launch of their ‘smart wallet.’

It changes just about everything we’re used to doing when it comes to exploring crypto…

To demonstrate it, here’s a side by side comparison of the two experiences:

Dumb wallets

1. Download the wallet app, click sign up.

2. Record the 12 word seed phrase on an offline device.

3. Use that seed phrase as a password to port your wallet across devices.

4. Set up a separate exchange account, buy ETH from that exchange, send it to your wallet (for a fee of ~$20+).

5. Explore a range of applications, platforms and services by manually ‘bridging’ (aka: transferring) your ETH tokens from the layer 1 to a range of layer 2’s — with initial transfer fees of ~$20+.
   
   (A Google search will be necessary to do this safely the first time around).

Smart wallets

1. Download the wallet app, click sign up, FaceID or ‘Sign in with Google’ activates, you now have a self custody wallet that can be accessed across devices using the same log in process.

2. Buy ETH from within your smart wallet.

3. Explore a range of applications, platforms and services (the wallet will automatically make any required transfers) — paying no transaction fees in the process.

At launch, the Coinbase smart wallet will support:

Ethereum, Base, Optimism, Arbitrum, Polygon, Avalanche, BNB, and Zora — bringing a consumer-friendly user-experience to crypto, once and for all.

No more hand holding.

No more “ah, see what you gotta do’s.”

No more getting un-invited from Christmas lunch.