Magic Eden sees a crypto future that spans multiple blockchains – and launches its crypto wallet browser extension in closed beta to support that goal, the company behind the NFT marketplace announced on Monday.
“We believe in a multi-chain world for NFTs,” Magic Eden CEO and co-founder Jack Lu said Declutter in an interview.
“Until now, to really experience all the different products, features and great content that we have in each chain, users essentially have to download three wallets,” Lu said of the current challenges plaguing the wallet space that have led to user fragmentation on Magical Eden.
The market’s crypto wallet will first launch for the Google Chrome browser, but a Safari browser version and a mobile app are also in the works. The mobile app could come to fruition as early as early 2024, Lu said.
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The wallet will be compatible with the four blockchains that Magic Eden currently supports on its NFT marketplace: BitcoinEthereum, Solanaand Ethereum scaling network Polygon.
The initial Magic Eden wallet will be self-managed, meaning users will have full control over their crypto assets and will need to keep a seed phrase (a long passphrase made up of many words) secure.
But if you download three different crypto wallets to buy NFTs on Ethereum, Solana, and Bitcoin is frustrating and cumbersome for users, why should they even need to deal with seed phrases? Instead, why not offer a Magic Eden managed wallet with a one-click email solution?
Lu said owning your own crypto and NFTs is crucial to “the ethos of Web3.”
Introducing Magic Eden Wallet, a wallet made for Magic Eden users and cross-chain collectors.
The beta version is now live and only available to a small group of early testers!
Would you like to give it a try? You can join the waitlist by downloading the extension and entering your… pic.twitter.com/5DsS5qhdlQ
— Magical Eden
(@MagicEden) November 27, 2023
“We’d really like to accommodate that,” Lu said of Magic Eden’s belief in Web3, a term referring to a supposed next iteration of the internet that offers users decentralized ownership through crypto. “That’s why we wanted to hold on to some self-determination.”
Magic Eden’s wallet promises a more user-friendly, cross-chain solution for crypto fans, allowing them to avoid bridging (transferring crypto from one chain to another) by cross chain token swaps through the wallet.
Lu is also very aware of the common problems faced by crypto browser extensions. For example, when users have multiple wallets installed such as MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, Phantom or the Ronin Wallet for example: they can occasionally ‘fight’ with each other to connect to a website, while at the same time suddenly popping up and causing connection problems and confusion.
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“We are working quite deeply at the moment to ensure that the wallets don’t fight each other so much,” Lu said, citing Magic Eden’s work on its wallet with crypto tech company Exodus.
In addition to cross-chain swaps, the Magic Eden wallet also allows users to buy crypto with fiat currency from the wallet via a MaanPay integration, Lu said. The wallet will include NFT-focused features such as cross-chain portfolio tracking, Bitcoin Ordinals support, and simultaneous connection to multiple blockchains.
“I think self-management and email login – and those seamless implementations – are not mutually exclusive,” Lu said. Declutter of the wallet’s potential future. “There are a lot of very exciting technologies that we want to leverage to make that onboarding experience much smoother and much more familiar for the regular user.”
Edited by Andrew Hayward
