Ethereum Founder Buterin Outlines Preferred Features For Crypto Wallets

Vitalik Buterin, computer programmer and founder of the Ethereum network, has outlined a few features he believes should be found in crypto wallets to enhance their security, functionality, and user experience.

In a blog post, Buterin noted that while Ethereum wallets have made significant progress, they still lack certain ideal features that focus on security and privacy. The article outlined a roadmap for improving user experience in short-term and long-term parts, with the former detailing ideas that are theoretically implementable in the meantime.

Buterin’s Preferred Crypto Wallet Features

According to the Ethereum founder, crypto wallets should prioritize user experience across layer-2 chains. The idea’s core features include built-in cross-L2 send buttons and chain-specific addresses and payment requests.

Buterin explained that crypto wallets should be able to provide addresses in this format – 0xd8dA6BF26964aF9D7eEd9e03E53415D37aA96045@optimism.eth – and automatically process transactions across chains in whatever way they can. Chain-specific payment requests can also be implemented using QR codes, which can be scanned with mobile wallets.

Additionally, Buterin stated that wallet security should protect users both from their own mistakes and from hacks targeted at wallet developers. One way to do this would be to implement social recovery measures and multisig wallets with graded access control in the form of guardians. 

These guardians can be made up of family and friends, institutional entities, multiple personal devices, and ZK-wrapped centralized identities created through Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge (ZK-SNARKs). A user’s experience level in crypto would guide them in choosing their wallet guardians.

Privacy and Secure Chain Access

On the privacy end, Buterin revealed that private transfers on Ethereum are currently inconvenient because they require users to download and use private wallets. Hence, private transfers need to be integrated directly into crypto wallets. He also asserted that Ethereum wallets need to become data wallets to enable the storage of not just on-chain access permissions but private data as well.

Furthermore, the Ethereum founder highlighted the importance of secure chain access via standardized light clients, insisting that trusting remote procedure call (RPC) providers to give wallets information about chains is risky and leaves users vulnerable.

In the long term, Buterin hopes Ethereum wallets can implement brain-computer interfaces, like eye-tracking software and artificial intelligence models that enable wallets to grow past a point-and-click-and-type paradigm, and browsers that allow clients to engage in active defense.

“These three trends together will lead to a much deeper rethinking of how interfaces work,” he added.