Microsoft’s Crypto Wallet Just Got Leaked!

TL;DR

Microsoft’s Edge browser wallet integration just leaked! And it looks like it will be a self custodial wallet, operating on the Ethereum blockchain.
Users will be able to load funds onto their wallet using built in Coinbase/MoonPay integrations.
As of January 2023, there were 5.16B internet users worldwide, 4.27% of which use the Edge browser (~220.33M total), which means this wallet will have a wide reach!
That said, for it to be widely used/needed by most people (our friends, parents, neighbors), we’ll need more consumer facing Web3 use-cases.

Full Story

This is the classic ‘kid who got called a nerd in high school, becoming rich/famous/idolized later in life’ kind of story.

Windows Edge browser (formerly know/hated by the name ‘Internet Explorer’) is having a glow up.

First, its native search engine (Bing) adopts AI before Google – and does a way better job of integrating it.

Now, a new leak from someone called ‘Albacore,’ has revealed plans for a potential crypto wallet.

At this point in the article we have a few options – do we:

Dig into what the wallet will be able to do?

Geek out on some ‘potential adoption’ data?

…porque no los dos?

Ok, first up – what will it be able to do?

From the looks of these pictures:

It will be built on the Ethereum blockchain.
Users will be able to load funds onto their wallet using built in Coinbase/MoonPay integrations.
It will be a self custodial wallet – meaning Microsoft will not have access to a user’s password or recovery keys.

From what we’ve seen the whole thing feels similar to Metamask, except it’s baked into the browser, instead of operating through an extension/plugin.

Which is very cool! If the process of setting up a wallet changes from:

Go to Metamask.io → download the plugin → install → open → click ‘create wallet’.

To simply:

Click wallet icon in corner of browser → ‘create wallet’…

That’s a much smoother process!

And while it doesn’t feel like much – the art of taking someone from ‘non-user’ to ‘user’ (known as ‘conversion rate optimization’) is all about reducing friction at every step.

So what’re we looking at re: potential adoption?

Alright, get your napkins out. Turn them over. We’re about to make assumptions and do math…

As of January 2023, there were 5.16B internet users worldwide, 4.27% of which use the Edge browser (~220.33M total).

220.33M new users ain’t bad! But just because someone can easily access a crypto wallet, doesn’t mean they’re going to use it.

Lets water that number down.

Say only 1% of Edge users create a wallet. That’ll equal 2.2M new addresses added to the Ethereum network.

Now, let’s assume half of those people already have Ethereum wallets – that brings us down to 1.1M new users.

Oh, and while we’re at it, let’s assume only 40-50% of those remaining (440-550k) convert into daily active users on the Ethereum network.

Where does that get us?

Well, right now there’re about 400k daily active users on the Ethereum network – so that’s an entire doubling of network activity! Niiiice