Would You Bank With Home Depot? That’s (Kind of) a Thing Now…

TL;DR

• Right now, crypto wallets are an ideal product for a tiny segment of the overall consumer market. This needs to change for mass-adoption to take place. So what’s the solution?

• A wallet that users can set up just like they would any other online account: with an email or phone number, using an online portal from a company they already know and trust.

• Companies like Magic allow existing businesses to add ‘create wallet’ pages to their websites (it’s how Macy’s has been able to offer free crypto wallets to their customers).

• (See how we landed on this article’s title? This technology allows any brand to become a pseudo-crypto-bank in its own weird way).

Full Story

Convincing new users to set up a  crypto wallet  is like trying to sell them a Ferrari.

Is it easy to use? No. Is it something I’ll use daily? Doubt it. Will it do everything my existing solution does for me? Unfortunately not.

The thing is, crypto wallets and Ferraris both do one thing, really well.

Ferraris go fast and wallets store crypto securely.

They’re each an ideal product for a tiny segment of the overall consumer market. Ferrari doesn’t need to change this. But crypto wallets do.

So what’s the solution?

Give them a ‘starter car’ – a wallet that they can set up just like they would any other online account: with an email or phone number, using an online portal from a company they already know and trust.

What does that look like exactly?

…how about an example?

There’s this ‘wallet-as-a-service’ provider, called Magic, which has just raised $52 million in a new funding round led by PayPal Ventures.

Basically, Magic allows existing company’s to add a ‘create wallet’ page on their websites – it’s how Macy’s and Mattel have been able to offer free crypto wallets to their customers.

(See how we landed on this article’s title? This technology allows any brand to become a pseudo-crypto-bank in its own weird way).

It’s not sexy, and it’s sure as hell not a long term solution (because who’s going to want to log in at Macy’s to manage their money??).

That said, here’s what we love about this kind of solution:

It takes the “spray n’ pray” approach.

By allowing any legacy brand to offer easy wallet creation services, it opens more and more avenues for new users to easily onboard into Web3 & crypto.

Users enter through a branded site they already know/trust → they sign up with an email.

Smart!