Coinbase Launches its Smart Wallets, Dubbing It Crypto’s ‘IPhone Moment’

The launch of Coinbase’s smart wallets, which don’t require seed phrases or the downloading of a browser extension or an application, aims to help bring a billion users onchain.

On Wednesday, crypto heavyweight Coinbase announced the rollout of its smart wallets, which it is calling web3’s “iPhone moment” to onboard more than a billion users onchain, said Luke Youngblood, founder of Base-native lending application Moonwell in an interview with Unchained. 

Rather than using a traditional wallet typically in the form of an application or browser extension that is reliant on passwords, third-party installations, or seed phrases to recover one’s private key, users can use smart wallets which gain security from passkeys. 

A traditional wallet depends on a private key to sign, while smart wallets use passkeys that often depend on biometric identification to sign transactions, such as facial recognition or a fingerprint. The rollout of smart wallets is a move expected to simplify the onboarding experience of new users who are not crypto native.

“Onchain app developers today lose many of their many new users during the onboarding process when they leave the app to go install and fund a separate wallet,” wrote Coinbase senior director of product management Sid Coelho-Prabhu in the announcement. 

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