MetaMask advances towards a unified crypto wallet with Solana and Bitcoin

MetaMask spent years because the default gateway to Ethereum, the browser extension that turned “join pockets” into muscle reminiscence for thousands and thousands of customers.

Now Consensys is betting that very same reflex can work throughout blockchains. In late Might, MetaMask flipped the change on native Solana help, letting its 30 million month-to-month energetic customers handle SOL and SPL tokens with out putting in Phantom or some other Solana-first pockets.

Bitcoin help sits someplace on the 2025 roadmap, initially slated for the third quarter however not but shipped.

If it lands, MetaMask will develop into the primary major pockets to natively help Ethereum, Solana, and Bitcoin. These three ecosystems have traditionally required separate apps, seed phrases, and psychological fashions.

The timing isn’t delicate. Artemis information from June confirmed that Solana’s month-to-month energetic addresses matched these of each different layer-1 and layer-2 community mixed.

Solana stopped being the “Ethereum various” and began wanting just like the place the place precise customers have been exhibiting up.

For MetaMask, that created an uncomfortable dynamic: the pockets with the most important distribution was lacking the chain with essentially the most exercise.

Phantom, the Solana-native incumbent with 15 million month-to-month energetic customers (MAUs) and $25 billion in person belongings, had already made the alternative transfer, including help for Ethereum and Bitcoin all through 2024.

The multichain pockets wasn’t a future idea; it was already right here, and MetaMask was late.

The UX thesis: one account, three rails

What MetaMask is proposing goes past characteristic parity. The product now gives a unified portfolio view throughout Ethereum and Solana, with swaps and bridges constructed immediately into the interface.

Customers can import current Solana wallets utilizing the identical Secret Restoration Phrase that governs their Ethereum keys, collapsing what was a multi-app juggling act right into a single session.

When Bitcoin help arrives, the loop closes: one restoration phrase, one interface, three fully completely different consensus mechanisms and cryptographic schemes.

The comfort is clear. The danger is much less mentioned however tougher to disregard. A single seed phrase now controls secp256k1 keys for EVM chains and ed25519 keys for Solana, with Bitcoin’s key derivation subsequent in line.

One compromised backup exposes each chain concurrently. Consensys has printed safety steering across the multichain mannequin, however the trade-off stays: blast radius versus ease of use.

An extension bug earlier this 12 months that brought about MetaMask to write down extreme information to SSDs on some Chromium setups didn’t assist the reliability narrative.

Consensys shipped a repair, however the episode underscored how extension-level failures can erode belief sooner than characteristic bulletins construct it.

That is the place account abstraction comes into play. Consensys pairs the multichain rollout with its Delegation Toolkit and the upcoming EIP-7702 normal in Ethereum’s Pectra improve.

These instruments allow gasoline sponsorship, transaction batching, and session-style permissions, which compose the software program layer that lets wallets conceal seed phrases fully and execute multi-step flows with out repeated approvals.

The result’s what the business calls “invisible wallets,” the place customers work together with apps with out ever eager about keys, gasoline, or chain IDs.

It’s a compelling imaginative and prescient, however EIP-7702 additionally opens new avenues for phishing. Malicious dapps can request broad permissions that permit them act on behalf of customers, and distinguishing authentic requests from scams turns into the pockets’s job.

MetaMask’s safety alerts and the way aggressively it surfaces warnings round delegate permissions will matter as a lot because the UX enhancements themselves.

Shelf house as distribution

Pockets interfaces have develop into the brand new homepage.

If MetaMask surfaces Solana dApps, stablecoin bridges, and memecoin swaps within the default view, thousands and thousands of EVM-native customers will pattern Solana not as a result of they researched the ecosystem however as a result of the trail of least friction pointed them there.

The identical logic applies to Bitcoin. Each day energetic addresses on Bitcoin routinely vary from 700,000 to 1 million, and ordinals plus inscriptions have turned BTC into one thing greater than a financial savings asset.

A local Bitcoin tab inside MetaMask would let Ethereum and Solana customers experiment with Bitcoin-based collectibles or Lightning funds with out switching contexts, and it will give Bitcoin-first customers a motive to strive stablecoin swaps or DeFi protocols on sooner chains.

The strategic query is whether or not distribution alone can shift ecosystem gravity. MetaMask’s 30 million MAUs dwarf Phantom’s 15 million, however Phantom owns mindshare amongst Solana customers and has spent years constructing tooling round NFTs, token launches, and social discovery.

If MetaMask converts even 10% to 18% of its person base into energetic cross-chain individuals inside the first few weeks, it might imply a number of million individuals all of a sudden searching Solana dapps from an Ethereum pockets.

It’s not a winner-take-all final result however reframes the aggressive panorama. Phantom will seemingly double down on energy options and community-driven discovery, leaning into what made it the default for Solana natives within the first place.

MetaMask is betting that “ok” cross-chain UX plus account abstraction rails might be extra beneficial than specialised depth.

The regulatory shadow and the super-app endgame

The SEC sued Consensys in June 2024, alleging that MetaMask Swaps and staking options generated greater than $250 million in charges with out correct dealer registration.

Consensys is contesting jurisdiction, and the case hasn’t killed momentum, nevertheless it provides a layer of uncertainty to each product growth.

Every new chain, swap route, and income stream invitations contemporary scrutiny.

In the meantime, OKX Pockets operates as a full-fledged super-app, supporting 100+ chains and sensible account options, demonstrating what’s potential when regulatory constraints are lighter.

Coinbase Sensible Pockets took a special path fully, utilizing passwordless flows and embedded wallets to push previous 1 million accounts created over the summer season, all on Base, all EVM, no Solana or Bitcoin in sight.

Coinbase targets customers who don’t know they’re utilizing a pockets, arguably the actual endgame for mainstream adoption.

MetaMask sits within the center: too seen to keep away from regulation, too decentralized to pivot into a totally custodial mannequin, and too giant to disregard the chains the place customers are literally spending time.

The multichain push is as a lot about survival as it’s about ambition. If pockets market share turns into a proxy for ecosystem affect, then the pockets that spans essentially the most chains with the least friction controls the place the following cohort of customers lands.

Phantom was first on Solana and Bitcoin, whereas MetaMask is making an attempt to be first with “all the things without delay.”

The pockets wars have shifted from key administration to defaults. Whoever owns the primary faucet, consisting of the preliminary connection, the primary swap, and the chain that hundreds when a brand new person opens the app, will steer the place thousands and thousands of individuals assume crypto occurs.

If MetaMask’s Bitcoin integration ships earlier than year-end, 2026 will open with a single interface that treats Ethereum, Solana, and Bitcoin as tabs in the identical browser reasonably than separate universes. At that time, the query isn’t which chain wins; it’s which pockets decides.