Coinbase Launches Wallet API To Assist Integrating Web 2.0 Developers Into Web3 World

In order to assist developers in transitioning to web3, Coinbase, the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, has launched a new tool.

Will Robinson, vice president of engineering at Coinbase, stated that accessing a website or engaging with a business should be simpler without leaving the platform.

“We should allow people to onboard into web3, right there, so they’re truly in control of their assets in a contained experience.”

A scalable collection of wallet infrastructure APIs called wallet as a service (WaaS) from Coinbase enables businesses to build and offer their consumers unique on-chain wallets.

Because of this, businesses can natively incorporate wallets within their apps, saving consumers the hassle of having to switch between different programmes only to connect their wallets (like most web3 dApps today require).

“The current onboarding flow is sort of backwards for most regular people,” Robinson said.

“At first, for some reason you need a crypto asset, then you should get a wallet ’cause someone told you to, then you have to find something to do with that wallet.”

Nevertheless "people fall out of that rhythm very often," Robinson continued.

Yet if you flip that, people actually want to utilise applications and interact with brands. They first have that desire.

The team behind Coinbase's wallet architecture for the rest of its business built the API-focused offering, according to Robinson.

Instead than using seed phrases, the WaaS enables users to access web3 wallets using Web 2.0 technology like usernames and passwords (a sequence of random words needed to access a wallet).

Additionally, it has key ownership, which gives users complete control over their assets, and multi-party computation capabilities, which safeguard user assets by sharing information among several parties.

“We built this product to be hard enough and suitable to even drive our own institutional retail businesses,” Robinson said.

“And with this exposure as an API, a regular developer who may not be knowledgeable about crypto but is a web2 application developer [will be able] to integrate this capability into their app and let users directly onboard right where they are.”

The WaaS from Coinbase is presently being implemented by businesses like Floor, Moonray, Thirdweb, and Tokenproof to give customers access to web3 experiences like NFT marketplaces and token-based experiences.

“At the end of the day, we think this is something that can onboard the next tens to hundreds million users into web3,” Robinson said.