Bloom: Laying the Foundations (Part 1/2)
This two-part series outlines the thought process behind our design choices and positioning. Consider it a primer on Bloom’s vision. We will take you through our architecture and what lies ahead in Bloom’s roadmap.
Wallets as a newcomer’s first touchpoint
In Web3, the role of onboarding is currently undertaken by centralised exchanges. Exchanges offer easy on-ramping with a familiar Web2 experience. They provide a simple way for savvy retail investors to surf the rising tide of token prices. For many of those users, the centralised exchange is Web3. They have not been exposed to the wider realms of self-custody and digital ownership. For real adoption, casual users must engage with the full Web3 experience: from transacting peer-to-peer to managing self-sovereign identities to generating passive DeFi yield. They need to be interacting with decentralised apps en masse — and wallets provide a clear path to make that happen.
A desktop-first ethos
We’re shifting to a world where the majority of web interactions occur on mobile, and this trend is even more pronounced in emerging economies. This so-called “mobile-first” ethos has picked up steam in the Web3 community — most new wallets target mobile and the mobile market is now extremely competitive.
However, Web3 on mobile is restricted by the limitations of the OS. Steve Jobs and Apple spearheaded the smartphone revolution with the original iPhone in 2007 and a year later set the precedent for mobile app stores, crafting a system where apps exist in isolated contexts. As Web3 demands openness and interoperability, in-app browsers have had to become the norm. But without private key isolation through hardware, this is a risky model: usability at the expense of security.
At a more fundamental level, does mobile-first even make sense in the context of a Web3 wallet? If we look to traditional finance we see indicators of likely Web3 behaviour. In online banking, consumers prefer their phone for quick activities like balance checking, but prefer desktop for more complex activities, like creating standing orders. This behavioural pattern naturally translates to Web3: simple investment and portfolio monitoring suit a mobile wallet environment, but more complex dApp interactions are better suited to a desktop environment. Moreover, the very nature of self-custody lends itself best to a situation where your device spends most of its time secure and protected in the confines of your home.
It is for these reasons Bloom begins with a desktop wallet. And while our ultimate goal is to provide a complete product suite, catering to both mobile and desktop audiences, we believe Bloom can make the largest usability upgrade within the desktop wallet ecosystem.
Why not extensions and web wallets?
Browser extensions are utility tools to augment your web browsing experience. The most widely adopted extensions include ad blockers, cashback providers, or password managers. They largely serve a technical audience and have never truly breached the consumer market. Indeed Chrome Extensions were first released in 2009, yet only six have more than 20 million users. With such a rigid focus on extensions, Web3 is limiting its adoption — why are we trying to force the proliferation of two technologies at once? For the Web3 space to expand to a broader, less technical demographic, a shift away from browser extension wallets towards more accessible application formats is essential.
There’s one glaring reason why extension wallets have poor usability. It is a simple one. Browser extensions are pop-ups. They were not intended to form fully-fledged self-contained interfaces like Metamask. With a canvas size akin to a calculator app, the scope to add features without encumbering usability is extremely limited — unlike mobile, desktop does not typically benefit from the usability unlock of swipe interactions.
Extension wallet teams recognise the importance of a feature-rich experience, so we’ve seen the rise of web app portfolio viewers to accompany extensions. While this solves one problem, it creates another: users do not expect to need multiple tools to accomplish their goals. They expect a single app that does everything they need.
Other teams have architected the entire wallet as a web app. Web apps provide ample space for features. But security is a challenge. The browser is not a safe environment to store a private key, not in a web app, nor in sandboxed extension storage. All it takes is one zero-day vulnerability in the Chromium architecture for funds to be at risk. Web wallets face a range of different threats from man-in-the-middle to XSS to BGP hijacking. So web wallets necessitate other key management approaches, such as passkeys, hardware wallets, embedded MPC wallets or multi-factor authentication (MFA) with mobile. Each approach has some drawbacks. Embedded MPC wallets are not truly self-custodial, hardware wallets and mobile MFA introduce friction by requiring a second device, and passkeys limit the wallet to chains that support Account Abstraction.
The biggest strength of a web app is as a fast track to onboard users: newcomers need only navigate to a website and don’t need to download anything. Bloom will eventually release its own web wallet. But we consider that future web wallet only an interim stopover for newcomers. The transient nature of opening and closing tabs, and the hassle of finding the right tab, yields a subpar user experience. Once you get fed up with the web experience, you install the full app: this is the typical installation flow for native apps (think Slack or Spotify). Bloom will follow the same model.
Native desktop is the way
This leaves us with one other option: a native desktop app. Native apps provide many benefits for a cryptocurrency wallet — from offline access to greater performance and responsiveness to enhanced security. A native app provides clear isolation, creating a boundary between your private keys and uncontrolled third-party code in the browser.
There is also a psychological dimension to self-custody on native desktop — it feels safer. Users of Bloom can attest to this feeling. It’s not a website running somewhere. It’s not on a device you carry around with you daily. It’s local, isolated and permanent. Of course, you have to install native apps. But once installed, they’re right there on your desktop, their icon ever-present in your taskbar, always visible and always accessible at a click. They can even launch on login or run in the background if you’ve enabled it.
If we are going to disrupt Metamask, we need to provide a markedly different Web3 experience and an alternative to cumbersome extensions. Native desktop provides the environment in which Bloom takes on this challenge.
Bloom is currently in Early Access and available on Mac, Windows and Linux. Keep up-to-date with the latest developments by following us on Twitter. If you’d like to get more closely involved with our community, please join our Discord.
