The Importance of Composable Wallets for Users and Developers

Understand the history of Ethereum wallets, what Access Legos are, and the implications of both on the future of dapp development and usability.

I’ve talked about product composability of decentralized applications (dapps) before, but with a fairly simplified diagram of the tech stack:

In reality, there are two layers I skipped (wallets and SDKs) and some added complexity with multi-chain (layer) dapps:

In this article, I will talk about why this extra complexity will lead to a large focus on how composable wallets will matter more and more to both users and developers. Usually, wallets come to mind in the last mile of development when the team decides to embed as many wallet connections as possible (assuming this is a single team tackling both the frontend and smart contract layers of a product). And this is fine since right now most dapps are fairly simple in user interaction (i.e., approve + deposit, bid/buy, or swap). There isn’t much to manage or compose pre/post-interaction.

But what happens as our ecosystem grows more complex? In the not-so-far future, we’ll start to manage our own digital identity in the form of proof tokens such as skills, credit scores, social circles, and more. This leads to new marketplaces of interaction a step before getting to the typical protocols we use today, and complex networks and user relationships to manage. Thinking about this led me to the question: Does it make sense to have specific frontends to manage each of these? The web 2.0 approach would be to create another aggregator platform/website, but I’m not sure I like the idea of a website tracking how I manage my identity and my network. I believe something this personal should be handled at the wallet level where personal sovereignty and privacy are highest.

While I don’t mind going to different sites for different protocols, I don’t want to have to use multiple wallet providers to manage different aspects of my on-chain interactions. That’s clunky and adds…