Let’s Make it Official! MEW V5, MyEtherWallet’s All New Interface, Is Here
Dear #MEWfam!
We are excited and proud to present MEW V5, the new interface of our Ethereum blockchain portal, completely redesigned inside and out!
There is a great deal of discussion in the crypto community about the necessity of providing a great user experience if we are to see widespread blockchain adoption. At MEW, we focus on getting the best ideas out of those discussions and then implementing them, as simply and intuitively as possible, for our users.
Sure, there are pretty color schemes, cute buttons and friendly fonts — but at the end of the day, here’s what a great user experience means to us:
- No nonsense. You shouldn’t have to endure “tech speak,” but neither should you be spoken to like you are five. We believe in a simple interface, with customer support and education available on demand — welcoming to new users, and respectful to experienced ones.
- No intrusion. We don’t store any data about users. There is no tracking, no emails, no ads and no demographics. We will never monetize in a way that interferes with user experience.
- Security matters most.
In the world of crypto, interface updates are more than beautification — they are a process of arriving together, as a community, at what will work best for all current and future users of blockchains. Better interfaces are about discovering the most universally intuitive way of interacting with decentralized financial and governance structures, so that their promise of zero barrier to entry can be fully realized. We contribute to that goal by always striving to make our product more secure and more accessible!
A Friendly Face
From the start, we wanted to create a platform that is compatible across different devices — desktop, tablet and mobile. The uncluttered, inviting interface works on any screen, immediately directing you to accessing your wallet or, if this is your first time using MEW, creating a new one.
We intentionally approached our design with both the experienced user and the beginner in mind. For the experts, it should be easy to find everything they need quickly and easily. For the novices, we have made every effort to make the interface feel welcoming and to address any anxieties they may have.
Intuitive and Convenient
For example, it’s easy to tell which methods of access are most secure. We recommend hardware wallets like Ledger, KeepKey, Secalot, Trezor and BitBox, or our own MEWconnect app. For your security, we do NOT recommend accessing with keystore file, private key or mnemonic phrase. MetaMask extension continues to be a good option for wallet access, and MEW works well with Web3-injected browsers like Brave.
Once the wallet is accessed, you can take care of all tasks, from checking your balance to swapping coins to interacting with contracts, without ever having to re-login. Unlock once and use all features until you log out!
Wallet balances are loaded automatically, without the need for third party extensions. Not only that, MEW V5 now features notifications! No need to wonder about the status of your transaction — you will find this information updated in the notifications section, found under the familiar little bell in the navigation bar.
Tokens and Swaps, Just a Click Away
Introducing our new partner — Changelly! Although, being one of the biggest token exchanges out there with hundreds of thousands of users, it hardly needs an introduction. We are very excited to bring the seamless swap functionality of this exchange to our users.
Changelly will be operating alongside Bity and Kyber Network swap functions already available on MEW. We are now featuring the full range of Kyber Network’s 60+ ERC20 tokens, including the new WBTC, for a fast, simple and secure way of exchanging tokens directly on our platform.
Conveniently, the new swap page is more than a tool for swapping coins — it’s also a crypto marketplace where you can shop for the best rates when purchasing cryptocurrencies. If you are entirely new to the space, Simplex offers an easy way to buy ETH with a credit card — so you can set out on your crypto journey without delay.
The Ethereum ecosystem is always becoming more prolific and varied — there are so many tokens out there, so many opportunities to invest in something that is valuable to you. Managing all these tokens can be tricky, but we have implemented a long-requested feature to help you out — presenting the token search bar! Search and load 1100+ token balances in a matter of seconds, and if those are not enough, you can still add custom tokens, just as before.
To take the FUD out of transactions, we have integrated SafeSend, an opt-in anti-fraud feature developed by Coral Protocol. SafeSend reroutes outgoing funds to a smart contract while Coral Protocol verifies the trustworthiness of the destination address. This awesome feature prevents users from accidentally sending money to a fraudster.
Beyond Transactions: Blockchain Exploration
With MEW, you are not limited to the Ethereum blockchain. On the wallet dashboard, you will find a way to switch to alternative nodes on ELO, CLO, Ropsten Testnet, and Görli chains among many others, with future support for other networks. Don’t forget that MEW provides custom node support as well!
Blockchains are about so much more than funds storage and transactions! There has been a flurry of activity in the Ethereum ecosystem, with decentralized applications being created every day addressing a variety of interests — from collectibles to gaming and entertainment. Developing blockchain-based financial products, like CDPs and money markets, may become especially interesting to crypto investors.
The new Dapps page on MEW V5 is built with the future of a decentralized ecosystem in mind. We intend to continue building partnerships and integrations that will allow our users to interact with and manage Dapps from right inside their MEW wallet.
MEW ENS: Decentralization Made Accessible
One great way that users can interact with the blockchain right now is through ENS domain ownership. Go ahead and type in your name, your brand or a fun acronym that could come in handy later! Pick a name for your wallet, so that others can transfer funds to you as easily as through personal messaging. With MEW, you can check the availability of ENS domains, start and finalize auctions, and manage domain ownership.
Most excitingly, ENS (Ethereum Name Service) and IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) make decentralized hosting possible. Now, you can access MEW V5 not just on www.myetherwallet.com, but also using myetherwallet.eth (you need to have MetaMask extension installed). This means that MEW V5 is completely hosted in a decentralized cloud, supporting the following ENS networks: Ethereum, Ropsten, Goerli, RSK. We wouldn’t be MEW if we didn’t employ every technology available to make user experience more secure. ENS domains are built on smart contracts so they are not vulnerable like the DNS system. The real benefits of decentralization are becoming a reality and we are making sure that MEW users are first in line to take advantage!
HD paths/Hardened Paths
We now fully support hardened HD paths. Recently, Ledger switched their default HD Paths to the hardened version, which is more secure, but a bit difficult to implement from front end. With MEW V5, you have complete support to hardened HD paths, allowing us to support latest Ledger and Keepkey default paths for HD wallets.
Under the Hood
When developing MEW V5, we did not just focus on the front end, because we would not be satisfied with a cosmetic change. We wanted to provide our users with a robust back end that can live up to the evolving future of the Ethereum ecosystem.
Improved RPC
We made a complete overhaul of our API back end to enable all public RPC APIs and increased the efficiency of connections by a huge factor. Adding a new network is three clicks away and MEW V5 now supports all ETH APIs including ‘web3’, ‘eth’, ‘pubsub’, ‘net’, ‘rpc”, ‘shh’, ‘shh_pubsub’.
Websockets support
As many of you may know, RPC APIs are deprecated — meaning they will not be supported by Web3 in the future, but will be replaced by websockets. We wanted MEW V5 to be future-proof, so we enabled full websocket support for ETH, ROP and Görli as part of the backend upgrade.
Service workers
Service workers are one of the latest trends in web technology. These scripts enable users to have the latest version of a website without worrying about caching issues. An extremely efficient built-in caching mechanism means that even if you have intermittent internet connection, or temporarily go offline while in the middle of a transaction, the flow of actions will not be interrupted.
PWA support
This is another addition to service workers. With PWA, you have the option of installing the complete MEW website as an app on your phone and use it to access your wallet. Because we built our UI with mobile users in mind, it will simply behave like a native app.
Vintage MEW
While we believe that the new interface makes the experience of storing and managing crypto funds much simpler and more enjoyable, we realize that our crypto natives may have gotten used to the original website. Good news — Vintage MEW is staying around for a while! We are quite sentimental about the interface that helped our users access the Ethereum blockchain and manage their funds for over two years. Besides, as we perfect the new MEW V5, we want to make sure we didn’t lose any of your favorite functionality from Vintage MEW.
So there it is! We hope that you enjoy using MEW V5 as much as we loved creating it for you. Invite friends who are new to crypto to try it out, and let us know how it goes! As always, you can audit our open-source code on Github, reach out to us at support@myetherwallet.com, and comment on our social channels.
Always here to help you on your crypto journey,
#teamMEW
