[Thoughts #146] Communities and Wallets Pt. 2: JP Morgan, LINE, Autonomy
👨🏻💻PLUS: Why are wallets are so important for these companies?
Yesterday I covered Meta and their push towards community and wallets. Today I’ll be going over other players in the Web3 wallet game. Again, this overview is not comprehensive but helps to provide an idea of the range of players that are getting into the wallet game.
While spending another day comparing and contrasting the different approaches companies are taking to rollout Web3 wallets, it reminded me of e-mails and social logins.
I’m sure this image of social logins looks pretty familiar
Social logins are a convenient way to sign in or sign up for a new service. How might this evolve?
Pretty much the same thing for the user. What might happen under the hood though?
Time to add this to my design portfolio! 👨🏻🎨
Why am I focusing on this? The war of wallets isn’t just about user acquisition and capturing the purchasing power of these users. It’s also about data.
I’ve alluded in previous pieces about how wallets can provide a lot of insights about users. There is an emerging segment of tools like Bello that helps creators better understand their holder base through wallet analytics. Tools like these are great for empowering creators to be more strategic with sponsorships or source topics that holders may be interested in.
On a larger scale, data insights is a full-blown industry. Let’s go through an example with e-mail.
We all dread the promotional and spam e-mails we get. They might have come from a previous purchase or an inadvertent signup. Shoot, maybe this publication even falls in that category!
Back in 2014, I came across a tool called Unroll.me, which helps to filter e-mail subscriptions and clean them up.
Apparently at one point I had 724 subscriptions?! Holy cow.
Unroll.Me was great. The tool helped me clean up a lot of subscriptions that provided little value to me. However, I didn’t realize until several years later that Unroll.Me had other ulterior motives that made me a little less…comfortable.
Because Unroll.Me connects with your e-mail to work its magic, they gather a lot of info beyond just your subscriptions. This allows them to better understand purchase behavior. If the sample is large enough, they can extrapolate that info to meaningful insights that enterprise companies would be interested in.
Speaking of enterprise, who owns Unroll.Me?
Ahhh, that makes sense. TLDR on Nielson is they’re a measurement/data company which was sold earlier this year for $16 billion to Private Equity investors.
So to reemphasize the point I’m making, wallets aren’t important only to capture more $ from users, but also to capture data (which leads to more $).
And that’s why there are so many players entering this arena. It’s to either:
Retain the walled garden they’ve created, or
Created their own walled gardens
To be clear it’s not all doom and gloom and I’m not against data collection. Unroll.Me helped clean my inbox which was much appreciated! Once I had less use for the tool, I disconnected the app.
Sharing data is a tradeoff we make for goods and services, and helps provide a better user experience. However, doing it transparently and in a way that creates stronger aligned incentives beyond Web2 norms is my hope and expectation. If companies don’t do this, users will take matters into their own hands with new Web3 privacy tools as they emerge and become easier to use.
As Web3 pushes the narrative of ownership forward, owning your data should apply as well.
Ok, hopping off the data soapbox and getting back on the main topic for today’s piece. Where were we?
So who else is creating wallets?
JP Morgan
My favorite trademark attorney shared that the largest US Bank is joining in on the fun.
This is a logical step as financial transactions are expanding beyond the physical into the digital (and virtual) realm. Wherever financial transactions happen, JP Morgan is there by your side. I feel so safe 🥰
Ok not that creepy. It makes sense and I’d do the same if I were calling the shots at JP. If JP Morgan is doing this, it’s only a matter of time for others to make similar moves. And that leads me to other intermediary players like Plaid.
Plaid is a fintech company that helps to connect finance apps and banks/credit card providers. If you’ve used apps like Venmo, Mint, or Coinbase, you’ve seen a Plaid Link integration.
Similar to the above social login example, future Web3 UI for Plaid integrations will probably look similar with a Web3 integration happening behind the scenes. Speaking of which, what is Plaid doing with Web3?
Whaddya know! They have their own wallet connect product, Wallet Onboard.
I imagine Plaid has taken many of their best practice from their Plaid Link and applied it to their Wallet Onboard solution.
As the on-ramp lines between fiat and crypto blur, there may be a Web2 + Web3 solution that combines Link and Wallet Onboard.
LINE
Asia-focused social media platforms are making moves too. LINE is a Japan-based messaging app with ~178 million monthly active users. It’s no Whatsapp, but it’s nothing to scoff at either.
LINE recently announced their NFT marketplace DOSI and has issued more than 100,000 wallets so far.
By joining DOSI as a citizen, users can earn DON membership points by participating in the NFT community activities or purchasing their NFTs.
Sounds awfully similar to Reddit and Facebook Community Points. Not quite a token though it could easily convert into one pending regulatory clarity.
When comparing LINE’s approach with Meta’s, LINE is creating community on DOSI instead of building community features on the existing app.
Conversely, Meta is going community-first through its existing platforms:
Instagram: Via creators and influencers
Facebook: Community points
Whatsapp: Communities feature
On top of that, LINE has its own blockchain: LINE Blockchain
In short, LINE looks like their vertically integrating their own Web3 ecosystem with their own blockchain, NFT marketplace and platform, and community points (eventually a token?).
I’m sure other social platforms are watching closely as everyone is taking a different crack at Web3.
Autonomy
I came across this app over the weekend when a friend shared a unique QR code activation by Refik Anadol to celebrate the opening night of his MOMA collection.
When users scanned the code, they were sent to download the Autonomy app.
Once downloaded, users could collect the digital art NFT from Refik Anadol. The NFT is stored in the app, which comes with ‘pre-loaded’ wallet addresses.
Users could send the NFT to a self-custody wallet, or leave it in the app.
I like the approach that Bitmark (Autonomy’s parent company) is taking as it provides ease of use and optionality of wallet custody. This is especially helpful for new entrants into the Web3 space as they better understand the concepts of interoperability and self-custody.
Bitmark’s $5.6 million fundraise announcement back in July clearly expresses that vision balancing the differing needs from different user personas.
I expect to see more consumer-friendly applications that incorporate the hybrid solution of pre-creating wallets, while allowing for easy transferability.
What else?
So many more, maybe there’ll be a part 3 in the future.
Apple and Google are obvious ones as they already have wallet apps.
Reddit with their Vault wallet for Collectible Avatars. How will the Vault be enriched from an interoperability standpoint?
Gaming - What companies will focus on creating their own wallets? Will there be a 3rd party wallet solution specifically for gaming?
Will there be a wallet of wallets? Does that even make sense?
Will blockchains create their own wallets? Maybe that’s already happening and is a dumb question. Solana will be shipping out their phone in early 2023, so that’s part of the integrated stack.
That’s it folks! I’ll be taking the rest of the week off to celebrate Thanksgiving with the family. For those celebrating, I hope you have a great holiday.
For those that aren’t, I’ll be staying out of your inbox. If you miss me too much, catch up on my archive until your eyes bleed!
Wonderful Article, loads of insights. Love reading it as usual.