🌊 Sink or swim

If you ask me, wallets can tell us a lot about where the market’s at more broadly.

There’s plenty to indicate that in addition to all this institutional attention, crypto’s also gaining traction in the consumer space.

We’ve seen the Base app, Zora, Krak, and Robinhood double down on consumer crypto recently. 

Many apps right now are blending super-easy trading with the sense that you’re creating your own crypto “identity” in the process, often by adding social media-like features. 

Now, Gemini’s dipping its toe in the wallet pool.

The question is: Will it sink or swim?

— Kate Irwin

Fast and easy, but underwhelming

Winklevoss twins-backed exchange Gemini launched a wallet product yesterday, presumably to better compete with rivals like Coinbase and Kraken in the consumer market.

So how does it hold up — and where does it fit into the increasingly competitive wallet landscape?

The Gemini Wallet is a self-custody solution that also ties into a web-based dashboard, dubbed “Onchain,” which essentially offers a bigger screen to examine your crypto portfolio and make trades.

As of right now, this experience is on the web — there’s no standalone Gemini Wallet mobile app (yet). It’s not a Chrome browser extension either, though that could change at some point. Instead, some browser pop-ups will help you navigate the wallet sign-up and settings.

The onboarding process is a little different from what we’ve seen before. There are no Gmail single-sign on (SSO) flows, no passwords and no visible seed phrases. It doesn’t ask for any personal information, unlike onboarding with Gemini via an exchange account, which involves KYC.

Instead, it takes about two seconds to generate a wallet via your device’s passkey tech. After you pick a .gemini.eth username, you’re ready to roll.

Essentially, the username is a free ENS name attached to your Gemini Wallet, which is a nice perk. 

After running through the setup flow myself, I was impressed and surprised by how speedy and smooth the onboarding process was. It was easier than MetaMask, Coinbase, Phantom, and Ronin Wallet, all of which I’ve used before (but whose UX has improved with time). 

So far, the main embedded feature on Gemini Onchain, besides making basic crypto trades, is access to Gemini’s “vaults.” Traders can choose from the “Prime” vault (lower-risk) or the “Core” vault (higher-risk). 

A pop-out explanation of the vaults describes them as a way to “invest and receive returns on your holdings by matching you directly with borrowers at better rates than traditional lending protocols.” 

Gemini is covering gas fees for “key actions,” though it’s unclear for how long that gas sponsorship might last. The wallet currently supports Ethereum’s mainnet, plus ecosystem extensions Optimism, Polygon, Base, and Arbitrum.

The Gemini Onchain experience feels like a soft landing spot for total newbs to DeFi. Maybe it’s for people who come from a non-technical field, or the crypto-curious who have never touched it before. The wallet is not intimidating, but it’ll feel too simple for some traders.

One thing about the “Onchain” hub is that it’s not much of a hub as it stands right now, besides being a way to manage your own wallet via buys, sells and swaps, plus access to those vaults and some educational resources. The buttons to other trading tools like Uniswap link out to the external site without keeping you logged into your Gemini Wallet over there.

Maybe the team will add onto and build out this hub over time so it can feel more like a crypto destination. 

I’m glad the Gemini Wallet exists — it’s one of the nicest onboarding processes I’ve encountered.

But because it could still use more functionality, I probably wouldn’t switch from my other existing wallets if given the choice.

It’s the summer of DATs and the party is going strong. 

But when October rolls around, everyone will be looking to DAS: London to hear from these meta-defining voices on where things stand and where they’re headed.

Get your ticket today with promo code: DROP100 for £100 off

📅 October 13-15 | London