PANews reported on December 3 that Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin elaborated on his vision for an ideal crypto wallet in his latest blog post. The article states that a key layer of the Ethereum infrastructure stack is the wallet, but core L1 researchers and developers often underestimate this. The wallet is a window between the user and the Ethereum world, and users can only benefit from the decentralization, anti-censorship, security, privacy or other properties provided by Ethereum and its applications if the wallet itself also has these properties.
In terms of cross-L2 transactions, Vitalik proposed adopting chain-specific address formats (e.g., address@optimism.eth) and suggested that wallets automatically handle cross-chain exchanges and transfer processes. Regarding account security, he recommended using social recovery and multi-signature mechanisms, with a 2-of-3 protection scheme for new users, including zk-email, local keys, and provider backup keys. On privacy protection, the article emphasized the need to integrate features such as privacy pools and stealth addresses directly into mainstream wallets to achieve default privacy. In terms of data storage, Vitalik suggested that wallets evolve into personal data storage tools, using an M-of-N key sharing mechanism to protect user data. Looking ahead, Vitalik predicted that new technologies like AI and brain-computer interfaces will fundamentally change the way wallets interact. In terms of Dapp security, ideally, the ecosystem would shift to on-chain content version control: users would access dapps through their ENS names, which would contain the IPFS hash of the interface. On-chain transactions from multi-signatures or DAOs would be needed to update the interface. Wallets would show users whether they are interacting with a more secure on-chain interface or a less secure web2 interface. Wallets could also indicate whether users are interacting with a secure chain (e.g., Phase 1+, multiple security audits).
