Interview: Jack, BlockBeats

Editing: Sharon, Luccy, Kaori, BlockBeats

Editor: Jaleel, BlockBeats

Last night, Consensys announced the release of the first version of MetaMask Snaps to the public. According to the official website, MetaMask Snaps are features created by third-party developers that MetaMask users can directly install into their wallets.

At the initial release, MetaMask Snaps will provide 34 Snap features, including transaction insights that can identify potential security risks, interoperability with non-EVM blockchains such as Bitcoin, and practical functions such as Web3 notifications. These 34 Snap features have been security audited and manually added to the whitelist by the MetaMask team.

As early as July this year, MetaMask planned to launch the Snaps protocol by the end of 2023, allowing anyone to securely extend the functionality of MetaMask's system. Wallet users can access new applications and perform cross-chain protocol interactions. MetaMask previously described Snaps as "an open-source system that allows anyone to securely extend the functionality of MetaMask" to create new Web3 experiences. This means that developers can use Snaps to build specialized features on top of MetaMask.

Francesco Andreoli (left) at the Token2049 conference

Today, during the Token2049 conference in Singapore, BlockBeats interviewed Francesco Andreoli, the developer relations maintainer for MetaMask, to discuss topics such as how MetaMask's latest release of Snaps can promote permissionless innovation and interoperability between different ecosystems.

MetaMask Snaps: Continuing the Spirit of Permissionless

Francesco Andreoli is an ETH engineer and digital entrepreneur. He holds a Master's and Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, as well as an International Business Master's degree from the Hult Business School. He is fluent in 6 different languages and enjoys working in emerging markets, with a passion for data-driven expansion strategies and venture capital. He is primarily active in Switzerland, Sweden, Brazil, South Africa, Nigeria, and the United States. He has served as a mentor for TechStars, Angelhack, The Hult Prize, and several other global startup accelerators and incubation programs.

At first, Francesco Andreoli was an engineer at IBM Brazil, and later co-founded washmypants.com and Myinsurance, the latter being a Swiss startup that provides mobile-first micro-insurance solutions. In addition, he is also a co-founder of a Swiss-based renewable energy-based DLT mining facility, which was acquired by the Petawatt Group in 2018. Since 2019, he has been actively investing with Oui Capital in seed-stage startups operating in sub-Saharan African countries.

Today, Francesco Andreoli is the Developer Relations Manager (DelRel) for ConsenSys and MetaMask. He is also the founding partner of Oui Capital and the former Marketing Director for Digital Asset. Additionally, he is the creator of Daml and a former developer community builder for Angelhack, the world's largest hackathon ecosystem.

BlockBeats: Please briefly introduce MetaMask Snaps.

Francesco Andreoli: Yesterday we launched the first iteration of MetaMask Snaps, which is an extension based on MetaMask's existing functionality. The first version of Snaps includes different features such as transaction insights, interoperability, and notifications. The most exciting thing about Snaps is that they are owned by developers and third-party communities, which means they are not from the consensus team. It is this permissionless innovation ecosystem that allows us to further expand MetaMask's capabilities today.

BlockBeats: What are the main categories of MetaMask Snaps' current functions?

Francesco Andreoli: As you know, we publicly released our first generation of MetaMask Snaps yesterday, and launched 34 Snaps. Currently, we have three categories. The first is transaction insights, where users can gain clearer transaction insights, allowing them to understand potential security risks or whether they are interacting with malicious contracts. The second category is Solar Bound interoperability. It is about the wider Web 3 multi-chain vision, allowing Snaps that are incompatible with EVM to be added to the extension so that users can make specific transactions with other chains. The third category is notifications. For many specific use cases, users need specific information, which can be directly accessed through web3 notifications in the MetaMask wallet at any time.

BlockBeats: What role will Snaps play in the "feature ecosystem" of MetaMask as MetaMask also pushes for features such as "Sell"?

Francesco Andreoli: The vision of Metamask is to create a more open ecosystem to encourage innovation. Over the years, we have received a lot of feedback from the community and we have taken a very different approach to activation. We hope to establish a positive community that encourages members to participate in innovation. If members discover specific use cases, they can expand the current functionality of the program. I believe this is not only a powerful statement for MetaMask itself, but also a consensus that we hope to have more inclusive innovation in our ecosystem.

MetaMask is becoming the Google of the cryptocurrency industry?

Currently, MetaMask has opened its beta version. Unlike the final version, the open beta version will host various Snap allow lists, which have been reviewed by third parties and the MetaMask team. The MetaMask Snaps open beta version is the first step in building this permissionless system. Ultimately, MetaMask's vision for the Snapshots of the Fox Wallet is to be completely permissionless, without any gatekeepers.

In a blog post, Dan Finlay, co-founder of MetaMask, also shared some stories behind the development of the Snaps feature.

The development journey of Snaps has taken the MetaMask team through some exciting corners of computing history and introduced them to some great friends. In this work, MetaMask collaborated with Agoric to produce a value that cannot be overstated. He designed a JavaScript restriction API, proposed it to the JS standard committee TC-39, implemented the working fill program for the API, which is now available today, and worked with us to improve this system, LavaMoat, and our secure computing methods.

MetaMask also went through a particularly challenging period for WebExtension development during the development of Snaps: Google proposed a major overhaul of how extensions like MetaMask work, and for a time it overshadowed the entire project. This could have been a fatal blow, or at least a change that forced the MetaMask team to leave the extension platform. Fortunately, thanks in large part to the very smart and considerate developers at Consensys and Google, the MetaMask team was able to compromise on the way the extension platform was changing, allowing MetaMask to pursue its ambitious goals without compromising the security ideals of any company.

BlockBeats: Many people like to compare the functionality of Snaps to Google, making MetaMask similar to Google. What is your opinion on this?

Francesco Andreoli: I can tell you some information about expansion. In the past few years, Snaps has had an environment for developers for 18 months. We realized that as builders in the ecosystem, we also need to consider future needs, such as receiving many questions about new features. We believe we need to support builders and communities more to help achieve this kind of permissionless innovation.

This is the whole story behind Snaps. We hope to achieve permissionless innovation in the ecosystem by further expanding the current functions of MetaMask. I believe this vision is constantly evolving. Now everyone knows that MetaMask has both mobile applications and browser extensions, but we are also trying to achieve more goals at a lower level of infrastructure, allowing community builders around the ecosystem to build the features they think the community needs to meet the needs of all end users.

This is why we are releasing a new set of 34 Snap features. We are very excited because this is a combination of a series of cases. For example, for Snaps that are not compatible with EVM, you cannot conduct Bitcoin transactions before the release of Snaps; or you can receive notifications and even query your transaction history. I recommend that every user give it a try because it is very simple. Basically, all you need to do is install Snaps in your current MetaMask account, and then automatically enable and activate these features.

Why choose compatibility with non-EVM?

BlockBeats: After the ordinals, the BTC ecosystem seems to have regained vitality. Is this the reason why MetaMask chose to enter this field? Besides existing wallet products, what value can MetaMask provide?

Francesco Andreoli: Basically, Snaps are mainly designed to promote permissionless innovation and interoperability between different ecosystems. And I believe that the main needs of users are not only to build bridges between different ecosystems, but also to provide more transparency between them. Ultimately, end users are more concerned about the security environment and the ability to interact with different ecosystems when interacting with the underlying infrastructure layer. This is where Snaps come into play.

We have non-EVM compatible Snaps, which is one of the important features among the 34 Snaps that have been released. With the functions of these Snaps, as an end user, you can expand your Web3 usage beyond just the Ethereum ecosystem and interact with other ecosystems such as Filecoin, StarkNet, BTC, etc. I believe this will be more helpful for end users because there is currently a lack of transparency between the various isolated islands being built, which is exactly what end users need to seamlessly navigate between these islands.

BlockBeats: Currently, there are many discussions about zkBridge or LayerZero as future solutions for multi-chain. I want to know if all these cross-chains can be solved using MetaMask?

Francesco Andreoli: Companies like ConsenSys are our supporters. We have MetaMask, Infura, and Linea. These are the zk-EVMs we launched on the mainnet during ETHCC. When it comes to the future of multi-chain, we will also talk about things like Linea to make it easier for builders to deploy on the zk-EVM layer. At the same time, we also enable Layer2 through tools like StarkNet Snaps, so it's a hybrid.

I believe that the bridging function in Metamask can aggregate different bridges, thus providing multiple solutions for end users. However, we do believe that Snaps can achieve more usability at different levels, keeping this multi-chain future strategy consistent.

BlockBeats: What is the future development roadmap for Snaps?

Francesco Andreoli: But I think we can also consider games and applications, which are the main use cases. During the public release of Snaps, we launched these three main categories and 34 key features of Snaps. I believe the future development roadmap will mainly focus on the emergence of more types of Snaps in the Snap family. We are working with different third-party developers and communities to achieve more use cases around Snaps.

In the future, more Snaps will be approved one after another. Consensys will collect user feedback on the use of MetaMask Snaps and continue to develop to achieve the ultimate vision of MetaMask Snaps. MetaMask Snaps aims to completely change the way users interact with MetaMask, providing users with stronger operations and customization features.

占据钱包半壁江山的 Metamask 如何看待行业竞争

Metamask, which dominates the wallet market, how does it view industry competition?

Among all wallet applications, MetaMask is the absolute leader in the same industry. Uniswap, the DEX with the largest traffic in the industry, is almost known to everyone. At that time, the official statistics showed that there were a total of 250,000 addresses that had used Uniswap since its establishment. However, according to ConsenSys, MetaMask had already reached 30 million monthly active users at that time, and this data grew by 42% in four months.

It should be noted that the total number of active addresses on the Ethereum network reached a historical peak of around 9 million. If we calculate based on the assumption that each user only has one address, MetaMask's market share exceeds 50%. However, each user does not only have one address. It can be said that MetaMask dominates half of the encrypted wallet market. Undoubtedly, MetaMask has become a key participant in the Web3 economy.

Last October, MetaMask's total revenue reached as high as $320 million. ConsenSys, which owns MetaMask, has also completed a $450 million Series D financing with a valuation of $7 billion, setting a record for the largest single financing amount in the crypto industry. As of August 9th this year, according to CoinGecko data cited by The Block, MetaMask's application download volume has exceeded 22.66 million times, making it the most popular hot wallet in the crypto world.

BlockBeats: Without a doubt, after rapid development, MetaMASK will be more competitive than other companies. How does MetaMASK view its competition with other wallets? Is this why the team decided to establish Snap, to gain more market advantage?

Francesco Andreoli: The launch of Snaps allows the entire community to extend the functionality of existing extensions without the need for permission, and I believe there will be different standards around our ecosystem. Compatibility with other infrastructure layers is crucial for the future of Snaps. However, these are third-party Snaps, not developed internally by our team. And now we are truly opening up the opportunity for all communities to build these extensions. In this state, people from other ecosystems will create different Snaps, and we have already seen this in other ecosystems.

For example, today you can not only create non-DBN compatible Snaps, such as Bitcoin Snaps, but also install your Cosmos Snaps and Filecoin Snaps. In the second layer, you can also have your Startnet Snaps. Therefore, Snaps are actually very powerful, because today our ecosystem or other different ecosystems are building very specific tools for those users. I believe we need more interoperability and permissionless innovation, which is the only way we can expand and provide more tools to attract billions of users.

BlockBeats: What benefits will builders who focus on the wallet space receive in the future, in addition to ecosystem grants?

Francesco Andreoli: From the perspective of a builder, this is a very interesting question. In the past 18 months, Snaps has basically been able to be used on developer versions of Metamask or Flask because there are many resources, and we never thought we would see so many different use cases and functionalities. And for most people, they are not just developers of Snaps, they are actually more like third-party companies, partners, and individual developers building these features.

We always see different resources and support provided for them. For example, in real-life events such as hackathons or conferences, you will see these developers building these Snaps. We encourage them to submit their Snaps to Metamask Grants DAO and submit proposals. We also invite them to showcase their Snaps on this builder consensus community platform, just like talking to those builders. We also encourage them to create specific developer content around our consensus blog, so we have set up different exposure mechanisms. Metamask Grants DAO is an important part of this because many times, when you want to take your product or Snap to the next level, you will want to continue to expand its functionality.

BlockBeats: Speaking of Grants DAO, I also want to understand their decision-making process, who is voting and deciding which projects to fund, and who is making and executing these decisions.

Francesco Andreoli: Yes, I would like to introduce Mitterman's Grants DAO. First of all, projects after hackathons, for example, either need a bridge or more support before they can obtain venture capital. We hope to provide more positive support, so we established this Metamask Grants DAO, which is a DAO with a quarterly budget of $2.6 million. An interesting point is that this is an employee-led DAO. This means that all decisions and due diligence made in the DAO are done through employees.

Therefore, we have established an internal system that allows us to vote and push proposals to the next round. This is how MetaMask Grants DAO operates. We also provide assistance in many ways, such as setting up proposals and providing different templates. Additionally, we are currently launching a comprehensive accelerator program called Fellowship, which can take products to new heights. We also have different entrepreneurial packages that you can apply for, as well as various initiatives.

I also encourage all independent developers who want to build Snaps to pay attention to our recently launched Ambassador Program. Here, we provide you with a platform where you can build and expand the influence of all your excellent Snaps.

BlockBeats: Will EIP-4337 and Account Abstraction significantly change the functionality of MetaMASK?

Francesco Andreoli: Yes, we are very optimistic about the theme of account abstraction. We believe this is a great way to attract more users. Currently, we hope to achieve this goal by enabling Snaps developers to build account destruction use cases. Over the past 18 months, we have seen various interesting use cases, such as account recovery, NPC, sponsored transactions, etc. It is very interesting to see these use cases being activated. We believe that by focusing on account destruction Snaps, there will be more user-friendly features to attract more end users in the future.

BlockBeats: Finally, is there anything you would like to say to Chinese developers?

Francesco Andreoli: Ultimately, we hope to enhance the focus and personalized experience of end users in the process of getting started with Web 3.0. I believe this is also a very important part of our vision, as we see different users with different needs, such as heavy DeFi users, heavy NFT users, and users who care about privacy-related transactions. So I think customized journeys will be a very important challenge, and I believe Snaps is definitely capable of winning this challenge. In addition, I also believe that Snaps can be built by third-party developers, which means that we have truly achieved the permissionless innovation we are talking about.

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