Interview: Jack, BlockBeats

Organized by: Sharon, Luccy, kaori, BlockBeats

Editor: Jaleel, BlockBeats

Last night, Consensys announced the launch 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 install directly into their wallets.

At the initial launch, MetaMask Snaps will provide 34 Snaps features, including transaction insights that can identify potential security vulnerabilities, interoperability with non-EVM blockchains such as Bitcoin, and practical features such as Web3 notifications. These 34 Snaps 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 before the end of 2023, a system that allows anyone to safely extend MetaMasks functions. 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 safely extend the functionality of MetaMask to create new Web3 experiences. This means developers can use Snaps to build specialized functionality on top of MetaMask.

Francesco Andreoli (first from left) at the Token 2049 venue

Today, during the Token 2049 conference in Singapore, BlockBeats conducted an exclusive interview with Francesco Andreoli, MetaMask’s developer relations maintainer, and discussed how MetaMask’s newly released Snaps function promotes permissionless innovation and interoperability among different ecosystems.

MetaMask Snaps: Continuing the no-access spirit

Francesco Andreoli is an ETH engineer and digital entrepreneur. He holds Master and Bachelor degrees in Mechanical Engineering from ETH Zurich and a Master in International Business from Hult Business School. He is fluent in 6 different languages, enjoys working in emerging markets, and is passionate about venture capital and data-driven scaling strategies. He is mainly active in Switzerland, Sweden, Brazil, South Africa, Nigeria and the United States. He has served as a mentor for TechStars, Angelhack, The Hult Awards, and several other startup accelerator and incubation programs around the world.

Starting out as an engineer at IBM Brazil, Francesco Andreoli went on to co-found washmypants.com and Myinsurance, a Swiss startup offering mobile-first microinsurance solutions. Additionally, he is the co-founder of a renewable energy-based DLT mining facility in Switzerland (acquired by the Petawatt Group in 2018). Since 2019, together with Oui capital, he has been actively investing in seed startups active in sub-Saharan African countries.

Today, Francesco Andreoli is the developer relationship maintainer (DelRel) of ConsenSys and MetaMask. He is also the founding partner of Oui Capital, the former developer marketing director of Digital Asset, the founder of Daml, and the former Angelhack, the worlds largest hackathon ecosystem. Developer community builder.

BlockBeats：Please briefly introduce MetaMask Snaps.

Francesco Andreoli：Yesterday we launched the first iteration of MetaMask Snaps, an extension of MetaMasks existing functionality. There are different features in the first version of Snaps, including transaction insights, interoperability and notifications. The most exciting thing about Snaps is that these are developer and third-party community owned, meaning they do not come from the consensus team. It is this permissionless innovation ecosystem that allows us to further expand MetaMasks capabilities today.

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

Francesco Andreoli：As you know, we launched the first generation of our MetaMask Snaps to the public yesterday, with 34 Snaps available. Currently we have three categories, the first is transaction insights, users can get clearer transaction insights, which allows them to understand potential security risks, or whether they are interacting with malicious contracts; the second category is Solar Bound interoperability sex. Its about the broader Web 3 multi-chain vision, allowing those Snaps that are not EVM compatible to be added to extensions so that users can do specific transactions with other chains; the third category is notifications, for many specific use cases, users need specific Information, you can stay informed at any time through web3 notifications directly in the MetaMask wallet.

BlockBeats：MetaMask is also promoting features such as “Sell”. What role will Snaps play in MetaMasks functional ecosystem?

Francesco Andreoli：Metamask’s vision is to create a more open ecosystem that encourages innovation. Weve received a lot of feedback from the community over the years and weve taken a very different approach to activation. We want to build an active community that encourages members to participate in innovation. If a member sees a specific use case, they can extend the programs current functionality. I think this is not only MetaMask itself, but also the strongest statement of consensus that we hope to have more inclusive innovation in our ecosystem.

Is MetaMask becoming the Google of crypto?

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

exista blog, MetaMask co-founder Dan Finlay also told some stories behind the development of Snaps features.

The Snaps development journey has taken the MetaMask team through some exciting corners of computing history and made some great friends. The value of MetaMasks collaboration with Agoric in this effort cannot be overstated, as he designed a JavaScript restriction API, proposed it to the JS standards committee TC-39, implemented a working shim for the API, and is available today. and worked with us to refine this system, LavaMoat, and our approach to secure computing.

MetaMask also went through a particularly challenging period for WebExtensions during Snaps development: Google itself proposed an overhaul of how extensions like MetaMask worked, and for a while it loomed over the entire project, which Possibly a fatal blow, or at least a change that forces the MetaMask team to leave the extension platform. Fortunately, thanks in large part to very smart and thoughtful developers at Consensys and Google, the MetaMask team was able to come up with compromises on how to scale the platform changes, allowing for MetaMasks ambitious goals without impacting either company safety ideal.

BlockBeats：Many people like to compare the functions of Snaps to Google, thus making MetaMask become like Google. What do you think about this?

Francesco Andreoli：I can tell you a little bit about scaling. Over the past few years, Snaps developer-oriented environment has existed for 18 months. We realize that as builders in the ecosystem, we also need to think about future needs. We get a lot of questions about new features, and we think we need to support builders and the community more to help make this possible. Licensed innovation.

Thats the whole story behind Snaps, and we hope to enable permissionless innovation in the ecosystem by further expanding MetaMasks current capabilities. I think this vision is also 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 and let the ecosystem around of community builders build the features they think their community should need to satisfy the needs of all end users.

Thats why were starting to release the first 34 Snaps of the new feature. Were very excited because its a combination of cases. For example, for Snaps that are not EVM compatible, you cannot conduct Bitcoin transactions before Snaps are released; for another example, you can get notifications and even query your transaction history. I recommend every user to try it because its very simple. Basically, you just install Snaps in your current MetaMask account and the features are automatically enabled and activated.

Why choose non-EVM compatibility?

BlockBeats：After ordinals, the BTC ecosystem seems to have regained its vitality. Is this why MetaMASK chose to enter this field? What value does MetaMask offer beyond the wallet products that already exist?

Francesco Andreoli：Basically, Snaps is primarily about facilitating permissionless innovation and interoperability between different ecosystems. And I think the main need from users is not just to build bridges between different ecosystems, but to provide more transparency between different ecosystems. Ultimately, end users are more concerned about the security environment and being able to interact with different ecosystems when interacting with the underlying infrastructure layer. This is where Snaps come in.

We have non-EVM compatible Snaps, which is one of the important features of the 34 Snaps that have been released. Through the functions of these Snaps, you as an end user can expand the scope of your Web3 usage, not only limited to the Ethereum ecosystem, but also interact with other ecosystems, such as Filecoin, StarkNet, BTC, etc. I think this will be more helpful to end users because there is a lack of transparency between the various silos that are being set up today, which is what end users need in order to move seamlessly between these silos.

BlockBeats：There is currently a lot of discussion about zkBridge or LayerZero as future solutions for multi-chains. I wonder if all these cross-chains can use MetaMask as a solution?

Francesco Andreoli：Big companies like ConsenSys are our supporters, we have MetaMask, we have Infura, we have Linea, which is the zk-EVM on the mainnet that we launched during ETHCC. When it comes to a multi-chain future, were also talking about things like Linea, making it easier for builders to deploy on top of the zk-EVM layer. At the same time, were also enabling Layer 2 through tools like StarkNet Snaps, so its a mix.

I think the bridging feature in Metamask can aggregate different bridges so it can provide multiple solutions to end users, but we do think that Snaps can enable more usability at different levels to make this multi-chain future strategy consistent .

BlockBeats：What is the future roadmap for Snaps?

Francesco Andreoli：But I think also consider games and apps, those are the main use cases. During the public Snaps launch, we launched these three main categories and 34 key features of Snaps. I think the future roadmap revolves around more types of Snaps in the Snap family. We are working with different third-party developers and communities to enable additional use cases around Snaps.

In the future, more Snaps will pass the review. Consensys will collect user feedback on the use of MetaMask Snaps and continue development 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 capabilities.

How does Metamask, which accounts for half of the wallet, view industry competition?

Among all wallet applications, MetaMask is the absolute leader in the same field. Uniswap, the DEX with the largest traffic in the industry, is almost unknown to everyone. At that time, official statistics showed that a total of 250,000 addresses had used Uniswap since its establishment. MetaMask, according to ConsenSys, had 30 million monthly active users at that time, a 42% increase in four months.

You should know that the number of active addresses on the entire Ethereum network was around 9 million at its historical peak. If calculated based on the fact that each user has only one address, MetaMasks market share exceeds 50%, and each user does not have only one address. It can be said that MetaMask exclusively owns half of the crypto wallets. There is no doubt that MetaMask has become a key player in the Web3 economy.

MetaMasks total revenue reached $320 million last October. ConsenSys, which owns MetaMask, has also completed a US$450 million Series D financing at a valuation of US$7 billion, setting the largest single financing amount in the crypto industry. As of August 9 this year, according to The Block citing CoinGecko data, MetaMask has been downloaded more than 22.66 million times so far, making it the most popular crypto hot wallet.

BlockBeats：There is no doubt that after this rapid growth, MetaMASK will be more competitive than other companies. How does MetaMASK see it competing with other wallets? Is this why the team decided to build Snap to gain more market advantage?

Francesco Andreoli：Launching Snaps allows the entire community to extend the functionality of existing extensions completely permission-free, and I believe there will be different standards surrounding our ecosystem. It will be very important for Snaps to be compatible with other infrastructure layers in the future. But these are third-party Snaps and are not developed in-house by our team. And now were really opening up the opportunity to all communities to build these extensions. In this state, people in other ecosystems will build different Snaps, and weve seen this in other ecosystems.

For example, today you can not only make non-DBN compatible Snaps, such as Bitcoin Snaps, but also install your Cosmos Snaps and Filecoin Snaps. On the second level you can also have your Startnet Snaps. So Snaps are actually very powerful because today our ecosystem or different ecosystems in general are building very specific tools for those users, and I think we need more interoperability and permissionless innovation, which is The only way we can scale is that we can provide more tools to reach a billion users.

BlockBeats：For builders focused on the wallet space, what benefits will they receive going forward in addition to ecosystem grants?

Francesco Andreoli：From a builders perspective, this is a very interesting question. For the past 18 months, Snaps have basically been available on the developer version of Metamask or Flask, and because there are so many resources, we never thought we would see so many different use cases and features. And for most people, theyre not just the developers of Snaps, theyre actually more like third-party companies, partners, and individual developers building these features.

We always see the different resources and support available to them. For example, at real-life events like hackathons or conferences, you see these developers building these Snaps, and we encourage them to submit their Snaps, submit proposals to the Metamask Grants DAO. We also invite them to showcase their Snaps on this Builders Consensus community platform, just like having a conversation with those builders. We also encourage them to create specific developer content around our consensus blog, so there are different exposure mechanisms in place. The Metamask Grants DAO is an important part of this because a lot of times when you want to take your product or Snap to the next level, you want to be able 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 release funds to, and who is making these decisions and executing these operations.

Francesco Andreoli：Yes, I would like to introduce Mittermans Grants DAO. First, projects like post-hackathon projects either need a bridge or more support before they can get venture capital. We wanted to provide more active support, so we established this Metamask Grants DAO, which is a $2.6 million per quarter DAO. A very interesting point is that this is an employee-led DAO. This means that all decisions made in the DAO, as well as due diligence, are done through employees.

Therefore, we set up an internal system that allows us to vote and advance proposals to the next round. This is how the MetaMask Grants DAO works. We also help with many aspects, such as setting up proposals and providing different templates. Additionally, we are currently launching a comprehensive accelerator program called Fellowship that will take the product to the next level. We also have different startup packages that you can apply for, and we also have different initiatives.

I also encourage all indie developers looking to build Snaps to check out our recently launched Ambassador Program, where we give you a platform where you can build and expand the impact of all your awesome Snaps.

BlockBeats：Will EIP-4337 and account abstraction significantly change the functionality of MetaMASK?

Francesco Andreoli：Yes, we are very bullish on the topic of account abstraction. We think this is a great way to attract more users. Currently, we hope to achieve this by enabling Snaps developers to build account destruction use cases. Over the past 18 months we have seen different interesting use cases such as account recovery, NPCs, sponsorship deals, etc. and it is very interesting to see these use cases activated. We believe that by focusing on account destruction Snaps, there will be more friendly features to attract more end users in the future.

BlockBeats：Finally, do you have anything to say to Chinese developers?

Francesco Andreoli：In the final analysis, we hope to strengthen the focused and personalized experience of end users in the process of getting started with Web 3.0. I think this is also a very important part of the vision, that is, we see the different needs of different users, heavy DeFi users, heavy NFT users , users who are concerned about privacy-related transactions, etc. So I think customized journeys are going to be a very important challenge, and I believe Snaps is absolutely capable of winning that challenge. Furthermore, I also believe that Snaps can be built by third-party developers, which means truly achieving the permissionless innovation we are talking about.