We’ve been beavering away on building our new wallet and here’s the latest on why we’re doing it and what you can expect when it’s live.

Oli Hopton and others will be hosting a Live Chat on our Discord server to discuss the wallet in more detail and take any community questions. Please check into #liveteamchat on Tuesday, 23rd April, 3-3:30pm BST.

What is a wallet anyway?

A cryptocurrency wallet is secure store of your private key. A private key enables the holder to sign transactions, allowing for the transfer of funds and execution of smart contracts. Ether and other ERC-20 tokens like FUN, are not held in wallets but as records on the blockchain which your private key allows you to transact with.

Some wallets are intended for long term safekeeping of cryptocurrency (cold), others for easy access to funds and everyday use (hot). Ours will be for the latter, although secure, it is dApp-specific for FunFair-powered casinos and will be intended for use as such and not for long term crypto storage.

Why are we building one?

We want our players to have a sign-up and gameplay experience that they’d experience at any traditional igaming casino, but with the underlying benefits of our blockchain tech. To make this as seamless as possible, we’ve decided to build our own wallet.

The three main reasons we’re building this are as follows:

Onboarding

Online casino players are used to a certain standard of journey from landing on-site, to registering to play and then to the actual gameplay. Blockchain certainly brings new challenges to this onboarding process, with many players, no matter their crypto or blockchain experience, not fully understanding the nature of wallets, private keys, recovery phrases, signing transactions and the like.

To make this process as simple as possible, our wallet will be fully integrated into the journey, not requiring players to go off-site at any point, and will use well understood sign in and registration processes, primarily, email address and password combinations.

We’re confident this will increase the conversion rate of visitors to the site, as potential players see a more familiar, easier to understand sign-up and funding mechanism.

Ease of use

Our new wallet will be built with an interface that keeps the ease of use front and centre. As with onboarding, it’s imperative the wallet is able to be used by those who have no experience signing Ethereum transactions as much as those who have a more advanced understanding of the tech involved.

There’s no reason why blockchain-based platforms have to be more complicated and we’re going to prove this so we can attract a new audience of those wanting guaranteed blockchain fairness but with the simplicity they’d find in other online environments.

Any browser, any device

Gaming is no longer desktop-led and we’re leading the way in bringing blockchain casino to the mobile domain. Our wallet will be available on any browser and any device without the need for extra layers such as browser extensions and app installations.

With the same account, players will be able to jump between our soon-to-be mobile optimised platform from small screen devices to their desktop and back again with the ease they demand.

How are you storing and securing private keys?

Private keys will be stored in an encrypted form on FunFair’s servers. The keys are encrypted with information only known to the user, FunFair will not have access to the unencrypted private key at any time.

Access to the encrypted private key is secured using a standard email address and password based sign in. Two factor authentication can be enabled to provide increased security.

What if I don’t want to use it?

Everyone will need a wallet account to play on a FunFair casino, but for those comfortable with Metamask, we will be integrating it as an external wallet extension.

Our proprietary wallet will be far more ergonomic, with it built specifically for use with our own casino offering, than third-party options, but we want people to have a choice and therefore Metamask, and potentially other wallets down the line, will be available.

When is it coming?

The wallet will be live in Q2. We’ll announce more specific dates and details when appropriate. We will only release it once it has been rigorously tested on both a security and usability side. Players signed up to CasinoFair and RakeTheRake’s new casino will get access as soon as it’s ready to go.