We’ve come a long, long way since the early days of MetaMask. Since then, the number of ways end users can interact with Ethereum dApps has increased drastically.

First, we saw the proliferation of hardware integrations with wallets like Ledger and Trezor.

Alternatives like Dapper, Portis, Fortmatic, WalletConnect, and others have recently begun to emerge and gain traction— offering a less complex signup flow for new users.

So, it’s time to survey the dApp landscape to assess the current state of the different Ethereum dApp desktop wallet integrations.

DApps Researched

I researched two different classes of dApps:

The top 40 Ethereum dApps ranked by daily active users according to State of the DApps.

2. The top DeFi applications and 0x relayers according to DeFi Pulse and 0xTracker.

Dapp metrics sites like State of the Dapps and DappRadar generally do not provide an accurate representation of the activity for DeFi and financial-related applications. So it’s useful to look at them separately from the top 40.

For each dApp, I looked at all the available desktop wallet options for end users. I noticed six main wallet integrations.

Wallet Integrations Researched

MetaMask

Overview: The undisputed, de facto way to interact with a majority of existing dApps today.

“MetaMask is a bridge that allows you to visit the distributed web of tomorrow in your browser today.”

Notable integrations: everything

Dapper

Overview: MetaMask alternative. Chrome extension. Smart contract wallet. Primarily used with games. The signup flow consists of email and phone number verification.

“The best way to blockchain”. “Enjoy free gas, exclusive drops, and more.”

Notable integrations: CryptoKitties, OpenSea, Decentraland

Portis

Overview: In-dApp pop up wallet. Simple email signup flow.

“Portis completely transforms how you use blockchain applications. All you need is an email and password to explore this exciting new space.”

Notable integrations: OpenSea, Airswap, Ethfinex

Fortmatic

Overview: In-dApp pop up wallet. Requires phone number and pin verification.

“Build web3 dApps without extensions or downloads.”

Notable integrations: Radar Relay, TokenSets, Cent

WalletConnect

Overview: “WalletConnect is an open protocol for connecting desktop Dapps to mobile Wallets using end-to-end encryption by scanning a QR code”

Notable integrations: Zerion, DDEX, Balance

Bitski

Overview: “Say goodbye to clunky browser extensions, hardware wallets and dApp browsers. Bitski allows you to interact with the new world of blockchain, with just an email and password.”

Notable integrations: bZx, SportX

Lastly, hardware wallet integrations (Ledger & Trezor).

Top 40 dApps — which wallets are they using?

First, I looked at the wallet integrations for the top 40 dApps sorted by daily active users according to State of the Dapps.

We know dApp metrics aren’t perfect but this sample gives us a solid glimpse at the state of integrations today.

For uniformity, I filtered out obvious scam dApps, wallets, and protocols with no interface of their own— in order to focus only on consumer facing applications.

I also turned the MetaMask extension off to see the onboarding flow from the perspective of a brand new user.

Here are some of the top Ethereum dApps currently:

Top Ethereum dApps sorted by DAU as of this writing.

Sample

Breakdown of top 40 dApps by category:

Top 40 dApps by category.

Quick Findings

First, two quick stats about wallet integrations for the top 40 dApps.

100% have a MetaMask integration.

60% only have a MetaMask integration.

Total integrations:

Number of integrations by wallet for the top 40 dApps.

Quick stats for dApps with more than one integration (aka not just MetaMask):

63% of these had a Ledger integration.

ZERO of these had Trezor only (they all also had a Ledger integration).

67% of dApps in the games + NFT category had the Dapper integration.

Thematic Bundling

One trend that became increasingly clear was the thematic bundling of different wallet integrations — specific to dApp categories. For example:

Games bundle: MetaMask & Dapper

Dapper is emerging as the wallet of choice for games. However, many users still have MetaMask so gaming dApps offer both MetaMask and Dapper.

If you visit CryptoKitties with MetaMask installed it prompts you to sign in with MetaMask. Otherwise, it prompts you with Dapper. This may become a more common approach in order to ease the transition away from MetaMask.

The Dapper extension as an integration into dApps is available only to a closed ecosystem of top tier games — “If you play a game with Dapper, you know you’re getting a quality experience. And you get free gas, with all sorts of exclusives coming soon…”

The fact that 67% of multi-wallet integration enabled games and NFT dApps in the top 40 have a Dapper integration is a testament to the fact that they are already capturing this market.

In the future, new gaming dApps may vie for inclusion in the Dapper circle as a stamp of approval. Perhaps this exclusivity will create a games cartel of sorts. But more importantly, it will instill trust into new end users — they will only ever associate the Dapper extension with high quality, fun projects.

Exchanges bundle: MetaMask, Ledger, & Trezor

This bundling makes sense given the varying degree of technical understanding required AND the level of security desired to interact with decentralized exchanges.

For example, a user playing a gaming dApp like My Crypto Heroes may only keep $20 on MetaMask or Dapper in order to play.

Alternatively, users trading large volumes on a DEX may prefer the security of a hardware wallet like Ledger or Trezor.

Why so consolidated?

Noticeably less integrated into the top 40 dApps were Portis, Fortmatic, and WalletConnect. Thematically, this may be because these solutions are better for different types of dApps not found in the top 40 (we’ll dive into that next).

Additionally, State of the dApps does not accurately capture most DeFi and financial-related dApp metrics (thereby excluding them from the top 40). This may be due to the semantic difference between “volume” (State of the Dapps) and “locked value” (DeFi Pulse). Example:

State of the dApps screenshot: we know Compound is doing more than 0 ETH in activity.

DeFi & 0x Relayers Wallet Integrations

DeFi Pulse & 0xTracker give us a great picture of the top DeFi applications today.

The wallet integrations in DeFi are about what you would expect: the most common DeFi wallet integration stack is MetaMask + Ledger + Trezor.

Fortmatic and Portis are also starting to gain some traction in this particular niche. Fortmatic with integrations into bZx, Set Protocol, and Zerion. And Portis with integrations into Airswap, Ethfinex, bZx, Bamboo Relay, and Totle.

The rise of no wallet integrations?

The most interesting wallet development in DeFi land is no “wallet” integration at all — the lending protocols Dharma and Nuo both take this approach.

Instead of forcing a user to download a wallet, Dharma provides a user with a deposit address and the user can send from whichever wallet they choose. Then Dharma handles the rest on the back end.

Dharma.io lending interface. No wallet required, send to the deposit address.

This is reminiscent of the early ShapeShift approach to simplicity.

Read more about how Dharma works under the hood.

Awards 🏆

Some dApps integrate these wallets in such unique and exciting ways so I had to dole out awards for some of the top projects I recognized while doing this research.

SUPERIOR FLOW AWARD 🔀: OpenSea. End users don’t have to choose a wallet provider or sign into anything until they try to buy something or perform an action.

This allows end users to take a peek around before having to deal with all the messy wallet stuff. And, this flow likely creates an inflection point where, by the time the user is ready to do something, they’re willing to undergo the additional wallet buy-in that is necessary.

Once they are required to do so, they have multiple options:

OpenSea desktop wallet options.

TOO FLY FOR DEFI AWARD 💸 : Fulcrum (bZx). Fulcrum has an easy to follow flow and the perfect amount of integrations for new DeFi users.

MAGICIAN'S CHOICE ✨: Dharma. What’s not to love about this screen?

Dharma doing mysterious cryptographic magic ✨

OPTIONS APLENTY AWARD 🎊: Bamboo Relay. They have SEVEN wallet integrations. That’s right, seven.

Bamboo Relay — wallet integration options aplenty.

Final Thoughts

It’s truly exciting to see the rapid pace of progress in the Ethereum dApp desktop wallet integration space — paving the way for more intuitive user experiences and the ability to more easily onboard new end users.

We’ll check back in at the end of 2019 and see how desktop wallet integrations compare to today. A few trends I expect to accelerate over the next half of the year:

More dual wallet integrations (ex. MetaMask + Dapper).

Absolute Dapper dominance as a sign-on point for high quality games.

Emergence of Portis and Fortmatic as the dominant top non-gaming dApp wallet integration preferences.

Solidified thematic wallet integration bundles by dApp category (ex. games bundle, exchanges bundle).

More “no wallet” experimentation a la the Dharma approach.

If you have any thoughts or feedback, let me know on Twitter