Coinbase is revolutionizing the crypto experience with the launch of its new smart wallet, promising cheaper and more convenient transactions for its users. The innovative Coinbase Wallet eliminates gas fees and simplifies the onboarding process, making recovery phrases a thing of the past.

The new smart wallet allows users to create and onboard a blockchain wallet without needing a separate app or recovery phrase. Instead, the wallet integrates with major applications and utilizes Face ID, fingerprint ID, Google Chrome profiles, or Yubikey for authentication, storing the passkey directly on users' devices.

With self-custody capabilities, the smart wallet supports payments from the user’s Coinbase Wallet or Coinbase account. Developers can opt to waive gas fees by sponsoring transactions through a paymaster, enhancing user convenience.

A companion web app will serve as the primary platform, offering features such as asset and identity management, buying, sending, swapping cryptocurrencies, managing non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and viewing transaction history. Coinbase assures a "fluid and intuitive experience" throughout these processes.

Initially, the smart wallet will support multiple networks, including Base, Ethereum, Optimism, Arbitrum, Polygon, Avalanche, BNB Chain, and Zora. Both users and developers can use the smart wallet for free. In a post on its Canadian blog, Coinbase stated, "This simplicity, combined with multi-chain support and integration with major applications, will make onboarding to the blockchain as effortless as signing into your favorite website."

Current Coinbase users will have access to the new wallet "in the coming months" once migration tools are finalized.

Smart wallet technology, pioneered by Loopring and Argent in 2020, and endorsed by Ethereum developer Vitalik Buterin in 2021, offers enhanced security and user-friendly features like "social recovery" to eliminate recovery phrases. The breakthrough for Ethereum smart wallets, known as "account abstraction," was introduced with the ERC-4337 standard in March 2023.

Coinbase began offering smart wallets to developers in March 2023, and this latest rollout to general users marks a significant advancement in making crypto transactions more accessible and secure for everyone.