On September 12, Consensys, the company behind the world’s most popular cryptocurrency wallet, MetaMask, announced the public-version launch of its hotly anticipated ‘Snaps’ feature - An update described as the “most significant public innovation release for MetaMask in its 7-year history”.

Until now, all of MetaMask’s wallet features have been built exclusively by MetaMask’s internal team. However, the inception of Snaps will open up said development to the entire blockchain ecosystem. The launch comes shortly after the introduction of MetaMask’s new ‘Sell’ feature.

According to a release shared with BSC News, Snaps’ initial rollout will include over 25 Snaps which allow various features such as:

• Transaction insights: Enhancing users’ web3 journey with clearer transaction insights, empowering them to identify potential security concerns and malicious smart contracts before finalizing a transaction.
• Interoperability: MetaMask Snaps broadens web3 usage to encompass non-EVM blockchains such as Bitcoin, Solana, Cosmos, Filecoin, and EVM Layer 2 solutions like StarkNet.
• Notifications: Keeping users informed and engaged with dapp-specific notifications directly in MetaMask, ensuring you never miss an essential update or event.

“The most important part of the Snaps story to me is that we now have a system at the heart of our wallet that allows us to step back and humbly invite the community to provide their own solutions to the hardest problems. I have some big ideas and opinions about what the future of transaction safety could look like, but that’s no reason for it to be the only idea being validated… This isn’t about accelerating technology for its own sake, it’s about accelerating the process of finding improvements in the ways we do things” said Dan Finlay, Co-founder of MetaMask and Chief Ethos Officer at Consensys.

The significance of Consensys/MetaMask’s most recent update cannot be overstated. The dawn of Snaps marks a turning point, wherein the wallet, that reached the 100 million user milestone in 2022, ceases to exist as only a widely used blockchain application, and becomes a hotbed for innovation and development within the industry.

Despite sitting at the heart of the decentralized world, the MetaMask’s wallet has so far been a walled garden by way of development. That is until now, when third party developers are invited to build and grow the MetaMask ecosystem, bringing with them a creativity and speed of development not yet witnessed. 

According to the release, developers will “maintain ownership of their code and establish a direct connection with their Snap’s users. In the long-term, MetaMask users will benefit from the convenience and versatility of countless Snaps, tailored for various use cases, across multiple protocols. They will see features that haven’t been imagined yet, developed at a pace that MetaMask couldn’t have achieved on its own.”

According to Christian Montoya, Product Lead for MetaMask Snaps, “We are building MetaMask Snaps as an open platform for innovation and we do not charge developers for publishing Snaps to this platform. We believe that permissionless innovation is a cornerstone of a decentralized system - no gatekeepers. Innovation thrives at the pace of the network, not just within an individual development team at Consensys”.

It is further added that MetaMask has already engaged in discussions with more than 150 developers, in a bid to “broaden the array of snaps”.

To learn more about MetaMask's Snaps, click here.