Fuse Wallet Wins App of the Year: What Makes the App Different?

Non-custodial mobile wallet built on the Solana blockchain, Fuse, received the top prize for “App of the Year” at the inaugural 2025 Expo App Awards on November 20, 2025. The award, presented by Expo, recognizes Fuse as the standout example of a high-performance, cross-platform application created with Expo tools. 

The Expo App Awards evaluate applications on technical execution, user experience, and real-world impact. Fuse competed against finalists that included consumer products such as Starlink, Partiful, and PrizePicks.

What is Fuse Wallet?

Fuse is a mobile application available on iOS, with the Android version still in active development as of writing. The application functions as a personal-finance interface for on-chain assets on Solana. Developed by the team behind Squads Protocol, the app combines four primary account types within a single interface: 

• Cash: For holding USDC and other stablecoins. 
• Card: A Visa prepaid debit card, allowing users to pay with stablecoins. 
• Investments: trading SOL and SPL tokens
• Earn: Offering access to Solana lending and staking protocols.

Users fund accounts through direct bank transfers via ACH in the United States or SEPA in supported jurisdictions, or by credit and debit card purchases. All funds remain under the user’s control through a non-custodial smart-account structure rather than traditional private-key management.

The Core Technical Difference: Smart Accounts Instead of Seed Phrases

Most Solana wallets, including Phantom and Backpack, require users to create and safeguard a 12- or 24-word seed phrase. Fuse eliminates this requirement entirely. It achieves this by using programmable smart accounts based on Squads Protocol, a standard that currently secures over $10 billion in on-chain assets across institutional and retail use cases.

Fuse was built entirely with Expo and React Native, which contributed to its selection for the Expo award. The application uses custom native modules where needed while retaining the rapid iteration benefits of the Expo-managed workflow. Independent audits by OtterSec and Trail of Bits have examined both the smart-account contracts and the mobile client.

In practice, a Fuse wallet consists of a 2-of-3 multi-signature setup:

• One key is stored on the user’s device.
• A second key serves as a recovery key and can be backed up to iCloud, Google Drive, or a hardware device.
• A third key serves as an optional two-factor authentication layer.

This structure allows users to rotate keys, set programmable spending limits, and recover access without memorizing or saving a seed phrase. Transactions below a user-defined threshold can execute automatically, while larger transfers trigger additional confirmation, reducing signature fatigue.

Spending and Yield Features

Fuse Issues virtual and physical Visa debit cards through partnerships with Lead Bank and Bridge. Card transactions convert stablecoins to fiat at the point of sale in real time. Meanwhile, idle stablecoin balances held in the Cash account automatically earn yield through integrated Solana protocols. The exact rate varies with market conditions but has typically ranged from 4% to 8% APY in 2025.

The Investments section provides zero-fee swaps across thousands of SPL tokens, including memecoins and real-world assets. The Earn section connects directly to protocols such as Kamino, Drift, and Lulo for lending, borrowing, and liquidity provision.

Why the Award Matters?

Solana processed the majority of retail cryptocurrency transactions in 2025 due to its low fees and sub-second finality. Despite this activity, consumer-facing applications have often retained interfaces that expose blockchain mechanics to end users. Fuse’s recognition by Expo signals that a banking-style experience can coexist with full self-custody on a public blockchain.

The win also highlights the continued adoption of React Native in production finance applications. Expo’s tooling enabled the Fuse team to ship a single codebase that achieves performance comparable to fully native iOS applications while preparing for an Android release.

Conclusion

Fuse Wallet’s award confirms that a non-custodial cryptocurrency application can deliver the familiarity of traditional banking apps without compromising user control of private keys. By replacing seed-phrase management with programmable smart accounts, integrating direct fiat on-ramps, and enabling automatic yield and debit card spending, Fuse addresses several persistent barriers to the mainstream adoption of on-chain finance. 

The combination of technical implementation and practical utility led Expo’s judges to select it as the top application built with their platform in 2025.

Sources

• Website: https://fusewallet.com/ 
• Fuse Multifactor Authentication: https://fusewallet.com/blog/solana-s-most-secure-wallet 
• What is the Fuse Card: https://fusewallet.com/blog/fuse-card 
• What is Fuse Wallet: https://fusewallet.com/blog/fuse-solana-s-first-smart-wallet 
• Fuse X Account: https://x.com/fusewallet