What Is MetaMask’s New ‘Snaps’ Feature?

The public release of MetaMask’s Snaps feature could usher in a new era of innovation in the blockchain industry that extends beyond the creation of new and exciting applications, and enables the open source development of the world’s most prolific self-custody crypto wallet.

Until very recently, Snaps has only been available as pre-release software, but what is Snaps, and what does it have to offer?

MetaMask Snaps

According to MetaMask’s documentation, “is an open source system that allows anyone to safely extend the functionality of MetaMask, creating new web3 end user experiences”.

In plain English, MetaMask Snaps allows external developers to build features for the MetaMask application, for the first time ever, with said features standing to offer a diverse range of new capabilities to the existing wallet.

Until Snaps, all of MetaMask’s capabilities, features and developments have been driven by an internal development team in Consensys. Though MetaMask’s existing state has proved effective, with the wallet reaching 100 million users in 2022 according to the project, a small team of developers is simply unable to create and advance MetaMask at the rate that the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem is capable of.

Snaps is the point at which MetaMask shifts from being a privately developed product to a hotbed for innovation, forwarded by all developers with an inclination. Though MetaMask, even today, exists as the most popular wallet in the industry, Snaps could compound MetaMask’s existing edge, even expanding its offering across non-EVM chains and rendering the wallet practically unassailable from a competition perspective. 

Potential Impact and Features of MetaMask Snaps

The possibilities that Snaps facilitate are myriad and extensive. Snaps’ documentation points to use cases such as:

• UI/UX Improvements: Snaps allows developers to reinvent MetaMask’s end-user interface, as well as overlapping new designs with an array of alerts, notifications, and prompts.
• Transactional Insight: Developments using MetaMask Snaps could allow users a far improved degree of insight into their transactions, with implications for transparency, as well as security.
• Chain Support: Snaps could open the door for non-EVM blockchain support via the MetaMask application.

Unsurprisingly, the impact of the above features, and many more, cannot be overstated. Criticism around complex and unintuitive UI/UX has long plagued the cryptocurrency industry, and the wallet vertical in particular, and this could be set to change with the full release of Snaps.

In addition, the limited multi-chain offering of MetaMask’s application has long provided a bottleneck to the wallet’s user base expansion. With the possibility of non-EVM support, this may well be about to change, with Snaps providing a way to interact with non-EVM ecosystems via a platform that many users are already familiar with.