Keplr in 2022
This blog post was originally published on Keplr's Medium blog on January 21, 2022.
Chainapsis shares a Keplr roadmap of sorts as we continue into the new year.
The crypto scene woke up to Cosmos in 2021. IBC began its first step to the masses. The Cosmos community experienced their first interchain application. The Keplr team is proud to have been a critical part of the Cosmos interchain.
2021: A Recap 🎓
Growth of a truly permissionless ecosystem can be chaotic and uncoordinated. But out of the chaos emerges the building blocks for the next season of our ecosystem: interoperability in true practice. Here are some themes from 2021 that stuck with us:
- Builders are the cornerstone
- Demand is there, builders are few (but growing)
- UX is difficult to valuate but invaluable
- Interoperability will always take more effort than you'd expect
Keplr's primary purpose is to enable and empower blockchain application developers to maximize their potential and reach users. Since our ecosystem's growth lies in the empowerment of its builders, interoperability will no doubt benefit from the same.
Key Milestones
Better Product Offerings:
- Keplr Mobile for iOS and Android: 60k mobile users since release; ¼ of all Osmosis users are interacting from the mobile app.
- Infrastructure: 300+TB/month of data processed through Keplr endpoints; 23 nodes, 34 servers, and growing — dedicated to Keplr; 99.9% uptime.
Ecosystem Expansion:
- From 4,000 users on Jan 1, 2021 to 220,000 users by Dec 31, 2021.
- Rapid interchain go-to-market by builders using Keplr's permissionless features.
Team Growth:
- Team of 3 grew to a team of 8.
- Improved internal processes and support systems.
2022: Defining the Role of the Extension 🗂️
Scaling Scalability
In 2021, Keplr played an integral role in connecting blockchain applications to end users. Rather than Keplr being the central point of access for all interchain applications, the ability for each team to customize their apps and use Keplr as a component allowed Cosmos to scale far quicker than previously imagined.
We see Keplr extension's roles and responsibilities as:
- An interaction triggers the wallet to present the action to the user for confirmation.
- The wallet shows the content of the transaction, allowing Keplr to be a neutral party so users can verify the transaction prior to executing it.
- The wallet signs the transaction when the user approves and returns it to the web app.
With this simplified flow, there are more opportunities for developers to create their own interpretation of crypto UX. Our job is to enable them to build without roadblocks — better permissionless access for everyone.
The Next Frontier
With Keplr's role now defined, we're ready to explore the new frontiers of the 'wallet.' Here are some of our ideas for what's ahead:
- Adding NFTs
- Experimenting with interchain accounts (our long-time vision), including account abstraction
- Adding support for Ethereum mainnet
- Improved support for small-scale groups
- IBC UX standardization
- Improving security processes
In Conclusion
The way we can scale is to enable builders to build more cool things (supply) so that users have more cool things to do (demand). Keplr wallet, as a gateway between the two, will continue to be as frictionless and trustless as possible to free this flow.
As we continue to share our knowledge, we hope to discover more equitable solutions to shape an interchain that is more accessible and usable. In this way, we believe we are fulfilling Keplr's ultimate purpose as an interchain wallet.