Petra, a crypto wallet built by Aptos Labs, is integrating Coinbase Pay onto its desktop and mobile applications in hopes of alleviating web3’s growing pains, the companies exclusively told TechCrunch.
To date, Petra has integrated into over 160 decentralized applications, including Pyth, LayerZero and PancakeSwap. This partnership aims to help alleviate the headaches that many web3 users have when it comes to onramps and offramps (among other things).
“Easy onboarding in web3 is critical,” Mo Shaikh, co-founder and CEO of Aptos Labs, said.
Fiat on and offramps are essential for onboarding millions of users into web3, Shaikh said. “It may seem obvious, but in order to grow the web3 ecosystem, everyday activities like financial transactions have to be easier. “Consumer adoption does not happen without it. Full stop.”
As non-finance use cases like gaming, e-commerce and loyalty programs reach enterprise categories, payments and crypto wallets will continue to be an important part of the web3 experience for onboarding users.
Crypto wallets are currently more centered around the average crypto user and not focused on new users looking to explore the space. Over time, though, making user experiences more accessible will open the doors wider to mainstream users, but whether or not those users will enter through those doors depends on a handful of other factors.
Partnerships and integrations like this one, especially those that aim to improve the user experience, are a step in the right direction, however, because as it stands, many crypto products and services are still technical and laborious.
Aptos also recently partnered with Microsoft to work on AI and web3 integration, as well as Sushi, a decentralized exchange and automated market maker, to help provide users access to non-Ethereum based chains.
Will Robinson, VP of engineering at Coinbase, feels the integration also points towards a multichain future.
By leveraging big name partners like Coinbase Pay, Petra can potentially add greater appeal, bring more users into the space and improve user experience and interoperability across chains and ecosystems, Shaikh said.