'The smartest wallet wins': Industry leaders say AI and UX will drive the next wave of mainstream crypto adoption

During a Zebu Live panel discussion in London's Tobacco Dock titled "The Smartest Wallet Wins," speakers from Base, Rhinestone, Zerion, and Askgina.ai pointed to usability, AI integration, and frictionless onboarding as the next frontier for wallet innovation.

Rhinestone CEO Kurt Larsen said the onboarding process has improved significantly, with the industry moving beyond cumbersome seed phrases toward embedded wallets and smart accounts with recovery methods more familiar to Web2 users.

Larsen said these experiences "abstract away the key management side of things," often using passkeys and options like two-factor authentication. Still, he noted adoption is "super early," as many chains are only beginning to support account abstraction, with wallet support rolling out in phases through projects like MetaMask, Uniswap, and Rainbow.

Zerion CEO and co-founder Evgeny Yurtaev added that while private keys remain the most universal access method, the industry is experimenting with practical applications of smart wallets — from batching and gas abstraction to multi-chain interoperability — to lower friction without losing composability.

Base bets on mainstream usability

Clemens Scherf, Base's UK and Western Europe lead, said the Coinbase-incubated Ethereum Layer 2 network has made wallets central to its next growth phase. Earlier this year, Coinbase integrated its Wallet team into the core Base unit to develop the new " Base app ," built from scratch with a focus on simpler, mobile-first, and social experiences.

Scherf said the goal is to move from crypto's early adopters to the early majority by prioritizing usability and accessibility. "The entry point to every single application in the Web3 space will always be a wallet," he said. The new app, currently in beta, includes messaging, AI agents, and mini-apps as part of a broader effort to make Web3 interactions more social and intuitive, and is expected to roll out to the public in the coming months.

However, the panelists agreed that fragmentation remains a major barrier to usability. Zerion's Yurtaev pointed to the growing complexity of the multi-chain world, where liquidity and app support are spread thin.

Rhinestone's Larsen said his firm is tackling the issue through intent-based architecture, letting users sign a single action while "solvers" handle liquidity and settlement across chains to create a one-click experience that hides the complexity of bridging and swapping assets. "Everything else is managed under the hood," Larsen said.

AI turns wallets into proactive agents

Askgina.ai founder Sid Shekhar said artificial intelligence is also transforming how users interact with crypto, shifting from passive interfaces to conversational, agent-assisted wallets. "We're building an AI interface onchain and effectively make your wallet work for you," he said.

Shekhar described early pilots where users completed their first onchain transactions using natural language prompts instead of complex UI steps. For advanced traders, AI allows bulk exposure to multiple tokens in a single command — something nearly impossible manually. The company is also testing automated "recipes" that can trigger trades or portfolio actions based on conditions like price movements or social signals, enabling agents to execute transactions on a user's behalf, he said.

Toward the 'super app' era

As the session closed, the panelists agreed that crypto wallets are evolving well beyond their original role as key managers. Rhinestone's Larsen said wallets of the future will resemble social or banking apps built on blockchain rails, serving as both identity layers and financial tools.

Base's Scherf echoed that view, pointing to a growing overlap between fintech and crypto. He noted that in the West, fintech companies are expanding into social features while major social platforms are adding financial capabilities — a convergence Base aims to bridge through its app strategy.

The panelists concluded that as usability improves, most future users won't think about gas fees or key management. They'll expect wallets that work intuitively, and the smartest ones will win.