Bitcoin exchange The business exclusively revealed to TechCrunch+ that Coinbase has released a direct messaging capability on its wallet app, eliminating the need to copy-paste 42-character wallet addresses to and from other messaging platforms in order to send or receive digital assets.
Additionally, the capability enables NFT and POAP owners to communicate directly with other owners of the same asset.
According to Coinbase, all chat is encrypted and powered by the XMTP open source messaging network. Messages, interactions, transactions, and profiles may all be transferred between platforms that connect with the network thanks to the inbox’s portability.
The news is only that, though. How will people use this new function, and what is it actually helpful for? We had the following ideas:
Jacques Melinek Alex, you’ve been writing about cryptocurrency for over ten years. What do you make of this news?
Amazon Wilhelm It seems rather bullish to me! I have long felt that cryptocurrency has a tendency to feel overly financial. I never really wanted a totally new technique to make my life more accounting-based because I don’t really enjoy spending time doing accounts.
But I have to mention that adding messages to wallets tends to make them much more, don’t you think? So much so that it seems a little misleading to refer to them as wallets. Maybe we ought to name them identities?
In any case, I’m extremely interested to know if the entire crypto community has been asking for or working toward this functionality. It’s de novo from my limited perspective as someone who spends more time in meetings than actually breathing.
JM: Although I don’t believe this functionality has specifically been requested, it would be useful. Similar to how I don’t always buy cutlery when I order takeout (since it’s not always essential), but when I do, I’m like, “Great! A fork! I’m exempt from doing the dishes.
