For our Virtualizers, it has been 6 months since the release of Alpha 2, our user-tested gaming application. Our team is thrilled to announce the launch of the Virtual Wallet this week, enabling you to load and send funds to anyone with one click, no gas, and instant finality! Keep reading to learn how to get whitelisted.
Seamless, Gasless, and Instant
The Virtual Wallet is Virtual Rollups made accessible to everyone. Although Virtual Rollups are currently taking off with integrations on the gaming protocol side, its nature as an SDK limits the average user’s ability to enjoy the massive benefits and earn rewards.
The Virtual Wallet is the answer to this need. Built on the foundations of Virtual Rollups and state channels, the Virtual Wallet takes deposits in a publicly audited smart contract, and represents this amount in a Virtual Wallet.
Throughout this entire process, the user maintains full control over their funds, as withdrawing their capital to their EOA requires only a request signed by the original key of the depositing address. These two transactions, depositing and withdrawing, require gas and are normal, clunky wallet transactions.
The power of Virtual Wallet kicks in after a user deposits and opens their Virtual Wallet. Equipped with a simple interface and the clean UX crypto has needed and deserved for years, Web3 users will now be able to store and send funds completely gaslessly and without seed phrases, gas allocation, or several signature “clicks” and seconds of waiting. This is, of course, extremely appealing and useful to crypto natives. Significantly, it will also be a tool to bring on the next billion users to Web3.
MetaMask and the Status Quo
To understand the problem, let’s walk through what a typical transaction looks like in September 2023:
1. Open MetaMask (click 1)
Possibly enter your password and wait several seconds of opening loading
2. Enter amount and hit “Next” (click 2)
3. Enter a gas preference and confirm (click 3+, depending on gas selection)
4. Wait several seconds for confirmation
This entire process takes over 30 seconds, 3 clicks, and removes the user’s attention from whatever game, swap, or other dApp they were previously trying to concentrate on and enjoy. These frictions decrease engagement and stunt Web3 adoption.
But, most of these frictions are removable. The user cares only about two things: who should receive the funds and how much should be sent, along with this being done quickly.
This is what crypto is starting to call an intent. As opposed to a transaction, which requires the user to care about “how” data and funds flow, an intent refers to “what” the desired outcome is. So, instead of specifying what chain, gas amount, finality time, slippage tolerance, amount, and address, the user merely states that __ USDC ought to be delivered to 0xAB…89 now!
Intents are several years away, and will be an incredible technical feat. The Virtual Wallet uses different ZK tech to deliver this paradigm shift today via abstraction and Virtual Rollups. We’ll discuss a bit more how this is done in Virtual Sequencer and Security.
But first, let’s appreciate what this is capable of doing! In all transactions, wallet interactions are reduced from 3+ clicks to 1 click, and finality drops from 30 seconds to an estimated 5. These represent decreases of 66% and 83% respectively. This is a huge UX improvement, and one that is needed to compete with the simplicity of Venmo, WeChat Pay, and credit cards.
Furthermore, this effect is compounded in recurring transactions. While 3 clicks and 30 seconds would have been an impossible annoyance to implement in a fast-paced game or social platform (imagine waiting a minute just to like two Tweets!), 1-click finality is already the same or better than all Web2 platforms. Even more, the 5-second latency drops to “as fast as your network connection will allow,” as private ledgers are formed in recurring transactions. So, entering Twitter might take a few seconds in the background, but liking Tweets will feel just as fast, if not faster, than normal.
This is incredible. Now, Web3 can deliver the same convenience of Web2 with privacy, trustlessness, and decentralization built-in. DApps previously-and currently-have centralized backends, as short finality times and gasless consensus were not yet available. We expect this to change rapidly in the coming months.
Virtual Sequencer and Security
How does this work? The primary goal of the Virtual Wallet is to allow users to experience the benefits of Virtual Rollups directly, and without needing to build a game. The Network will also connect Virtual Rollups to each other, so that a user with a Virtual Balance on X Winner can go play on Furverse, for example, without worrying about bridging, swapping, and wallet complexities.
This is accomplished by leveraging the same security of their existing public and private keys.
1. A user deposits funds into the publicly-audited* Virtual Lab's smart contract
- *The Virtual Wallet will first launch on testnet until the Virtualizers are satisfied with its functionality and quality
2. The amount and address are immutable and transparent on-chain, ensuring security and accountability in the Virtual Wallet
3. The user enters the Virtual Wallet, either through Virtual Labs, or an integrated partner game, and sees the represented balance
4. A user sends a transaction which is either bundled in a private ledger state channel (Virtual Rollup) or is handled by the Virtual Sequencer
5. The funds arrive at the desired address and the user can exit at any time, or safely leave their funds for future gasless transactions
Virtual Labs utilizes ZK Accumulators in the form of BLS signatures to reaggregate data and maintain a fixed storage cost on user devices and for on-chain verification. This cost is 6,500 gas on EVM, or about ⅓ of the typical 21,000 cost to send a regular transaction. The user always maintains the right to perform cash-out requests themselves. After all, withdrawing funds requires only the user’s signature, so this can be done though Virtual Labs' protocols or on MetaMask using the same wallet they used to deposit. However, this would cost them 21k+6.5k gas for one action due to the high fixed cost of EVM transactions.
The Virtual Sequencer will receive several of these requests at once and be able to batch send them to the underlying chain, meaning the average cost will approach 6.5k quadratically. To demonstrate the power of our Virtual Rollups SDK, the Virtual Sequencer will also act as a paymaster, completely eliminating costs for the user. Of course, in Virtual Rollups themselves, transactions are not batched, but bundled, so no paymaster is needed as the innovation of ZK state channels in recurring transactions removes the need for additional chain interactions entirely.
Launch and Whitelist
We’re excited to say that our Gold Virtualizers and Virtualizers within the Virtual Labs Discord server will have first access to the Network testnet launch later this weekend! We are beyond thrilled to once again support our community with an innovative and useful product, and supply rewards to those that have loyally stayed with us throughout our growth.
To newcomers, this is your chance to join us! To let us know you’re interested, drop a comment that you read this far on the pinned Twitter post announcing the Virtual Wallet launch, and we’ll supply you a special link from the main Virtual Labs account once it’s live.
Also, here’s a sneak peek at the interface 👀
The Virtual Wallet will launch on select EVM testnets this weekend, but will expand to cover cross-chain interactions, non-EVM chains, and eventually mainnets themselves.
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Sources
Paradigm Intents vs. Transactions
