[2512 Grant 1] RootStock Global Wallet by Blockscout

Grants & Incentives
1

GrantProposal: RootStock Global Wallet by Blockscout

  • Project stage: Beta
  • Sector Infrastructure and Tooling
  • Target audience: All Rootstock chain users
  • Grant Request: $24,000
  • Timeline: 2 months development, 6 month subsidy

1. Description

Core problem being solved

Blockchain onboarding is still a challenge for new users. In particular, the onchain wallet experience is disjointed and confusing, and ecosystem traction is hard to maintain when wallet creation and usage is difficult. A global wallet provides intuitive onboarding (social login, onramp options), and a consistent, smooth experience across the chain.

Solution overview

This initiative introduces a global wallet that works across Rootstock dapps, enables seamless onboarding for new users, and improves the overall usability of the chain without disrupting current developer or user workflows.

Unique value proposition

  • Wallet access directly from the explorer gives users easy access to onboarding and instant dapp interactivity
  • Developers can access and integrate the SDK into their applications.
  • Gas sponsorship allows for 0 fee transactions

Timeline

The wallet and associated contracts will leverage existing, proven solutions to expedite the production timeline (Standalone wallet available Jan 1). Ongoing expenses will be covered for a period of 6 months.

2. Team Overview

Relevant experience and expertise

The Blockscout team has years of experience working on the infrastructure and protocol level. We have supported the Rootstock explorer since 2023 and prior to that worked with the team on an early ecosystem wallet called Nifty Wallet.

Previous blockchain/web3 projects

Blockscout is the team behind the Rootstock Blockscout block explorer: https://rootstock.blockscout.com/ as well as creators of the first stablechain (xDai) and first cross-chain bridge.

Founder

Igor Barinov

Igor Barinov is an award-winning blockchain expert known for pioneering developments in interoperability, proof of stake consensus mechanisms, federated blockchains, and tooling for EVM. Igor is currently the Privacy Coordinator for the Ethereum Foundation

Key team members and roles

3. Team Traction & Metrics

Below are general Blockscout Metrics for the Rootstock instance.
Anticipated metrics for the global wallet are based on current usage and detailed in the performance targets section at the end of this proposal.

Blockscout Growth trajectory

Blockscout has seen a 16% increase in 2025 for page views on the explorer

Key achievements to date

  • 99%+ uptime
  • Supported sustained traffic and traffic spikes
  • Key optimization updates and features for the explorer
  • Dapp marketplace added, providing dapp discovery and interactivity

4. Mission & Vision

Why This Matters for the Rootstock Ecosystem

A global ecosystem wallet delivers four major benefits:

1) Stronger onboarding
New users can onboard instantly through email, social login, passkeys, or classic wallets. This removes the friction of setting up an external wallet before interacting with the Rootstock Ecosystem.

2) Seamless experience across the ecosystem
Once logged in, users keep the same embedded smart wallet across all participating applications, improving retention and promoting more activity. Furthermore, users are able to use features such as wallet connect to connect to applications that do not have the embedded wallet.

3) Better developer environment
Developers can integrate the ecosystem wallet SDK instead of building onboarding flows themselves. This shortens time to build and gives a consistent UX across the chain.

4) Onramping
The onboarding process to access the Rootstock chain makes it very difficult for new users. The global ecosystem wallet will alow for new users to acquire rBTC and be able to directly interact with the Rootstock ecosystem projects.

These improvements align directly with the Rootstock Collective DAO goals of ecosystem expansion, dapp growth, and user-friendly infrastructure.

5. Core features and functionality

The project enables a Rootstock global wallet inside Blockscout and prepares the infrastructure for a broader ecosystem rollout. The solution leverages several established providers for the following items.

  • Authentication and embedded wallets (Dynamic)
  • Account Abstraction (AA) and gas sponsorship (Gelato or Zerodev)

Together, these create a unified ecosystem wallet that can be used natively inside Rootstock’s Blockscout explorer and any Rootstock dapp that wishes to integrate the wallet SDK. The wallet creation, features and provider costs are covered by the grant for a period of 6 months. At the end of the 6 month period we will provide analytics and support options for consideration (the wallet requires an ongoing subscription fee for active usage).

6. Key Deliverables

  1. Global Wallet SDK (White-Labeled for Rootstock)
    A Rootstock branded Typescript SDK published for easy dapp adoption and available in the NPM registry.

  2. Wallet Login Inside Blockscout
    Users can log in via the new global wallet option directly on the explorer.

  3. Account Abstraction Support
    Global wallets with the ability to:

    • sponsor gas
    • provide smooth transaction UX
    • integrate with dapps using a single unified account

  4. Dedicated Wallet Management Page
    A simple standalone page where users can:

    • view their standalone wallet
    • Connect multiple wallets to check balances
    • manage balances
    • receive and send tokens
    • Swap tokens
    • access the same wallet used across Rootstock dapps

  5. Updated User Flows in Explorer
    Cleaner UX around wallet login, account display, interactions on verified contract pages, and support for showing .rns names directly in the interface.

7. Basic implementation overview

Implement SDK for the Rootstock global wallet

  • Prepare, develop and deploy the whitelabeled SDK
  • Customize SDK based on Rootstock guidelines
  • Deploy SDK on the NPM registry

Paymaster contracts

  • Deploy existing contracts
  • Generate and configure API key for the wallet
  • Test setup
  • Fund paymaster for 6 months of gas sponsorship

Blockscout integration

  • Support Blockscout account creation based on the global wallet
  • Change user flow to align with Blockscout account creation via the UI

The wallet will be integrated as a standalone product as well as integrated into the explorer for seamless interaction with ecosystem Dapps.

Security considerations

We are leveraging an existing, trusted solution allowing us to inherit their security guarantees: https://www.dynamic.xyz/security

Technical architecture

Blockscout UI <> backend integration diagram
Blockscout UI <> backend integration diagram1860×1230 185 KB

8. Grant Request

Total amount requested: $24,000
Amounts per milestone in desired coin/token: USDRIF, rBTC

Milestone Item Cost Delivery Date
1 Delivery of white-labelled SDK and standalone wallet 10K USDRIF 1 Jan 2026
2 Full wallet-explorer integration with wallet login inside Blockscout 8K USDRIF 1 March 2026
3 6 month run complete (from functional start of 1 Jan), will provide analytics and other data to determine program success and next steps for project continuation. Includes gas sponsorship for transactions from 1 Jan - 1 July. 6K USDRIF 1 July 2026
Total 24K USDRIF

9. Project Roadmap

The milestone table above corresponds with our deliverables. Here we break down the milestone items based on deliverables

Milestone Item Deliverables Delivery Date
1 Delivery of white-labelled SDK, standalone wallet, paymaster/bundler contracts. Available wallet page Active Account Abstraction support with paymaster funded Global Wallet SDK (White-Labeled for Rootstock & available for developers in the npm registry) 1 Jan 2026
2 Full wallet-explorer integration - wallet login inside Blockscout Backend integration for wallet-based Blockscout accounts Explorer integration for Rootstock explorer 1 March 2026
3 6 month run complete (from functional start of 1 Jan), will provide analytics and other data to determine program success and next steps for project continuation. Includes gas sponsorship for transactions from 1 January - 1 July. Wallet usage analytics Proposal for continued collaboration and monetization exploration 1 July 2026

10. Performance Targets

  1. User acquisition: Increase the average number of daily active accounts by 25%. Last year average was 336/day - we will target a 420 average for the final month of the 6 month initiative.

  2. Active address usage: Our goal is to capture ~10% of the average active address monthly usage by the end of the 6 month project.

  3. DApp support: Support the most used dapps on the Rootstock ecosystem explorer page (Rootstock dapps - Explore top dapps | Blockscout). We will ensure global wallet support for the top 15 dapps and track overall dapp usage with a target of increasing usage by more than 15%.

11. Conclusion

Blockscout requests the Rootstock Collective DAO to fund a six month Wallet-as-a-Service pilot for a total amount of 24,000 USDRIF enabling:

  1. A fully branded Rootstock smart wallet
  2. Account abstraction support
  3. Wallet login inside the Rootstock Blockscout explorer
  4. A global wallet experience accessible across all Rootstock dapps
  5. Better onboarding and improved ecosystem-wide usability

This initiative positions Rootstock for long-term ecosystem growth, modernizes user experience, and provides shared infrastructure that every dapp can adopt.

12. Social & Community

13. Media & Resources

Demo prototype video

Standalone wallet screenshot

Stand alone wallet screenshot
Stand alone wallet screenshot748×602 29.2 KB

Technical documentation (issues in progress)

5 Likes
2

The global wallet seems indeed very well polished, and I can see how social/e-mail logins can remove barriers and friction for broad adoption.

That said, personally I prefer to use battle-tested (metamask, phantom, etc) external wallets as much as possible, and avoid web wallets, or e-mail logins at all costs.

I’m under the impression this would only be used by more casual or web3-beginner users, less concerned with security and attack vectors.

I don’t question Blockscout’s delivery capacity at all, I just think it might be a niche application, and I’m not very confident on the payback of $24k + ongoing maintenance after 6 months, for fostering adoption and new users onboarding.

It might be nice to have some statistics of usage of web wallers and social/e-mail logins from other ecosystems, since these have been around for some years, in case someone has this info available.
Also, gas sponsoring is strong on ecosystems like Sui, it’d be nice if anyone has metrics on cost/benefits of this.

I’ll look for information on these and put up a study, and will share here in case I manage to gather good info.

4 Likes
3

Hi @ChronoTrigger thanks for your thoughtful comments! We’ve done some preliminary research on this topic and can share general adoption trends and assumptions related to Wallet as a Service (WaaS) that we found.

Keep in mind that Stripe just acquired Privy, an application that is very similar to our wallet offering (which uses Dynamic under the hood). This is proof positive that these types of solutions are in-demand and major players are working to gain exclusivity and traction in the WaaS market.

Current WaaS market

Overall metrics

The WaaS market is propelled by several key factors: The rise of DeFi, the increasing need for secure and user-friendly digital asset management solutions, and the growing demand for seamless integration of digital assets into existing systems.

Market Value (based on data, data):

  • 2024: ~$6-8 billion USD
  • 2025: ~$8-10 billion USD

Compound Annual Growth Rate (based on data):

~23.7% (2024–2033), reaching ~$68B by 2033

Data-based asssumptions

Using the data above, we can make some general assumptions:

  • The total crypto wallet market is roughly USD 10-USD 15 billion in 2024 depending on the definition.
  • Growth CAGRs are in the ~24-30% range.

If WaaS is ~5-15% of that ( a conserative estimate based on wallet demand for services / infrastructure):

  • 2024 WaaS market size is USD 0.5-2 billion.
  • Assuming a similar growth trajectory, this could expand to USD 5-15+ billion for WaaS in 5-6 years.

Total Wallets via WaaS:

  • 100M+ cumulative wallets created by mid-2025
  • 50–100% YoY increase across providers

These trends are happening across chains, so there is obviously a lot of variability depending on the ecosystem. However, having this infrastructure will give Rootstock the ability to attract different kinds of use cases and new users who are looking for a frictionless onboarding process. It also helps lay the groundwork for further institutional adoption.

2 Likes
4

Thanks for the thoughtful proposal, @AndrewG and the Blockscout team, who has been supporting the Rootstock ecosystem and the main explorer. Your track record and ability to provide a high-quality application are unquestionable and we appreciate your interest in this opportunity.

However, we believe providing a global wallet rather than battle-tested extension/mobile based wallets isn’t a well-demanded feature and the projected performance target isn’t attractive enough to grant $24,000. In addition, the most important KPI from the ecosystem perspective is the DApp support and supporting the top 15 dapps should be a part of the final milestone to unlock a portion of the grant.

2 Likes
5

Overall, this is a solid proposal with a clear implementation plan, a strong team, and a well-explained product. The demo video help a lot in understanding the user flows, and Blockscout’s experience operating core infrastructure on Rootstock is a clear strength.

Building on some of the points already raised in the thread, the main open questions for me are less about execution and more about impact and validation. In particular, how demand for a global/embedded wallet will be assessed beyond onboarding-friendly use cases, how success will be measured during the 6-month pilot, and how closely outcomes are tied to concrete dapp integrations rather than high-level adoption targets.

I’ve reflected these points in my review. Happy to revisit or update it as more concrete data or details are shared.

3 Likes
6

This proposal can addresses one of the biggest challenges in Web3: user onboarding, especially for non technical users or those transitioning from Web2.

DAO can also leverage Blockscout’s existing expertise and infrastructure, without the need to build new systems.

But I’m not fully convinced that WaaS aligns with Rootstock’s current user base, they are builders, power users, DeFi users, and those who are already familiar with self custody and security practices.

So this could introduce friction or concerns around privacy being managed by a third party.

Any security or privacy incidents would also reflect directly on the DAO and the Rootstock brand.

Regarding KPIs, DAU and active addresses alone don’t fully capture the success of the application.
More concrete metrics would be helpful, such as the number of dApps actively integrating the wallet, or user retention rates after 30/60 days?

Finally, it would be useful to better understand the post 6 months strategy: under what conditions should DAO continue funding this initiative, and when should it consider stopping?

2 Likes
7

Thanks guys for the responses so far! It makes sense that we need to provide additional info around potential impact, look at more tangible KPIs for adoption, and outline the costs once the 6-month pilot is complete.

  • Impact: We’ve looked into several other ecosystems who’ve adopted a global wallet with positive results. Sei, Aptos and Immutable have all experienced strong growth following the addition of a global wallet. Details are available here: Notion

  • Dapp adoption as a KPI: We will provide an easy-to-use SDK, instructions, guidance, outreach and promotion to dapps throughout the ecosystem. That said, ultimately it will be up to them to integrate. We will provide the resources and opportunity to help with any technical issues and provide outreach/marketing through our channels. We are hoping this easy path, along with gas sponsorship, will convince many dapps to use the wallet. We can’t guarantee that all top dapps will integrate, but importantly they will have the option to do so if they’d like.

  • Post-Pilot: Following the 6-month pilot we will have a lot of information on adoption, usage, potential improvements, and other stats to inform the best decision moving forward.

    • We are targeting gas sponsorship of ~$1500 per month based on current Rootstock usage. This cost would then be shifted to the DAO following the 6-month testing phase assuming the DAO wanted to continue sponsoring transactions.
    • In addition, there is Dynamic’s ongoing subscription fee for the wallet based on MAU. We anticipate this cost will be ~$1750 per month and covers functionality as well as security/privacy etc for the wallet integration.
    • We believe that a 6-month trial is a perfect way to test the popularity of this integration and see if it is useful and needed for the ecosystem. If so, ongoing costs would be approximately $3250 per month.

  • New user acquisition: We believe this is an important metric and one that the wallet can support (targeting a 25% increase in average daily active accounts). It is possible that the WaaS will not appeal as much to current power user base. However, we want to expand the current user base and onboard a new generation of users to Rootstock. These may be individuals who own Bitcoin and want to enter the DeFi realm but have felt intimidated by unintuitive onboarding, folks from traditional finance, and other people who need a slightly lower barrier to entry.

Finally, we’d like you to imagine you’re a brand new blockchain user visiting Rootstock and try the demo standalone app yourself! Compare it to the regular onboarding experience and see how it feels.

Demo link: https://waas-rootstock.vercel.app/

2 Likes
8

We agree with the concern raised by @ChronoTrigger regarding social/email logins. While this approach may lower friction for new users, it also introduces privacy considerations by potentially linking identities to onchain activity. For a Bitcoin-native ecosystem like Rootstock, this can become a privacy honeypot and represents a trade-off that should be carefully considered.

As @Ignas also pointed out, much of Rootstock’s current user base consists of builders and DeFi-native users who are already comfortable with external, self-custodial wallets. For this cohort, the global wallet appears better suited as an onboarding tool for Web2 users or those new to Web3, rather than as a primary wallet solution for the ecosystem’s existing core users.

For clarification, is the global wallet explicitly intended to function as a temporary onboarding wallet, or as a long-term wallet that users are expected to retain as they become more advanced?