Coinbase launched a passkey-based Smart Wallet

Coinbase launched its Smart Wallet on June 5, 2024, introducing a browser-accessible, self-custodial wallet designed to replace several of the steps that made decentralized applications difficult for new users. The product let users create a wallet with a passkey instead of requiring a separate wallet application, browser extension or conventional recovery phrase.

The launch mattered because wallet setup was one of the clearest barriers between owning cryptocurrency through a centralized account and using blockchain applications directly. Coinbase was attempting to make that transition resemble signing into an ordinary internet service while preserving user control of the wallet.

That combination also created a tradeoff. Passkeys could simplify account creation and transaction authorization, but their security and recoverability depended partly on the devices, authentication methods and cloud ecosystems through which users managed them.

What Coinbase released on June 5

Coinbase said users could create a Smart Wallet in seconds using authentication methods including Face ID, a fingerprint, a Google Chrome profile or a YubiKey. The wallet was accessible from a browser, so an application developer could offer wallet creation without sending a prospective user elsewhere to install and fund separate software.

Coinbase described the product as self-custodial. In this context, that meant Coinbase was not presenting the wallet as an ordinary custodial exchange account in which the company alone controlled the assets. The absence of a mandatory seed phrase did not eliminate private-key management; it changed the mechanism through which the user authorized access.

The June 5 release supported eight networks: Base, Ethereum, Optimism, Arbitrum, Polygon, Avalanche, BNB Chain and Zora. Coinbase also offered a companion web application for asset management, transfers, swaps, non-fungible tokens and transaction history.

Those were launch specifications supplied by Coinbase, not independently measured adoption figures. The company’s stated ambition to help bring more than one billion users onchain was a strategic goal, not a forecast established by the June 5 evidence.

Gasless transactions were conditional

Coinbase promoted Smart Wallet as enabling a gasless experience, but that description required an important qualification. Blockchain execution still incurred network costs. The product allowed application developers to sponsor those costs for users through paymaster integrations; it did not make every transaction on every supported network free.

The wallet also supported transaction batching and EIP-5792, an interface intended to improve communication between applications and wallets. Coinbase said developers could add Smart Wallet support through its existing Wallet SDK and that several wallet libraries and integration services already supported it.

These features placed the launch within the broader account-abstraction effort: moving wallet behavior beyond a basic externally controlled account toward programmable authorization, sponsored fees and multiple actions packaged into a simpler user flow. The institutional significance was less about a new token or blockchain and more about a large U.S. crypto company distributing that model through its developer network.

What remained uncertain

The June 5 record established that Coinbase announced the wallet as live and available for developer integration. It did not establish how many wallets were created, how much value they held, whether users completed more application sessions, or whether the product reduced loss and fraud. Coinbase supplied no audited launch-day adoption or security dataset.

A June 7, 2024 Axios report highlighted dependence on cloud-backed passkey environments when moving access between devices. That later report clarified an event-day limitation without changing the launch record: easier recovery and portability could introduce reliance on infrastructure outside the blockchain itself.

The appropriate event-day conclusion was therefore narrow. Coinbase released a significant attempt to simplify self-custody and decentralized-application onboarding, while the product’s adoption, recovery performance and real-world security remained unmeasured.