The smart contract wallet Argent not only compares prices from multiple sources, but also helps users calculate the optimal transaction route. For example, it will split into two protocols to trade separately to obtain the optimal price. The function is a bit close to professional decentralized transaction aggregation. The device is 1inch away.
Written by: Donnager
As one of the originators of the Ethereum smart contract wallet, Argent explored the profit model for the first time in version 2.0 launched today. What’s interesting is that MetaMask, the largest cryptocurrency wallet in Ethereum, has also been updated to add functions similar to Argent. This may also mean that the aggregation effect of cryptocurrency wallets is emerging.
Argent, which launched the official version 1.0 in May of this year, has achieved rapid user growth by integrating about 7 DeFi protocols and subsidizing users’ Gas fees. As of today, Argent has nearly 35,000 accounts and has stored more than 22,000 ETH. Argent has also received great attention in the capital sector. In March of this year, Argent completed a US$12 million financing led by crypto venture fund Paradigm, with the participation of Compound founder Robert Leshner and investment institution Index Ventures.
In the 2.0 update of Argent, the most important thing is to increase the transaction price comparison function and integrate multiple decentralized transaction protocols for users. Users only need to select the assets and quantities to be traded, and Argent will find the best price to save users cost.
But in addition, Argent will charge a 0.15% commission for each transaction as the income of the cryptocurrency wallet, which is also the first profit method that Argent explores. In contrast, the transaction function recently launched by MetaMask requires a higher percentage of 0.875% handling fee.
Smart contract wallets are different from traditional public and private key-based wallets in that the user’s account is a smart contract, so it can provide users with various additional functions, such as setting daily transaction limits, social account retrieval, Retrieve account number through mobile phone number, etc. But it also brings some additional problems, such as when the wallet needs to add a brand new function, it may need to update the smart contract. For example, when Argent is upgrading to 2.0, users need to upgrade their accounts, but the gas fee is subsidized by Argent.
Smart contract upgrade process
In addition, in version 2.0, Argent also added the Gas fee payment function, so that users can not only use ETH but use other tokens to pay for Ethereum’s gas fees on the chain. In fact, the previous smart wallet MYKEY also supports similar functions, and users can use USDT and DAI to recharge network fees.
Is native integration transaction aggregation a new trend in wallets?
Just over a week earlier than Argent, MetaMask prioritized the launch of the transaction aggregation function to find the best price for users from the quotation sources of 7 decentralized exchanges.
Ethereum Light Wallet MetaMask may be the wallet tool with the most traffic and users in the cryptocurrency field. According to the official announcement, monthly active users have exceeded 1 million, which has increased by 4 times compared to the end of last year. MetaMask said that the recently launched MetaMask mobile app played an important role in the introduction of new users. The top four countries in terms of the number of mobile users were the United States, India, Nigeria and the Philippines.
As early as August, DeFi wallet and data platform DeBank also launched the DeBank Swap price comparison transaction function to help users find the best quotes among many DEXs and complete on-chain transactions. DeBank Swap will not only compare prices among AMMs such as Uniswap, but also integrate support for order book DEXs such as dYdX and DDEX, and aggregator DEXs such as 1inch and Paraswap. It also provides gas cost comparison to help in nearly 20 DEXs. The user finds the optimal transaction path on the chain, and the user can check the actual transaction slippage after the transaction is completed through the slippage monitoring function.
So Argent will not be the last cryptocurrency wallet with native integration of transaction aggregation. It currently has integrated multiple decentralized transaction protocols including Curve, Kyber, Uniswap, SushiSwap, Bancor, etc. These protocols should be able to cover most of the tokens in the Ethereum network and the liquidity on the chain.
Although they are all integrated, Argent not only compares prices from multiple sources, but also helps users calculate the optimal transaction route. For example, it will split into two protocols to trade separately to obtain the best price. The function is already a bit close to professional. 1inch of the decentralized transaction aggregator.
Profit model exploration
Argent has not explored a business model before. Even the legal currency deposit and withdrawal (non-Chinese) function provided long ago does not charge any additional fees, but it does not rule out that they will also charge certain fees from this channel in the future. After all, some overseas cryptocurrency wallets pass Commission is charged in this way.
Argent has actually updated its own supporting documents before the introduction of the aggregate transaction function in 2.0, specifying that Argent will charge 0.15% for transactions. If you add the fees of the decentralized protocol itself (for example, Uniswap has 0.3%), and the gas fee on the chain, the transaction cost is actually much higher than that of the centralized exchange. This may also be understood as the “extra cost” of decentralization.
However, compared to MetaMask, Argent’s service fee is relatively low. MetaMask charges 0.875% for each transaction. Even so, within 10 days after the launch of MetaMask’s aggregate transaction service, it still accumulated more than US$3,000 (service fee). ), it can be seen that the market demand exists objectively. But after all, this has just begun, and the data of MetaMask and Argent are worth continuing to observe.
