We use metaphors to make abstract or unfamiliar ideas easier to grasp. But in computing many of these metaphors have a half-life, after which they cease to make sense for newer audiences.

Take the 💾 floppy disk, which used to visually represent the act of saving work or progress. The idea of using that metaphor in this day of SSDs and cloud storage would feel antiquated. It was already antiquated when internal hard disks were being used to save work more often. It would also be confusing to those that were born after the day-to-day use of floppy disks ended.

Since the inception of Bitcoin we have used the wallet as a metaphor for “some client that stores a private key and signs messages with it”, or even as simple as a wallet being a public-private key pair (paper wallets). It was a convenient way to convey the idea that a wallet contained the means to send and receive coins of some value.

But in a smart contract ecosystem that has spawned use cases past just transferring units of value between parties, does the wallet metaphor still hold true? Or should we do away with them as we have with floppy disks?

Here I will argue why the wallet is still our best metaphor for these new use cases in the web3 ecosystem. In addition I will be pitting wallets against passports, an up-and-coming metaphor that has captured some interest in Crypto Twitter, but one that I feel is still lacking compared to the wallet in many respects.

Physical wallets are a container that can hold anything the owner wants, as long as they fit within the form factor. Specifically wallets can hold three key types of items that many addresses on programable blockchains like Ethereum may have:

• 💴 Money

• 🪪 Identities

• 🃏 Collectibles

Let’s go through each of these and figure out why wallets still work for this use case and why passports cannot fulfill our needs.

The whole “Is Ether money?” argument aside, this is the clear use case for both physical wallets and wallets that can manipulate token counts on a blockchain. Your Ethereum wallet may not technically store the tokens, but it does hold the means to access them. Similar to how your physical wallet may have credit cards that don’t actually have money stored on them, but are a means to access the value associated with them.

Compare this with passports. Past the subjective value of visas that may reside in them, which cannot be transferred, or the value of the passport itself, passports cannot contain money (you could try to slip money to an immigration officer, but this is not advisable).

You likely have some form of identification in your physical wallet: drivers license, health coverage card, membership card, etc. Those are “strong” forms of identification that you would show to someone to prove your identity or association with a group. You may also have loose forms identification like your credit card or a train ticket that have your full name or seat number.

Wallets are often associated with a single private key, which can have multiple blockchain addresses derived from that key. Each of these addresses can have identities associated with them, from strong forms (ENS, Lens) to loose ones (POAPs, NFTs). An address is not restricted to one identity and could be associated with multiple identities, such as Satoshi Nakamoto's address since it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that Satoshi could be more than one person.

Passports are limited to association with a single identity and can’t be changed easily (addresses can change their identities at any time, such as when an ENS or Lens name is transferred). This may be too inflexible a metaphor in a time when many crypto users are used to having multiple addresses for different use cases and may tie a different identity to each of them. An individual may have multiple passports but these are not easy to obtain for most people, compared to being able to derive a new address and creating a new ENS name for it.

As mentioned earlier, physical wallets are containers that can hold whatever the owner wants, as long as it fits. It’s not uncommon to find personal collectibles in a wallet, such as family photos, novelty transit fare cards and memorable tickets or business cards.

Repurposing this as a metaphor in blockchains works just as well. Your wallet contains the addresses that are associated with collectibles on the blockchain, likely NFTs.

Passports can store collectibles too, but mostly in the form of visa stamps. Otherwise it’s a very inflexible container for any other collectible as other decorations inside the passport would be considered tampering.

Wallets are still the best method we have for conveying what someone can do with a private key on a blockchain.

Until a new utility has appeared in the physical realm that can act as a better metaphor for wallets, we should lean into making the best use of this metaphor to improve crypto UX for new crypto users. Not shoe-horn other objects, like passports, that do not fit our needs and can be explained more clearly with the wallet.

We use metaphors to make abstract or unfamiliar ideas easier to grasp. But in computing many of these metaphors have a half-life, after which they cease to make sense for newer audiences.

Take the 💾 floppy disk, which used to visually represent the act of saving work or progress. The idea of using that metaphor in this day of SSDs and cloud storage would feel antiquated. It was already antiquated when internal hard disks were being used to save work more often. It would also be confusing to those that were born after the day-to-day use of floppy disks ended.

Since the inception of Bitcoin we have used the wallet as a metaphor for “some client that stores a private key and signs messages with it”, or even as simple as a wallet being a public-private key pair (paper wallets). It was a convenient way to convey the idea that a wallet contained the means to send and receive coins of some value.

But in a smart contract ecosystem that has spawned use cases past just transferring units of value between parties, does the wallet metaphor still hold true? Or should we do away with them as we have with floppy disks?

Here I will argue why the wallet is still our best metaphor for these new use cases in the web3 ecosystem. In addition I will be pitting wallets against passports, an up-and-coming metaphor that has captured some interest in Crypto Twitter, but one that I feel is still lacking compared to the wallet in many respects.

Physical wallets are a container that can hold anything the owner wants, as long as they fit within the form factor. Specifically wallets can hold three key types of items that many addresses on programable blockchains like Ethereum may have:

• 💴 Money

• 🪪 Identities

• 🃏 Collectibles

Let’s go through each of these and figure out why wallets still work for this use case and why passports cannot fulfill our needs.

The whole “Is Ether money?” argument aside, this is the clear use case for both physical wallets and wallets that can manipulate token counts on a blockchain. Your Ethereum wallet may not technically store the tokens, but it does hold the means to access them. Similar to how your physical wallet may have credit cards that don’t actually have money stored on them, but are a means to access the value associated with them.

Compare this with passports. Past the subjective value of visas that may reside in them, which cannot be transferred, or the value of the passport itself, passports cannot contain money (you could try to slip money to an immigration officer, but this is not advisable).

You likely have some form of identification in your physical wallet: drivers license, health coverage card, membership card, etc. Those are “strong” forms of identification that you would show to someone to prove your identity or association with a group. You may also have loose forms identification like your credit card or a train ticket that have your full name or seat number.

Wallets are often associated with a single private key, which can have multiple blockchain addresses derived from that key. Each of these addresses can have identities associated with them, from strong forms (ENS, Lens) to loose ones (POAPs, NFTs). An address is not restricted to one identity and could be associated with multiple identities, such as Satoshi Nakamoto's address since it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that Satoshi could be more than one person.

Passports are limited to association with a single identity and can’t be changed easily (addresses can change their identities at any time, such as when an ENS or Lens name is transferred). This may be too inflexible a metaphor in a time when many crypto users are used to having multiple addresses for different use cases and may tie a different identity to each of them. An individual may have multiple passports but these are not easy to obtain for most people, compared to being able to derive a new address and creating a new ENS name for it.

As mentioned earlier, physical wallets are containers that can hold whatever the owner wants, as long as it fits. It’s not uncommon to find personal collectibles in a wallet, such as family photos, novelty transit fare cards and memorable tickets or business cards.

Repurposing this as a metaphor in blockchains works just as well. Your wallet contains the addresses that are associated with collectibles on the blockchain, likely NFTs.

Passports can store collectibles too, but mostly in the form of visa stamps. Otherwise it’s a very inflexible container for any other collectible as other decorations inside the passport would be considered tampering.

Wallets are still the best method we have for conveying what someone can do with a private key on a blockchain.

Until a new utility has appeared in the physical realm that can act as a better metaphor for wallets, we should lean into making the best use of this metaphor to improve crypto UX for new crypto users. Not shoe-horn other objects, like passports, that do not fit our needs and can be explained more clearly with the wallet.