# Wallet and Identity By [Fridiary @ LALA](https://paragraph.com/@fridiary-lala) · 2022-02-11 --- While the amount of people that have and use a wallet is growing (30M people use Metamask each month) it is obviously still far from mainstream. Interesting to consider what a wallet will look like and how it will be used as the utility of tokens increase and become more ubiquitous. Would be surprised if the core value proposition of a wallet remains to be centered around financial utility such as buying, swapping, and earning interest on coins - how many do you know today that use their bank account and wallet for these purposes today? Easier to imagine how the future wallet experience will be centered around identity management and experiencing the tokens you own. You can already see how wallets like Bitski and Rainbow are focusing more on these aspects, and shouldn’t be surprised if the “NFT” tabs in MetaMask and CoinbaseWallet become more prominent and delightful to experience and use. On the topic of connecting identity to creator and fan relationships, Audius seems to also have realized the power of music identity, and ensuring a great experience around your NFTs. Seems as if they are [building on top of wallet integrations](https://blog.audius.co/posts/audius-nfts-and-wallets-faq), in order to aggregate demand and discovery of NFTs tied to creators. They incentivise artists to showcase their [NFT creations/collection in the Audius profile](https://blog.audius.co/posts/audius-collectibles) which then links to OpenSea, and are trying to get fans to go to artist pages to discover NFTs. Some other great reading on the topic: Fawzi Itani writes a great article on [Crypto Wallets Are the Next Form of Social](https://mailchi.mp/forerunnerventures/the-cq-jun-5-1224575?e=65e64c773e): “_As crypto wallet UX converges, branding and design will be a wallet’s competitive moat.”_ [Spruce](https://www.spruceid.com/) seems to be thinking in similar ways, developing some really cool tech around it: [How Spruce is unlocking Identity and data across the web](https://blog.spruceid.com/how-spruce-is-unlocking-identity-and-data-across-the-web/). If you have 16min to spare, [this](https://blog.gnosis.pm/inventories-not-identities-7da9a4ec5a3e) read by Kei Kreutler is a really interesting piece on why multi-signatory accounts are the future of identity management in Web3. * * * **Music industry news** [2021 US music consumption](https://mrcdatareports.com/mrc-data-2021-u-s-year-end-report/). TLDR: “_For the first time since MRC Data began tracking streaming music in 2008, the audio streaming of Current music (music released less than 18 months ago) actually declined. This led to a significant increase in Catalog’s share of the audio on-demand streaming universe, with 70% in 2021 vs 65% in 2020, as consumers reconnected with old favorites or discovered them for the first time through platforms like TikTok. Vinyl album sales outpaced CDs for the first time in MRC Data’s history (since 1991). Vinyl album volume increased a whopping 50.4% YOY and finished the year with 41.7 million versus CD album volume at 40.6 million.”_ * * * **Gamers vs. Music fans react to NFTs** Casey Newton on [why the reaction to NFTs have been different in the Gaming vs. Music fan community.](https://www.platformer.news/p/why-gamers-hate-crypto-and-music?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxMTM0ODgwLCJfIjoiQzNVMzIiLCJpYXQiOjE2NDM5NzIwMTMsImV4cCI6MTY0Mzk3NTYxMywiaXNzIjoicHViLTc5NzYiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.KLoD_WR1pwj1e0ma-V_et7-ZxFYPEr6RUfaOlU19Oys) TLDR: “_Reading through angry social media posts, a few key themes emerge. One, gamers and developers are engaged in a perennial battle over how games are monetized. Gamers generally want to pay one low price to play a game forever; developers are forever experimenting with exotic new financing schemes to grow their profits. Gamers have already been subjected to premium downloadable content; subscriptions, micro-transactions, and randomized loot boxes, each of which has been more poorly received than the last. What these have in common is that they generally do not make games more fun to play; they do, however, make them more expensive. They see it as a force likely to warp the gaming industry into something less entertaining and less accessible. It’s now clear that gamers will resist that force wherever they see it.”_ --- *Originally published on [Fridiary @ LALA](https://paragraph.com/@fridiary-lala/wallet-and-identity)*