MetaMask spent years as the default gateway to Ethereum, a browser extension that turned “connecting to your wallet” into muscle memory for millions of users.
Now ConsenSys is betting on the possibility that the same reflexes will work across blockchains. In late May, MetaMask switched on native Solana support, allowing its 30 million monthly active users to manage their SOL and SPL tokens without installing Phantom or other Solana first wallets.
Bitcoin support is on the roadmap somewhere in 2025 and was originally scheduled for Q3, but it hasn't shipped yet.
If that happens, MetaMask will be the first primary wallet to natively support Ethereum, Solana, and Bitcoin. These three ecosystems have traditionally required separate apps, seed phrases, and mental models.
The timing is not subtle. According to Artemis data for June, Solana's monthly active addresses matched all other Layer 1 and Layer 2 networks combined.
Solana stopped being an “Ethereum alternative” and started looking like a place where real users would show up.
In the case of MetaMask, this created an uncomfortable dynamic. The wallet with the largest distribution was missing the chain with the most activity.
Solana-born incumbent Phantom, which has 15 million monthly active users (MAUs) and $25 billion in user assets, had already made the opposite move, adding support for Ethereum and Bitcoin throughout 2024.
Multi-chain wallets were not a futuristic concept. It already existed, but MetaMask was slow.
UX Theme: One Account, Three Rails
What MetaMask is proposing goes beyond feature parity. The product now provides a unified portfolio view across Ethereum and Solana, with swaps and bridges built directly into the interface.
Users can import their existing Solana wallet using the same secret recovery phrase they use to manage their Ethereum keys, consolidating the work of juggling multiple apps into a single session.
The arrival of Bitcoin support ends the loop of one recovery phrase, one interface, and three completely different consensus mechanisms and encryption schemes.
The convenience is obvious. This risk is not often discussed, but it is difficult to ignore. Currently, a single seed phrase controls the EVM chain's secp256k1 key and Solana's ed25519 key, followed by Bitcoin key derivation.
If one backup is compromised, all chains are exposed simultaneously. Although Consensys has published security guidance on multi-chain models, the trade-off between blast radius and ease of use remains.
An extension bug that appeared earlier this year caused MetaMask to write excessive data to the SSD on some Chromium setups, but it didn't help the reliability story.
Although Consensys shipped a fix, this episode highlighted how extension-level failures can erode trust faster than feature announcements can build it.
This is where account abstraction comes into play. Consensys will combine the multi-chain rollout with the Delegation Toolkit and the upcoming EIP-7702 standard in Ethereum's Pectra upgrade.
These tools enable gas sponsorship, transaction batching, and session-style permissions, and constitute a software layer that allows wallets to completely hide seed phrases and execute multi-step flows without repeating approvals.
The result is what the industry calls an “invisible wallet,” which allows users to interact with apps without ever having to think about keys, gas, or chain ID.
While this is a compelling vision, EIP-7702 also opens up new avenues for phishing. Malicious dapps can request broad permissions to act on your behalf, making it your wallet's job to distinguish legitimate requests from scams.
MetaMask's security alerts and how proactive you are with warnings about delegate permissions are just as important as improving the UX itself.
Shelf space as distribution
The wallet interface is now your new home page.
Millions of EVM native users will sample Solana when MetaMask shows Solana dApps, Stablecoin Bridges, and Memecoin Swaps in its default view. Not because we studied the ecosystem, but because the path of least friction pointed us there.
The same logic applies to Bitcoin. Bitcoin's daily active addresses typically range from 700,000 to 1 million, and ordinal numbers and inscriptions have made BTC more than just a savings asset.
A native Bitcoin tab within MetaMask allows Ethereum and Solana users to experiment with Bitcoin-based collectibles and Lightning payments without switching contexts, and gives Bitcoin-first users a reason to try stablecoin swaps and DeFi protocols on faster chains.
The strategic question is whether distribution alone can change the gravity of an ecosystem. Although MetaMask's 30 million MAUs are dwarfed by Phantom's 15 million, Phantom owns mindshare among Solana users and has spent years building tools around NFTs, token launches, and social discovery.
If MetaMask turns even 10% to 18% of its user base into active cross-chain participants within the first few weeks, millions of people could suddenly end up browsing Solana dapps from their Ethereum wallets.
This is not a winner-take-all outcome, but rather reshapes the competitive landscape. Phantom will likely double down on the powerful features and community-driven discovery that made it the default for Solana residents in the first place.
MetaMask is betting that “good enough” cross-chain UX and account abstraction rails are more valuable than specialized depth.
The shadow of regulation and the final phase of super apps
The SEC sued ConsenSys in June 2024, alleging that MetaMask's swap and staking features resulted in more than $250 million in fees without proper broker registration.
ConsenSys is contesting jurisdiction, and while the lawsuit won't slow it down, it will add a layer of uncertainty to any product rollout.
Each new chain, swap route, and revenue source invites new scrutiny.
OKX Wallet, on the other hand, operates as a full-fledged super app, supporting over 100 chains and smart account features, demonstrating what is possible when regulatory constraints are light.
Coinbase Smart Wallet took a completely different path, surpassing 1 million accounts created over the summer using passwordless flows and embedded wallets. All on Base, all EVM, no Solana or Bitcoin in sight.
Coinbase is targeting users who don't know they are using a wallet, which is probably the real end goal for mainstream adoption.
MetaMask falls somewhere in between. Too visible to avoid regulation, too decentralized to move to a fully managed model, and too large to ignore the chains where users are actually spending their time.
Multi-chain pushing is an ambition, but also a matter of survival. If a wallet's market share is a proxy for ecosystem impact, then the wallet with the least friction and spanning the most chains will control where the next population of users will land.
Phantom was first successful with Solana and Bitcoin, but MetaMask is trying to be first with “everything at once.”
The wallet wars have moved from key management to defaults. Whoever owns the first connection, the first swap, the first tap, which consists of the chain that loads when a new user opens the app, will be the one that will steer the direction of what millions of people think cryptocurrency will happen.
If MetaMask's Bitcoin integration ships by the end of the year, 2026 will begin with a single interface that treats Ethereum, Solana, and Bitcoin as tabs within the same browser rather than separate universes. At that point, the question is not which chain will win. That depends on which wallet decides.
