Mini Programs in the Web3 Field: Exploring MetaMask Snaps

MetaMask Snaps is a project with grand ideals, but aside from its "ideals" facade, it is more like a mini-program in the Web3 world, or what can be referred to as a dApplet.

For developers, especially those in China, this concept is not unfamiliar. In recent years, terms like "ecosystem building" and "super App" have frequently been mentioned, as major business giants attempt to make the internet environment more closed in order to shift from service providers to standard setters. Today, this trend seems to be spreading into the Web3 space as well.

Although Snaps has been around for nearly a year, the concept was proposed at least four years ago, but ordinary users still know very little about it. Even cryptocurrency enthusiasts who use MetaMask every day may know nothing about MetaMask Snaps. However, when they hear the explanation "just like mini-programs," they usually show a knowing smile.

This situation reminds me of the time when WeChat Mini Programs were first launched. Due to the unclear functionality entry points, the initial usage was very low. It wasn't until the entry was moved to the dropdown position on the homepage that the usage began to grow significantly. If MetaMask wants to build an ecosystem, figuring out how to attract users into the ecosystem may become an urgent issue that needs to be addressed.

Since its inception, mini-programs have sparked controversy in the internet industry. Front-end engineers generally believe that they are merely commercial tools created by internet giants to monopolize traffic and block ecosystems, contributing little to technological development. It remains to be seen how much Snaps in Web3 can contribute to the community. Browsing through MetaMask's documentation, it increasingly feels that future Snap developers may face numerous restrictions.

It has been almost a year since the public beta of Snaps was launched by MetaMask, but the number of available Snaps listed on its official website is not many, with only 68 as of June 2024. Considering that the concept of Snaps was proposed by the official as early as around 2020, Web3 companies and developers have actually had a considerable amount of time to understand it.

Currently, there are no dedicated developers for Snaps, but there are quite a few mini-program developers in Web2. Their general view of mini-programs is that the development experience is poor. Although mini-programs utilize the front-end ecosystem, it is a stripped-down version, with vendors limiting what developers can do for various reasons. The technical capabilities and documentation quality of different vendors vary significantly, leading developers to encounter various strange pitfalls before being considered "experienced."

In the Web3 space, for security reasons and other factors, Snaps is likely to face a similar situation. It runs in an isolated security context and uses "secure ECMAScript," which imposes certain restrictions on the JavaScript API, such as preventing access to the DOM, Node.js, browser plugin APIs, etc.

For security reasons, the capabilities of a basic Snap are quite limited. Most functionalities require obtaining the corresponding permissions first, so Snaps need to request permissions from the user during installation. The available permissions include lifecycle, transaction, signature, CRON, etc.

Compared to the thriving Web3 ecosystem, the number of available Snaps is relatively small. MetaMask categorizes them into several types.

Snaps Type

MetaMask's official website categorizes Snaps into 4 main types:

Account Management

This type of Snaps mainly enhances the security of private keys through MPC technology.

There are some issues with traditional private key protection methods:

1. If you forget the location of your seed phrase, you may lose access to your assets.
2. If the device storing the mnemonic phrase is infected with a Trojan virus, hackers may steal the mnemonic phrase.

MPC technology can automatically split the private key into multiple parts, which are stored in different locations, and only recombined when a transaction signature is needed, without generating the complete private key in the process, maximizing the security of the private key.

Currently, there are only 3 account management Snaps: Capsule, Silent Shard, and Safeheron. Their installation numbers are not high.

interoperability

These types of Snaps mainly provide compatibility with non-EVM networks, including Solana, Cosmos, Near, Sui, etc. Currently, this type of Snaps accounts for the largest number, making up more than half of the entire ecosystem.

Notification and Chat

Although these types of Snaps are interesting, there are still few users willing to send messages via the chain.

safe

There is a high demand for this type of Snaps, especially in the case where MetaMask itself provides insufficient warnings against phishing transactions. Transactions, being the most common operation in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space, carry high risks and sensitivity. Through the transaction insight features provided by Snaps, developers can present users with richer transaction information, offering transaction analysis and insights to minimize potential asset losses for users.

According to data from the Snaps official website, the security type Snaps is the most demanded besides multi-chain support, currently accounting for 20% of the total.

MetaMask Snaps provides relevant permissions that allow Snap to read the raw transaction or signature payload when the user initiates a transaction or signature, perform analysis, and then display more security information to the user.

Thinking

MetaMask hopes to expand its domain to other chain platforms through Snaps, but it is still difficult to predict how far it can go. Experience in the Web2 field suggests that rudimentary mini-program services often cannot compare with Apps, and the follow-up on new features is often lagging. With the explosive growth of mini-programs, more Apps have also launched their own mini-program platforms, each striving to strengthen their own moat, making the entire Web world increasingly "centralized."

The capital in the Web3 space is not necessarily more sophisticated than that in Web2. If Snaps develops well, more wallets may follow. This could lead to Web3 developers needing to create corresponding versions of "Snaps" for each wallet, adding extra workload for them.

In the future, various "Snaps-like" platforms may emerge, with significant differences between them, making compatibility across platforms a daily task for developers. When the situation becomes unbearable, the Snaps Standard may be born, along with various "SIPs" for discussion, leading to a flourishing community.

Regardless, MetaMask Snaps is at least a product built by a group of passionate developers aimed at solving real problems, rather than a scam initiated by financial experts.

However, for most of the current MetaMask users, Snaps is not a particularly necessary feature. MetaMask may need to do more work on how to promote it more effectively.