MetaMask Expands Past Ethereum Chains, Adds Bitcoin & Solana Support

Key Takeaways

• Snaps are plugins that extend MetaMask’s functionality.
• MetaMask wallet is now cross-chain compatible.

Consensys, the developer behind MetaMask, has announced a new feature called ‘Snaps’, allowing seamless interactions with blockchains beyond the Ethereum ecosystem, such as Bitcoin, Solana, and Cardano.
MetaMask was originally designed to support only Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible chains and layer-2 solutions like Polygon, Avalanche, Optimism, and others.
Snaps are essentially plugins that extend MetaMask’s functionality. They allow users to add features and functionality from independent developers. This could include custom user interfaces, notifications, and insights into transactions to spot malicious contracts.
As of now, users can choose from 34 different Snaps, including encrypted password managers, risk detectors, and wallet-to-wallet chat, among others.

“The most important part of the Snaps story to me is that we now have a system at the heart of our wallet that allows us to step back and humbly invite the community to provide their own solutions to the hardest problems,” said Dan Finlay, Co-founder of MetaMask.

In a move to foster innovation, Consensys is opening up Snaps’ development so that any developer can build a feature for MetaMask and retain ownership of their code. Currently, each Snap must pass a security audit and gain a whitelist status from the MetaMask team. However, MetaMask plans to change to a permissionless approach in the future, where developers can list Snaps without approval.