What groundbreaking changes will Snaps bring to MetaMask? How much growth will it bring to non-EVM ecosystems? And how will Linea incentivize developers, project teams, and users?
Interviewee: Francesco Andreoli, Consensys & MetaMask
Interviewer: Kean, Foresight News
Compiled & Written by: Karen, Foresight News
Linea Mainnet launch, MetaMask Snaps release, Web3 Fellowship program launch, Linea DeFi Voyage event opening – in recent months, Consensys has been making continuous big moves, introducing a series of powerful features and products.
Recently, Foresight News interviewed Francesco Andreoli, the Developer Community Lead at Consensys and MetaMask, to discuss in-depth the development path, planning, groundbreaking changes brought by Consensys, the MetaMask Snaps, and the progress of Linea.
Francesco Andreoli serves as the Developer Community Lead at Consensys and MetaMask. He is also the founding partner at the venture capital firm Oui Capital and is often active in various Ethereum-related events such as large hackathons and Hacker Houses. Francesco Andreoli’s primary responsibilities include expanding and supporting the Consensys developer community and ambassador program to enhance the developer experience, drive developer community strategy, and support the launch of the MetaMask Snaps product.
Below is the interview content compiled by Foresight News, with some additional information included for clarity.
Foresight News: How many employees does Consensys have?
Francesco: Consensys is a holding company with multiple product lines such as MetaMask, Infura, and Linea, among others. Overall, we have approximately 800 employees, and these employees are distributed across more than 40 countries, each with different backgrounds and cultures, making us a very diverse organization. We also collaborate with various companies, which is pretty cool.
Foresight News: The public beta of MetaMask Snaps has recently been launched. Why was Snaps developed, and what groundbreaking changes will its launch bring to MetaMask?
Francesco: Snaps is our latest major feature introduced on MetaMask and represents our first step towards a permissionless future. Imagine the surprises that permissionless innovation can bring us. Snaps, with features like transaction insights, interoperability, and notification categories, will empower MetaMask, and these Snaps are built and developed by third-party developers, builders, and startups.
In September, MetaMask announced the launch of the Snaps open beta, which provides features centered around transaction insights, interoperability with non-EVM blockchains like Bitcoin, and notifications. This allows anyone to securely extend the functionality of MetaMask.
To briefly recap MetaMask Snaps, from the perspective of third-party developers, they can now bring their tools to MetaMask, which has a massive user base, in unprecedented ways. They can design features for various use cases and network concepts. From a user’s standpoint, with MetaMask Snaps, you can control non-EVM accounts and assets within MetaMask. You can also introduce transaction analysis, anti-phishing, and security solutions into the MetaMask pre-transaction window UI to ensure the security of your transactions. Additionally, you can customize the MetaMask UI.
We have reason to believe that Snaps will not only empower the Ethereum and non-EVM network ecosystems but also drive innovation across the entire Web3 ecosystem.
Recommended Reading: “Web3 Mini-Apps: Will MetaMask Snaps be the Savior of Non-EVM Ecosystems?“
Foresight News: What does MetaMask Snaps mean for developers and users?
Francesco: For users, the impact of Snaps is significant. Given our 100 million users in MetaMask plugins, the reach is quite extensive.
Secondly, Snaps are open, and any developer can build any new feature they want on MetaMask. Whether it’s interoperable, non-EVM compatible Snaps, or notification Snaps, our goal is to achieve truly decentralized wallet innovation. In other words, MetaMask is allowing the community to build any functionality they desire.
Furthermore, developers can build Snaps for various use cases and scenarios, and users can customize their MetaMask based on their needs.
We believe that in the future, no single wallet will be able to dominate the entire industry, and each user will be able to customize their own interface. For example, you might be a DeFi user, while I might be an NFT user, and we can both customize our wallet with our preferences.
Foresight News: You’ve been working on the Snaps plugin system since October 2019. How did you develop this product step by step over the past four years?
Francesco: In early 2022, we released the MetaMask Flask canary version, with the first feature being Snaps, which allowed developers to extend MetaMask’s functionality at runtime. We’ve been very active in the ecosystem, from hackathons to Hacker Houses, community initiatives, and developers building a lot of Snaps. Over the past 18 months, we’ve received a lot of feedback and have been continuously improving.
With the release of the public beta, we have the opportunity to showcase Snaps in three main categories: transaction insights, interoperability, and notifications. Interoperability essentially means that you can interact with different ecosystems that are not EVM-compatible. Imagine the convenience of Solana Snaps, Cosmos Snaps, or Bitcoin Snaps. The second major category is notifications, which are essential for many gamers who want to receive notifications when something happens. And the third is transaction insights, the importance of which is self-evident. Before approving a transaction, you can see whether the contract you’re interacting with is a malicious contract, and you can also assess the asset’s risk situation, among other things.
Foresight News: Are there any interesting stories (during the development progress) that you can share?
Francesco: The first time I saw the feedback mechanism where the community can engage and drive the platform’s development in this way, it was very exciting for me. We’ve received some documentation feedback, and hackathon events have helped us gather feedback from the community, and we’ve seen various attractive use cases. In this ecosystem, I’m very excited about this permissionless innovation and new use cases.
Foresight News: We noticed that many developers are using Flask to develop Snaps, but the initial batch only had 34 Snaps released. How many applications did you receive, and how did you review and select them?
Francesco: That was just the data at the time of the announcement. Currently, we are in communication with over 150 partners, and we will be adding more Snaps categories and integrating more Snaps in the future.
At the time of the launch, MetaMask publicly introduced the initial batch of 34 MetaMask Snaps. As of now, the number of Snaps featured on the MetaMask website has reached 39.
Foresight News: How will you provide protection for users in the permissionless future?
Francesco: We always prioritize security, so Snaps run in a sandbox environment with a permission model to ensure safety, followed by consent permissions.
User consent, “Consent is king,” is one of our top priorities, and we aim to pursue transparency in user consent and acceptance.
Snaps run in an isolated environment where they can access a limited set of functionalities, which are determined by the permissions granted by users during the installation process.
Foresight News: How much growth do you think Snaps will bring to non-EVM ecosystems?
Francesco: This is a very interesting question. Just think about how Snaps that are compatible with networks like Bitcoin, Solana, Cosmos, Filecoin, and more will contribute to the growth of MetaMask, Ethereum, non-EVM ecosystems, and even the entire Web3 space.
Foresight News: How do you view the potential competitive relationship between Snaps and native wallets in the non-EVM ecosystems?
Francesco: As more and more partners build non-EVM ecosystem Snaps, there will also be more users using Snaps. Perhaps in the future, we will further advance in terms of standardization. It’s an ongoing “large-scale marathon,” and we will continue to add more new categories and Snaps.
Foresight News: In the future, will Snaps still require a separate webpage to work alongside, or can users directly complete their actions within MetaMask using Snaps? For example, can MetaMask directly control AA (Autonomous Account) accounts generated by Snaps?
Francesco: Of course, that’s a super interesting part. Please continue to stay tuned and expect. We are currently testing different Snaps.
Foresight News: Besides transaction insights, notifications, and interoperability, what other Snaps categories will MetaMask support?
Francesco: As mentioned earlier, the initial focus for Snaps will be on insights, notifications, and interoperability. In the future, anyone can build any type of Snaps they want, and I also see potential for social graphs and identity categories.
Foresight News: What do you hope the future development of MetaMask Snaps will look like?
Francesco: MetaMask Snaps are unlocking limitless potential, and we see the vision of permissionless innovation coming to life, aligning with user needs.
Foresight News: Currently, it seems that the Linea lockup volume is steadily increasing, but the increase rate is relatively low. How will Linea incentivize developers, project teams, and users?
Francesco: Linea offers advantages such as fast finality, EVM compatibility, low gas fees, and high throughput, allowing both project teams and users to enjoy a fast and cost-effective experience with Linea.
It’s worth noting that Foresight News reported this week that Linea is about to launch a 6-week DeFi Voyage event, consisting of 10 events and 10 core missions. Users will be able to choose from over 80 DApps to interact with.
Linea’s DeFi Voyage will cover tasks related to wallets, cross-chain interactions, exchanges, lending, liquidity provision, and liquidity mining. Rewards will be distributed in the form of Linea Voyage XP tokens, which can be flexibly staked, to recognize users’ contributions to the Linea ecosystem. Additionally, Linea aims to focus on education and exploration in L2 DeFi and provides a step-by-step mission guide to ensure convenient participation for both existing and new users.
Furthermore, at the end of September, Consensys launched a 12-week Web3 Fellowship program, which will provide guidance, workshops, and potential investments of up to $1.5 million to startups utilizing the MetaMask SDK, MetaMask Snaps, and Linea. This week, Consensys has announced the first batch of 16 startups selected for the Fellowship program, covering areas such as social, DAO governance, smart contract solutions, payments, DeFi, privacy, wallet solutions, ZK, and marketing automation.
Foresight News: In your opinion, what is the biggest advantage of Linea compared to competitors?
Francesco: The biggest advantage of Linea is its seamless integration with Consensys’ main products, Infura and MetaMask. Secondly, we have a very strong development team. Equally important is that there are many products that can be fully integrated into the Linea ecosystem.
What groundbreaking changes will Snaps bring to MetaMask? How much growth will it bring to non-EVM ecosystems? And how will Linea incentivize developers, project teams, and users?
Interview: Kean, Foresight News
Compiled & Written by: Karen, Foresight News
Linea Mainnet launch, MetaMask Snaps release, Web3 Fellowship program launch, Linea DeFi Voyage event opening – in recent months, Consensys has been making continuous big moves, introducing a series of powerful features and products.
Recently, Foresight News interviewed Francesco Andreoli, the Developer Community Lead at Consensys and MetaMask, to discuss in-depth the development path, planning, groundbreaking changes brought by Consensys, the MetaMask Snaps, and the progress of Linea.
Francesco Andreoli serves as the Developer Community Lead at Consensys and MetaMask. He is also the founding risk partner at the venture capital firm Oui Capital and is often active in various Ethereum-related events such as large hackathons and Hacker Houses. Francesco Andreoli’s primary responsibilities include expanding and supporting the Consensys developer community and ambassador program to enhance the developer experience, drive developer community strategy, and support the launch of the MetaMask Snaps product.
Below is the interview content compiled by Foresight News, with some additional information included for clarity.
Foresight News: How many employees does Consensys have?
Francesco: Consensys is a holding company with multiple product lines such as MetaMask, Infura, and Linea, among others. Overall, we have approximately 800 employees, and these employees are distributed across more than 40 countries, each with different backgrounds and cultures, making us a very diverse organization. We also collaborate with various companies, which is pretty cool.
Foresight News: The public beta of MetaMask Snaps has recently been launched. Why was Snaps developed, and what groundbreaking changes will its launch bring to MetaMask?
Francesco: Snaps is our latest major feature introduced on MetaMask and represents our first step towards a permissionless future. Imagine the surprises that permissionless innovation can bring us. Snaps, with features like transaction insights, interoperability, and notification categories, will empower MetaMask, and these Snaps are built and developed by third-party developers, builders, and startups.
In September, MetaMask announced the launch of the Snaps open beta, which provides features centered around transaction insights, interoperability with non-EVM blockchains like Bitcoin, and notifications. This allows anyone to securely extend the functionality of MetaMask.
To briefly recap MetaMask Snaps, from the perspective of third-party developers, they can now bring their tools to MetaMask, which has a massive user base, in unprecedented ways. They can design features for various use cases and network concepts. From a user’s standpoint, with MetaMask Snaps, you can control non-EVM accounts and assets within MetaMask. You can also introduce transaction analysis, anti-phishing, and security solutions into the MetaMask pre-transaction window UI to ensure the security of your transactions. Additionally, you can customize the MetaMask UI.
We have reason to believe that Snaps will not only empower the Ethereum and non-EVM network ecosystems but also drive innovation across the entire Web3 ecosystem.
Recommended Reading: “Web3 Mini-Apps: Will MetaMask Snaps be the Savior of Non-EVM Ecosystems?“
Foresight News: What does MetaMask Snaps mean for developers and users?
Francesco: For users, the impact of Snaps is significant. Given our 100 million users in MetaMask plugins, the reach is quite extensive.
Secondly, Snaps are open, and any developer can build any new feature they want on MetaMask. Whether it’s interoperable, non-EVM compatible Snaps, or notification Snaps, our goal is to achieve truly decentralized wallet innovation. In other words, MetaMask is allowing the community to build any functionality they desire.
Furthermore, developers can build Snaps for various use cases and scenarios, and users can customize their MetaMask based on their needs.
We believe that in the future, no single wallet will be able to dominate the entire industry, and each user will be able to customize their own interface. For example, you might be a DeFi user, while I might be an NFT user, and we can both customize our wallet with our preferences.
Foresight News: You’ve been working on the Snaps plugin system since October 2019. How did you develop this product step by step over the past four years?
Francesco: In early 2022, we released the MetaMask Flask canary version, with the first feature being Snaps, which allowed developers to extend MetaMask’s functionality at runtime. We’ve been very active in the ecosystem, from hackathons to Hacker Houses, community initiatives, and developers building a lot of Snaps. Over the past 18 months, we’ve received a lot of feedback and have been continuously improving.
With the release of the public beta, we have the opportunity to showcase Snaps in three main categories: transaction insights, interoperability, and notifications. Interoperability essentially means that you can interact with different ecosystems that are not EVM-compatible. Imagine the convenience of Solana Snaps, Cosmos Snaps, or Bitcoin Snaps. The second major category is notifications, which are essential for many gamers who want to receive notifications when something happens. And the third is transaction insights, the importance of which is self-evident. Before approving a transaction, you can see whether the contract you’re interacting with is a malicious contract, and you can also assess the asset’s risk situation, among other things.
Foresight News: Are there any interesting stories (during the development progress) that you can share?
Francesco: The first time I saw the feedback mechanism where the community can engage and drive the platform’s development in this way, it was very exciting for me. We’ve received some documentation feedback, and hackathon events have helped us gather feedback from the community, and we’ve seen various attractive use cases. In this ecosystem, I’m very excited about this permissionless innovation and new use cases.
Foresight News: We noticed that many developers are using Flask to develop Snaps, but the initial batch only had 34 Snaps released. How many applications did you receive, and how did you review and select them?
Francesco: That was just the data at the time of the announcement. Currently, we are in communication with over 150 partners, and we will be adding more Snaps categories and integrating more Snaps in the future.
At the time of the launch, MetaMask publicly introduced the initial batch of 34 MetaMask Snaps. As of now, the number of Snaps featured on the MetaMask website has reached 39.
Foresight News: How will you provide protection for users in the permissionless future?
Francesco: We always prioritize security, so Snaps run in a sandbox environment with a permission model to ensure safety, followed by consent permissions.
User consent, “Consent is king,” is one of our top priorities, and we aim to pursue transparency in user consent and acceptance.
Snaps run in an isolated environment where they can access a limited set of functionalities, which are determined by the permissions granted by users during the installation process.
Foresight News: How much growth do you think Snaps will bring to non-EVM ecosystems?
Francesco: This is a very interesting question. Just think about how Snaps that are compatible with networks like Bitcoin, Solana, Cosmos, Filecoin, and more will contribute to the growth of MetaMask, Ethereum, non-EVM ecosystems, and even the entire Web3 space.
Foresight News: How do you view the potential competitive relationship between Snaps and native wallets in the non-EVM ecosystems?
Francesco: As more and more partners build non-EVM ecosystem Snaps, there will also be more users using Snaps. Perhaps in the future, we will further advance in terms of standardization. It’s an ongoing “large-scale marathon,” and we will continue to add more new categories and Snaps.
Foresight News: In the future, will Snaps still require a separate webpage to work alongside, or can users directly complete their actions within MetaMask using Snaps? For example, can MetaMask directly control AA (Autonomous Account) accounts generated by Snaps?
Francesco: Of course, that’s a super interesting part. Please continue to stay tuned and expect. We are currently testing different Snaps.
Foresight News: Besides transaction insights, notifications, and interoperability, what other Snaps categories will MetaMask support?
Francesco: As mentioned earlier, the initial focus for Snaps will be on insights, notifications, and interoperability. In the future, anyone can build any type of Snaps they want, and I also see potential for social graphs and identity categories.
Foresight News: What do you hope the future development of MetaMask Snaps will look like?
Francesco: MetaMask Snaps are unlocking limitless potential, and we see the vision of permissionless innovation coming to life, aligning with user needs.
Foresight News: Currently, it seems that the Linea lockup volume is steadily increasing, but the increase rate is relatively low. How will Linea incentivize developers, project teams, and users?
Francesco: Linea offers advantages such as fast finality, EVM compatibility, low gas fees, and high throughput, allowing both project teams and users to enjoy a fast and cost-effective experience with Linea.
It’s worth noting that Foresight News reported this week that Linea is about to launch a 6-week DeFi Voyage event, consisting of 10 events and 10 core missions. Users will be able to choose from over 80 DApps to interact with.
Linea’s DeFi Voyage will cover tasks related to wallets, cross-chain interactions, exchanges, lending, liquidity provision, and liquidity mining. Rewards will be distributed in the form of Linea Voyage XP tokens, which can be flexibly staked, to recognize users’ contributions to the Linea ecosystem. Additionally, Linea aims to focus on education and exploration in L2 DeFi and provides a step-by-step mission guide to ensure convenient participation for both existing and new users.
Furthermore, at the end of September, Consensys launched a 12-week Web3 Fellowship program, which will provide guidance, workshops, and potential investments of up to $1.5 million to startups utilizing the MetaMask SDK, MetaMask Snaps, and Linea. This week, Consensys has announced the first batch of 16 startups selected for the Fellowship program, covering areas such as social, DAO governance, smart contract solutions, payments, DeFi, privacy, wallet solutions, ZK, and marketing automation.
Foresight News: In your opinion, what is the biggest advantage of Linea compared to competitors?
Francesco: The biggest advantage of Linea is its seamless integration with Consensys’ main products, Infura and MetaMask. Secondly, we have a very strong development team. Equally important is that there are many products that can be fully integrated into the Linea ecosystem.