A Dive into Solana's Solflare Wallet

Introduction

Founded in 2020, Solflare Wallet originally made a name for itself being the first-ever Solana-specific wallet option on Solana.

While the wallet itself is non-custodial, they do offer staking from within the wallet which has become the home for 86.68M SOL, or about $1.7B which represents over 20% of the total supply of staked Solana. This method of staking Solana tokens has helped solidify Solflare’s spot as a top wallet for Solana ecosystem participants.

Safety Features

Staying true to their core mission of keeping Solana users safe while they transact, Solflare has added a number of features to help keep funds secure. For example, one of the major attack vectors in the crypto world is a malicious smart contract which may appear to do something other than it actually does.

The Solflare wallet has a built-in simulation mechanism for transactions which will tell users exactly what will happen if the transaction is completed. In this way, users can avoid sending assets they don’t want to send. Additionally, Solflare will scan sites users visit and alert them if they are attempting to visit a registered malicious domain.

Source: Twitter

For users who utilize a Ledger hardware wallet, Solflare offers the ability to import a Ledger wallet directly into the Solflare application. This allows users to transact in and out of a hardware wallet from within the same interface as you transact from your hot wallets. This can keep funds safe while adding a degree of comfort.

User Experience

Solflare originally launched as a browser extension. However, they added support for a mobile app in late 2021. Both feature a clean user interface with a modern and intuitive design, allowing users to hold, transact and stake tokens and NFTs as well as connect to dapps on the Solana blockchain all from one place.

To make things even easier, Solflare implemented a mechanism to automatically adjust priority fees on transactions depending on network congestion. For a chain that has a history dealing with massive congestion, this is a nice feature to have.

An update on September 12th, 2023 marked an integration between the largest EVM-compatible wallet provider, MetaMask, and SolFlare. This integration makes it possible for MetaMask users to access Solana dapps via the MetaMask Snaps browser extension, allowing people to use their MetaMask account for non-EVM chains for the first time.

Staking

Since its inception Solflare has amassed $1.7B worth of staked Solana tokens to the platform according to its website. This represents 20% of the circulating supply of Solana. For a single platform to attract this large a share of staking supply is very impressive and speaks to the level of trust the Solana ecosystem participants have for Solflare.

Source: Everstake

In order to start staking, a user simply funds a SolFlare wallet with SOL, navigates to the staking tab on the app or browser extension, enters the amount to stake and confirms the transaction. This will delegate the tokens to a validator, which will start earning rewards after a six day period during which the validator adds the tokens to its pool.

Conclusion

While there are a lot of options available for Solana wallets, Solflare has maintained a top spot through being the go-to wallet for staking. In addition, the ability to transact and hold tokens of all kinds on Solana with the many features SolFlare provides make it a great one-stop solution for both crypto newcomers and veterans coming to the Solana blockchain.