Crypto users keep getting robbed because of a simple design flaw—but a solution is at hand

If you have ever paid online with Stripe’s new Link wallet, autofilled a checkout with Apple Pay, or topped up a Revolut account, you have used a piece of financial architecture that took decades to perfect. Sadly, for crypto and all its talk of reinventing money, the crypto industry has stubbornly failed to catch on.

The principle is so simple it feels obvious. The thing you tap to pay should not be the thing that holds your money.

When you use Apple Wallet, your real money sits in your bank or on a credit line at a card issuer. Apple Wallet is a key. The bank is the vault. When you check out with Stripe’s Link, the funds are charged to your linked debit card or bank account. Link itself holds nothing. Revolut takes a hybrid approach: a small balance for daily spending, with the rest of your financial life parked in linked accounts and cards. In every case, the architecture is the same: the spending interface and the store of value live apart. The interface is exposed to the world. The vault stays sealed.

Crypto’s approach to wallets is decidedly the opposite. 

A crypto wallet, as the industry has built it, is not a wallet at all. It is a vault with a public-facing slot. Open MetaMask, Phantom, or any of the dozen consumer wallets that dominate the space, and what you are looking at is your entire net worth balance: Every token, every position, every digital deed, sitting at a........

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