rewrite this title Ethereum Wallet MetaMask Is Adding Support for Solana Alongside Bitcoin – Decrypt

MetaMask is rolling out support for Solana and Bitcoin this year, a move that will allow the Ethereum-centric crypto wallet to cast a wider net for new users. 

Beginning in May, MetaMask will enable its users to buy, sell and swap tokens and interact with decentralized applications across the Solana ecosystem, the company said Thursday in a statement. The application will also begin supporting Bitcoin sometime between July and September, allowing MetaMask users to hold the world’s oldest cryptocurrency in their wallets.

MetaMask—which was created by Ethereum software giant Consensys (disclosure: one of 22 investors in an editorially independent Decrypt)—previously confirmed its Bitcoin plans to Decrypt in January.

“We’ve been a little slower to get to this moment of multi-chain maturity, but I think that this is going to be a moment where we’re cracking open just a much wider multi-chain world,” MetaMask co-founder Dan Finlay told Decrypt at ETH Denver.

Since 2016, MetaMask has risen to prominence as a popular software wallet for trading and holding cryptocurrencies, due to its support for Ethereum and a range of EVM-compatible chains such as Avalanche and Binance Smart Chain. But with surging demand for meme coins on Solana, along with and Ordinals collectibles and Runes meme coins on Bitcoin, the crypto ecosystem is growing in other directions.

Solana boasted nearly double the number of daily active users as the Ethereum ecosystem last month, data from blockchain research firm Chain Catcher shows. And as activity on Solana and Bitcoin has risen, so too has the popularity of wallets that serve the networks’ users. 

Multi-chain wallet Phantom recorded 15 million monthly active users as of last month, a 1,400% increase from its user numbers two years earlier, the company’s data shows. And Coinbase Wallet roughly doubled its active user base from 2023 to 2024, according to app analytics firm Business of Apps. 

However, MetaMask’s embrace of Solana and Bitcoin isn’t just about competing with other hot wallets, Finlay told Decrypt. Those additions support the wallet provider’s vision to create a “permissionlessly extensible” product that allows MetaMask users to build support for new features and chains via its Snaps functionality.

“We’ve been betting that the space of new protocols is going to be a continuously growing thing,” he said.

Edited by James Rubin