As crypto markets remain under pressure in early 2026, wallet providers are redefining their role in the ecosystem, shifting focus away from speculative trading cycles and toward payments, automation, and infrastructure built for everyday use.
In an interview with Yellow.com on the sidelines of Consensus, Will Wu, head of growth at Bitget Wallet, argued that the next phase of wallet adoption will be driven less by price momentum and more by repeatable financial behaviors tied to real-world needs, particularly in regions facing inflation, capital controls, or underdeveloped payment rails.
Payments Hold Up As Trading Slows
Wu pointed to regions such as Argentina and Nigeria, where inflation and weak payment infrastructure have driven demand for stablecoin-based transactions regardless of broader market sentiment.
“These pain points for users always exist,” he said. “Even if people don’t trade, they are still using payment solutions.”
According to Wu, many users now enter crypto through payments rather than speculation, using wallets for daily transfers before ever interacting with DeFi or trading products.
“More and more users are entering and starting to use the product by payment,” he said, adding that trading often becomes a secondary behavior later.
That shift, Wu argued, allows wallet activity to remain resilient during downturns. “No matter how the market changes, the demand is always there,” he said. “It’s not really dependent on market factors.”
Competing With Web2 Without Becoming Invisible
As traditional fintech firms integrate crypto rails, Wu rejected the idea that wallets risk becoming irrelevant. He said the key distinction lies in cost efficiency and native liquidity. “If you try to do a swap on Revolut or other Web2 apps, the price is not cost effective,” he said. “This is not what they are built to do.”
At the same time, Bitget Wallet is positioning itself as a broader financial interface rather than a single-purpose trading tool. “If you want to do everything on Web3, you can just do it within a wallet, no matter what the market situation looks like,” Wu said.
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Regulation Pushes Wallets Toward An Interface Model
With regulators increasingly demanding travel-rule compliance from self-custodial wallets, Wu said Bitget Wallet’s approach is to avoid holding user data altogether. “We are a real self-custodial wallet,” he said. “We don’t store user information. All KYC data is held by regulated partners, not by us.”
He added that the wallet acts as an interface that connects users to licensed providers when required, without becoming an informational gatekeeper.
“In the end, we are just an interface that makes it easier to interact with different services,” Wu said.
Wu argued that this model may actually strengthen wallet adoption in regulated markets.
“More users want to own their assets without being monitored by exchanges or governments,” he said. “Permissionless and self-custodial is becoming a big opportunity, not a limitation.”
AI Agents And The Next Security Challenge
He further said wallets must prepare for a future where many transactions are initiated by autonomous agents rather than humans.
Instead of offering blanket insurance, Bitget Wallet is focusing on prevention. “Capital reserve is one thing,” he said, “but how to really ensure users are making the right decision is another.”
He said the company is building behavioral filters and AI-driven detection systems to flag risky activity early. “We need to block it at the very beginning,” Wu said. “We need to send alerts and prevent the wrong decisions before they happen.”
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