For a long time in the past, when we talked about wallets, we were actually talking more about assets.

For example, where to store BTC, how to transfer ETH, how to manage NFTs, how to enter and use DeFi and RWA. For the vast majority of Crypto users, wallets are, in some sense, equivalent to asset access points.

But AI is changing all of this.

When users can describe their needs in natural language, and when AI can assist in breaking down the operational paths, the role of wallets begins to change. Especially in the past six months, they are increasingly resembling a console within the user's digital world. From this perspective, the real question that wallets in the AI era need to answer may not be "Can they do more for the user?" but rather as more and more processes can be automated, how can users continue to understand every interaction and maintain ultimate control?

This is also a new question that imToken is continuing to address after ten years.

1. The New Narrative of Wallets: From Asset Access to Personal Digital Hub

If you had told an Ethereum user in 2016 that ten years later, they could simply say into a dialogue box, "Help me generate a minimal wallet that only displays NFTs, AI categories of Tokens, and common operations," and then receive an application that could run on the test net, they would likely consider you a project that didn't know how to write a white paper.

But by 2026, this will no longer feel like a science fiction scenario.

If you recently attended imToken's tenth-anniversary event, you would have seen that similar scenes can actually be realized — users can simply present that natural language demand and generate a preliminary wallet interface that contains NFTs, AI Tokens, as well as common operations like Receive, Sign, and Swap.

"Your digital world, controlled by you," aptly summarizes the new narrative for imToken's tenth anniversary. It’s not about packaging wallets as a platform that does everything, but rather acknowledging that as the digital world users enter becomes increasingly complex, they need a long-term trustworthy, secure, clear, and self-controlled entry point.

This entry point was a wallet in the past and will continue to grow out of wallets in the future, because the more complex the digital world, the more a trustworthy starting point is needed.

In the past, wallets mostly helped users prove "these assets belong to me." Whether it’s ETH, ERC-20 tokens, NFTs, or later DeFi positions and RWA assets, the core role of wallets has been as asset containers and signature entry points.

But wallets in the AI era also need to help users confirm more questions, such as: Do these identities belong to me? Is this authorization managed by me? Is this operation understood by me? Are these automated processes still within my control boundaries?

This is also the key to the narrative of "personal digital hub," which means that the next stop for wallets is not just wallets, but foundational interfaces for users entering the digital world.

Using imToken as an example, if we divide imToken's ten years into three segments, we can see a very clear curve:

• 2016 - 2023: Wallets as Asset Containers: Starting from the Ethereum ecosystem, expanding to asset forms like ERC-20, DeFi, and NFTs, the core proposition is very simple: to keep private keys as securely as possible on users' devices, allowing every new token to be reliably contained in the same container. During this stage, users are most concerned about "Can the assets be safely stored, and can they be smoothly retrieved?";
• 2024 - 2025: Wallets at a Paradigm Shift: Tokens are no longer just assets but begin to extend to identities/data/agents/permissions. The narrative of Ethereum is no longer solely focused on scalability, but further moves toward account abstraction and closer user experience directions. As a result, the rewriting of how users interact with the chain causes this previously more stable puzzle piece of wallets to begin to loosen on a large scale for the first time;
• After 2026: Wallets Moving Towards "Personal Digital Hub": As AI starts to participate in application generation, transaction understanding, risk identification, and automated execution, wallets are no longer just tools to be used, but more like digital consoles for each person, responsible for linking users with AI Agents.

These three phases can be condensed into one sentence: Token evolution, control remains unchanged.

However, while asset forms may change, interaction methods may change, and AI capabilities may change, what wallets truly need to safeguard has not changed, which is the final control of users over their own digital world.

2. Functionality is not the endpoint, security is the foundation

Taking imToken's tenth-anniversary AI co-creation activity as an example, the truly noteworthy aspect is not just "using AI to generate a wallet interface," but rather placing "how wallets combine with AI" at a more foundational level.

It’s essential to clarify that the current AI direction demonstrated by imToken is not the radical route of "handing over private keys to AI to let AI automatically trade for you." Instead, it leans toward three more practical angles: First, allowing users to participate in wallet co-creation using natural language; second, making the foundational capabilities of wallets easier to call by developers and AI; third, embedding security rules upfront in the generation and interaction processes.

We believe this path aligns better with the logic of the wallet industry.

Because wallets are not ordinary apps. For ordinary apps, making a mistake with a button might just lead to a poor experience; a wallet making a mistake with a signature, authorization, or private key handling process could lead to genuine asset loss. Therefore, wallets in the AI era cannot just emphasize "speed of generation," but also must underscore "safety of generation," "comprehensibility," and "verifiability."

The most concrete action is to further open up the capabilities related to Token Core in co-creation scenarios. For ordinary users, the name Token Core may sound technical, but it can be understood as the "heart" of the imToken wallet, responsible for handling the most core capabilities of the wallet, such as private key and keystore management, address generation, transaction signing, and multi-chain support.

In simpler terms, there can be many types of wallet interfaces, but what truly determines whether the wallet can safely manage assets, correctly sign, and reliably operate across different chains is this foundational "heart."

As early as 2018, Token Core was already open-sourced. At that time, it was more about serving imToken's own mobile wallet to support multi-chain asset management and signing capabilities on iOS and Android. Today, Token Core has evolved into a wallet core library covering multiple public chains and cross-platform calls.

What is more noteworthy in the tenth-anniversary-related branches is the emergence of WebAssembly.

WebAssembly sounds very technical, but in simple terms, it allows the core capabilities of the wallet originally running in apps or local environments to run more conveniently in browser environments. This way, web-based wallet demos, AI-generated wallet applications, and wallet prototypes built by developers can potentially call foundational wallet capabilities more directly.

The significance of this is that wallets are no longer just a collection of functions within a closed app but can transform into a set of more open, more combinable fundamental capabilities. Therefore, several more easily understandable tools are also being introduced:

• Token Core CLI demo can be understood as a "command line demonstration platform," breaking down the core actions within a wallet, such as creating wallets, deriving addresses, managing keystores, signing transactions, etc., allowing developers and AI to intuitively understand what the wallet's foundation is doing;
• Token UI can be understood as a "wallet interface template library": based on imToken's design system, it helps participants quickly build wallet-like interfaces. Users can let AI generate a wallet interface prototype without needing to design every button, every list, and every asset card from scratch;
• security/SKILL.md serves more as a "wallet security manual" written specifically for AI coding assistants, since when AI generates code involving mnemonic phrases/private keys, signatures/authorizations, it must not just think of making the functions work but must first understand which areas are off-limits, and asset-related operations must require user confirmation;

This set of open-source actions may be different from how many people previously understood wallet competition.

In the past, it was easy for many to understand wallets as an app where whoever supports more chains, has a better-looking interface, has a more comprehensive DApp entry, would have the advantage. But after the AI era, wallet competition may shift to another form: Who can provide more trustworthy foundational capabilities, who can enable users and developers to safely combine wallet functions, and who can maintain safety boundaries during AI-generated experiences will have a better chance of becoming the foundation of users' digital worlds.

This is why imToken's AI capabilities should not simply be understood as "conducting an AI-generated wallet activity." It actually answers a more foundational question — as AI can generate more wallet interfaces, interactions, and applications, what must remain stable? What can be opened up for users and the community to reconfigure? What must still be constrained by security rules?

And imToken's answer is reliable core reserved for the kernel, controllable left for the user, and innovation entrusted to the community.

3. A New Map for Crypto Users: From Natural Language Entry to Agent Boundary Management

So what can we expect for the future of Web3 wallets in the next decade?

Putting the above two lines together, on one side, imToken presents wallet core, UI templates, and security rules to users and developers; on the other side, AI begins to gain stronger understanding and orchestration capabilities between users and the chain. Thus, the position of an ordinary Crypto user is undergoing interesting changes.

In the past, users were more about adapting to wallets.

For example, how the wallet homepage is designed dictates how users use it; what functions the wallet supports determines which functions users click; how the transaction process flows determines the steps users follow. Even heavy users often switch between various fixed functions.

But after AI intervention, wallets may increasingly adapt to users. This means that the Web3 wallets of the next decade may not just have more features, but possibly become more personalized:

• You may no longer have to endure a wallet homepage that looks the same for everyone; for instance, if you are a heavy DeFi player, you can let AI help generate a minimal interface focused solely on yields, risks, and position changes, displaying major positions, yields, redemption times, and risk statuses across different chains;
• If you only care about stablecoin income and expenses, the wallet homepage can only display USDC and USDT balances, recent transactions, and commonly used receiving addresses, without being disturbed by a bunch of unrelated assets and entry points;
• If you’re deeply involved in LST / LRT, the wallet can consolidate the real ETH positions, yield rates, exit windows, and potential risks behind different staking certificates into a more understandable panel;
• If you just want to prepare a small wallet for family members, it can only retain receiving, payment, and balance displays while hiding complex DApps, authorizations, and cross-chain functionalities.

The underlying logic of signatures, addresses, and transfer remains unchanged; what changes is the upper experience. In simpler terms, wallets are no longer just standard items but rather digital tools pieced together by wallet kernels, UI Kits, and personal needs.

Looking further ahead, the next generation of Crypto users may face an on-chain world filled with numerous AI Agents.

Your AI assistant scans stablecoin pools for interest rate spreads every day; your research Agent assists with small tests when new protocols go live; your payment Agent handles subscriptions, refunds, and splits; your asset management Agent reminds you to rebalance according to the rules you've set.

These scenarios may sound radical, but they do not imply that users should hand over their private keys to AI. Quite the opposite, the stronger the Agent, the more important the wallet becomes. After all, a healthy AI-wallet relationship isn't about letting Agents take over user assets indefinitely; rather, Agents should only make requests, while the wallet is responsible for translating requests into understandable transaction content for users and confirming at the final step.

In other words, AI Agents can discover opportunities, make suggestions, and generate paths; wallets must handle risk prompts, authority constraints, and final signatures.

Overall, AI will make wallets smarter and on-chain operations smoother. This grand shift is just beginning.

Final Thoughts

The underlying logic of the Crypto world is always built on user control rights. The private key issue will not disappear with AI; instead, it will become even more important.

imToken's new narrative and what truly warrants attention in the wallet sector are here.

Especially as the digital world expands from assets to identities and AI agents, users still need a trustworthy entry point to help them understand, confirm, and control every digital action. Thus, transitioning from a trusted primary wallet to a personal digital hub isn't a mere conceptual wrap-up, but rather a natural extension of the wallet's role in the new technological environment.

Perhaps looking back to 2026 from 2036, we will see a somewhat counterintuitive fact: the next decade of the wallet is not only about enhanced functionality but also about users transforming from being served into definers of the service.

Your digital world, controlled by you.

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