In order to interact with dApps via Ethereum you need a specialized Ethereum wallet that requires you to confirm transactions and use an extension that stores your private keys. Audius – a decentralized and open source music sharing service – has decided that enough is enough and created Hedgehog – a brand new Ethereum wallet for interacting with dApps. However, Hedgehog isn’t ideal for every dApp out there, simply ones that require frequent small payments.
Limited Safe Uses for Hedgehog
One of the best things about Hedgehog is that it knows exactly what it is and it’s rather honest about its limitations. Due to the lack of security – signing every transaction yourself – Hedgehog isn’t exactly ideal for Decentralized lending, Banking dApps, or prediction markets. Anything where you’re going to be sending a large chunk of crypto, you’re going to need a more secure and robust wallet. That being said, Hedgehog is brilliant for dApps that have microtransactions, anything to do with gaming, or signing lots of data requests. As transactions and signatures are all accepted automatically, it reduces the amount of time users have to wait in-between actions in the dApp – leading to a better user experience.
Not Serving the Leaky EOS Market
Thankfully, Hedgehog is only serving the Ethereum blockchain. That means dApps on the leaky EOS network will have to carry on suffering through a barrage of popups and manual transaction signing. In the last five months of 2018, dApps on the EOS network lost more than $1 million to hacks and bugs – a considerable amount of cash. It’s reasons like this as to why Hedgehog has focused on building its wallet for a more respected and secure network like Ethereum
Which dApp Will Be Crowned King?
As more wallets like Hedgehog start serving dApps, the market has an almost indefinite amount of space to grow in. There are already a number of top dApps vying for dominance in the market, but which one will be the dApp that’s crowned king? Chromapolis has been around since 2012 and is a dApp hosting platform for businesses and games, while dApp-Builder is aiming to be the WordPress of the dApp world. All of these top dApps can quickly and easily integrate support for Hedgehog, giving users a far better experience.
Hedgehog is vastly improving the user experience in dApps across the board, and we can’t wait for more dApps to start supporting it. Hedgehog could be the difference between a dApp becoming the most popular dApp in the world and a total failure, so if you’re building a dApp you should really check it out.