Opera Introducing Integrated Cryptocurrency Wallet on Desktop Browser

Opera is introducing its desktop web browser with a built-in crypto wallet functionality.

Opera already offers a mobile crypto wallet in its beta version of Opera for Android, which was introduced last month. Opera claimed “strong interest” and an “overwhelmingly positive response from the crypto community” to the mobile crypto wallet as the drive for its latest innovation.

The desktop version would function by allowing users to link their desktop browser to their current crypto wallet-enabled mobile app by scanning a QR code — a system that Opera has been utilizing to synchronize desktop-mobile apps for several years, as for example, with its Whatsapp web client.

Using a linked mobile-desktop system means that the wallet can use the phone’s secure system lock to allow users to sign transactions using their fingerprints, as opposed to entering passwords into their browsers, which the firm said is not only more efficient but also more secure. The existing Android crypto wallet is “user-controlled,” which means that keys are kept on the phone rather than on a centralized server.

As with the mobile app, the desktop client will support tokens as well as digital collectibles, with product leader of Opera Crypto, Charles Hamel, saying that browser integration is a huge step in “making cryptocurrencies and Web 3.0. mainstream.”

Opera’s web and mobile browsers have included anti-cryptojacking software as of January this year.

Last month, unconfirmed rumors were circulating that popular brokerage and crypto trading app Robinhood would be offering native crypto wallet functionality, after the firm published a job advertisement for cryptocurrency engineers that suggested it was exploring developing a wallet infrastructure.