Wallet Support for Layer 2 Networks

Most on-chain activity worth doing happens on a rollup, where fees are a fraction of a cent. Wallet support for those networks varies more than it should.

What we check

Built-in network list. Whether major rollups appear without manual configuration. Adding a network by entering technical parameters is a step that deters people and introduces a chance to enter something wrong.

Network switching prominence. Whether the current network is obvious on the main screen. Balances are per network, and a wallet that hides the selector produces the recurring experience of funds appearing to have vanished.

Token display per network. Whether the same asset on two networks is clearly distinguished. Several wallets show both entries with identical names, which is confusing at exactly the wrong moment.

Fee asset handling. Whether the wallet warns when you hold a token on a network where you have none of the fee asset. This catches everyone once and a warning prevents it.

Send screen network display. Whether the destination network is shown at the point of sending.

What we found

The major wallets handle the largest rollups well and diverge on the long tail.

The feature that separated them most was the fee asset warning. A wallet that tells you before you attempt a transfer that you cannot pay for it saves a failed transaction and several minutes of confusion.

The practical setup

Add the network before moving funds, not after.

Fund the native fee asset first, in a small amount, and confirm it arrives.

Then move the tokens.

Doing it in that order removes the situation where a balance arrives on a network you cannot transact on.

Getting funds there

Withdrawing from a venue directly to a rollup avoids bridging entirely, which removes the most exploited category of infrastructure from the route.

Which networks a venue supports per asset is published, including by the exchange used for the withdrawal test, and checking that list before choosing which rollup to use saves a step.

Getting funds back

The canonical bridge is slow on optimistic designs, about seven days. Fast bridges charge a premium.

Withdrawing to a venue that accepts deposits on the rollup, then withdrawing onward, is frequently cheapest and fastest and carries no bridge risk. It is the route almost nobody considers because the bridge interface is what appears when you search.