Crypto wallets expand into DeFi hubs as swaps and yield move in-app

Crypto wallet providers have brought trading, lending, and payments into their apps, with Phantom charging 0.85% on most swaps and MetaMask advertising up to 4% variable annual yield through Money Account.

MetaMask, Phantom and Jupiter describe products that combine self-custody with financial services, although their documentation shows different approaches to trade execution, lending and transaction fees.

According to MetaMask’s Money Account guidance, users retain control of their funds while deposits earn returns through third-party DeFi platforms. Phantom’s swap documentation lists trading costs inside its app, while Jupiter describes a Solana wallet connected to its own routing and lending infrastructure.

Crypto wallets combine yield with spending and trading

On June 30, MetaMask launched Money Account on Monad, as crypto.news previously reported, offering supported stablecoin conversions into mUSD alongside trading and card payments.

At launch, Consensys said deposits would enter smart contract vaults managed by Veda and curated by Steakhouse Financial. The company identified Morpho as the initial lending destination and said Aave markets would follow.

In its current help guide, MetaMask advertises up to 4% annual percentage yield and says the rate changes daily with market conditions. According to the guide, the displayed return is calculated after product and network fees, while moving funds to another network or into certain trading accounts can incur network charges.

For cardholders in eligible regions, MetaMask says Money Account balances can fund purchases directly. Its documentation also distinguishes mUSD held in a regular account, which does not automatically earn interest, from mUSD deposited into a Money Account.

Within Jupiter Wallet, the provider’s Auto-Earn documentation describes a different arrangement: users enable individual stablecoins for automatic deposits into Jupiter Lend’s earning vaults.

According to that guide, supported assets include USDC, USDT, JupUSD, EURC, USDG and USDS. While the wallet is unlocked, the extension checks balances hourly and deposits the full balance of an enabled token once it passes the selected threshold.

Jupiter says the feature applies to wallets using a seed phrase or private key, excluding Jupiter ID wallets. Its product guide adds that disabling Auto-Earn stops new deposits; funds already committed to lending remain there until withdrawn.

For deposits into Aave, the protocol’s supplying guide explains that tokens move into a smart contract liquidity pool where borrowers can access them. Aave says supply rates respond to borrowing activity and governance settings, rather than remain fixed.

In its risk documentation, Aave warns that software bugs, faulty price feeds and changes in collateral value can affect the protocol. The documentation lists audits, bug bounties and adjustable risk controls among its safeguards.

Built-in swaps carry different fees and routing choices

According to Phantom’s fee guide, its 0.85% charge applies to most swaps, with exceptions including certain deposits into perpetual futures balances.

Phantom lists network fees separately and describes price impact as another cost of trading against onchain liquidity. For cross-chain swaps, its guide says bridge-provider fees currently sit within the price-impact figure, although users can inspect providers before confirming.

In MetaMask’s swap guide, the provider lists a 0.875% fee and explains that its service searches decentralized exchanges and swapping protocols. MetaMask says it does not itself supply the liquidity.

By comparison, Jupiter’s extension-wallet documentation lists trading fees of 0% to 0.5%, depending on the pair. According to Jupiter’s product page, the wallet adds no separate platform fee on top of its routing charge.

For execution protection, MetaMask says it privately auctions eligible transactions instead of placing them in the public queue where transactions wait for confirmation.

In the same guidance, MetaMask explains that bots can insert trades around a user’s order to profit from price changes, a practice known as a sandwich attack. The provider says private routing reduces harmful transaction-ordering risks but cannot guarantee protection in every case.

Jupiter also describes built-in protection against transaction-ordering attacks through Ultra, the routing engine used by its wallet.

Gasless tools change how users pay network costs

Through its gasless-swap feature, MetaMask deducts the network cost from the token being exchanged when users lack enough of the chain’s native asset.

Its documentation lists Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Linea, Base, Arbitrum and Polygon as supported networks. MetaMask says a trade cannot use the feature when its value is below the gas cost.

For eligible Solana transactions, Jupiter says its wallet covers network costs and recovers the equivalent from the token received. Its product documentation excludes NFT transfers, limit orders, and recurring orders from gasless execution.

Phantom’s swap guide also describes gasless transactions on Solana and Ethereum-compatible networks when native-token balances cannot cover the network charge.

Wallet trading raises U.S. regulatory and tax questions

Phantom’s investment in trading tools extends to staffing. In a July 1 report, CEO Brandon Millman said the company had hired three Ventuals creators for its trading and data teams after their Hyperliquid-based project closed its OpenAI and Anthropic perpetual markets.

For U.S. regulation, Phantom and the Hyperliquid Policy Center requested tailored CFTC rules in a submission covered on July 10.

According to the filing, the organizations argued that developers of decentralized trading software should not automatically register as exchanges or clearinghouses. They also argued that non-custodial wallet interfaces should not be treated as introducing brokers.

For American token holders, the IRS states that taxable digital-asset income, gains and losses must be reported regardless of whether a taxpayer receives an information statement.

The agency’s virtual-currency guidance distinguishes exchanges from transfers between wallets owned by the same person. According to the IRS, exchanging cryptocurrency held as a capital asset for another cryptocurrency requires recognizing a capital gain or loss, while transferring it between a user’s own wallets is generally non-taxable.

Transaction controls expand alongside wallet services

In August, MetaMask launched Agent Wallet, allowing AI agents to transact under user-defined spending limits and protocol permissions.

According to MetaMask, its default Guard Mode pauses transactions that breach those rules for human approval. The company said eligible transactions pass through simulation and threat checks, with qualifying losses potentially covered up to $10,000 per month.

“The agent can act, but it acts inside the user’s boundaries,” MetaMask said.

For its own security infrastructure, Phantom announced the acquisition of Blowfish, bringing the fraud-protection team into the wallet company.

Jupiter’s extension documentation says its transaction protection detects hidden transfers inserted by malicious browser extensions. The same documentation lists support for Ledger, Keystone, and Trezor hardware wallets, while stating that the extension’s code is not currently open source.