Talisman's First Retroactive Funding Proposal for the Wallet

Talisman (talisman.xyz) is a multi-chain wallet and web application that enables users to “Traverse the Paraverse” with ease. We believe in a future where everyone has freedom via true agency over their intentions and finances, and we believe that the Polkadot ecosystem will bring this to fruition.

For more on Talisman’s mission and approach, please see Nipsey’s talk at Polkadot Decoded:

Talisman: How Polkadot enables a trailblazing wallet stack | Polkadot Decoded 2023 - YouTube

Today, because of its early stage of development and complex multi-chain architecture, both Polkadot and Kusama are changing rapidly and the user experience (UX) can be confusing for end users. It’s our goal to solve that using design, storytelling, and engineering. We abstract away the complexity of underlying implementation and provide a friendly user experience when using Polkadot and a way to discover new applications and services available to end users, while keeping them safe and educated about the actions they are taking.

This proposal seeks retroactive funding for feature development, UX improvement, QA testing and Audit fixes for Talisman Wallet over fourteen weeks (Feb-May 2023). As of September 2023, Talisman achieved over 40,000 users as measured by the Chrome/Firefox app stores, and has garnered contributions of over 3 million DOT to its nomination pools.

Make Polkadot Easy

We believe our mission in the Polkadot ecosystem is to design for the user, advocate for the user, and build for the user. This means staying on top of the complex multi-chain functionality being built in Polkadot today, but synthesizing it down to a great user experience that allows the user to understand and get their job done quickly and easily, while harnessing the full power of advanced functionality when necessary.

We believe that this user-focused approach is necessary for Polkadot to expand and flourish. Success is not only user feedback and appreciation for our ease of use, but ultimately we judge ourselves on our ability to enable liquidity to flow into Polkadot to the benefit of all in the ecosystem, and that rests on the user experience of Polkadot, across new users, advanced users, and teams.

We build in an open, community-driven way and we are committed to building for the community, including users, teams, institutions, infrastructure providers, and any other ecosystem stakeholder.

Ecosystem Feedback

Here is some ecosystem feedback on Talisman:

“@wearetalisman wallet best UX in the game” - @admnov.eth

“I’m so happy for what @wearetalisman is doing for the @Polkadot ecosystem. 100x’ng the wallet user experience and not stopping anytime soon!” - @theflyinghutch, CMO of Zeitgeist
“@wearetalisman is not just a wallet, it’s the key to Paraverse...” @marvin_tong, Co-founder of Phala

Talisman Wallet's 2023 Initiatives

There are a number of security or multi-chain usability improvements that Talisman has chosen to address in 2023. These problem statements reflect our approach to wallet development and our view of needs of the Polkadot ecosystem.

Diverse Hardware Wallet Support

Hardware wallets and signers are the gold standard for security of funds, given the need to provide consumers with ways to protect private keys and seed phrases. Consumers need to be able to use a diverse set of hardware wallets with Talisman. In addition to supporting Ledger devices, Talisman has integrated Polkadot Vault (orig. Parity Signer) during these cycles.

Account Management and Organization

Talisman users have multiple accounts with different purposes, such as personal funds, gaming wallets, multisig signers, cold storage or work accounts. An installation can become confusing when accounts of different purposes are mixed together. Talisman has added address book improvements during this period, and will add folders afterwards.

Worldwide Usability

Generally crypto revolves around “universal conventions” such as the English language and USD-denomination of funds. However, these are adopted legacy conventions from web2 that are non-intuitive for many of Talisman’s worldwide users. We have added features such as multi-language support and multi-currency support, so that users can better understand their crypto assets and actions they take. The improvements in this area come in a later proposal.

Transaction Comprehension

Blockchain is a machine protocol, and the native units and transactions are oriented to computer rather than human consumption and understanding. It’s the job of dapps, wallets and other blockchain front-ends to enable users to comprehend the actions they take, which is a direct requirement for operating in a secure way. Talisman has made improvements in gas management and transaction history clarity with these releases.

Native Multi-Seed Management

Talisman originally organized around a single root account, however many users nowadays use multiple seed phrases / private keys and the restriction of a single root account became a hindrance. Over the time covered in this proposal, we have begun to update the “plumbing” to a new seed store with support for multiple seeds, each which can support multiple derived accounts.

Open Source

As the fulfillment of a longstanding promise to be a community-driven wallet, Talisman went open source with a GPL3 license. The work during this period covers the preparation for open source.

General UI Improvements, Bug Fixes, QA & Release Management

As always, Talisman undergoes regular improvements to general use and usability, as well as performs the following regular tasks: token balance support, documentation, QA, release management, Github repo management, dependency checks and security updates.

We would love to get your feedback on the proposal. Please see the full proposal here