Sign Safely with Pocket Universe
Never sign a dodgy Ethereum transaction again!
TLDR:
Pocket Universe adds to the user-experience of a Web3 wallet by informing you of the final output of a transaction (eg. -0.1 ETH, +1 NFT).
Its free and literally one click to set up. You download an extension and it works automatically out of the box with any Web3 transaction you do.
In the future I imagine all wallets will have something similar embedded in them, but until they do an extension like Pocket Universe is a must have for all in Web3.
Last week I covered Umbra, a great privacy protocol in Web3 that ensures two people can send each other money across Ethereum without creating a direct onchain link.
Privacy is the cousin of security and this week I wanted to switch into looking at how to sign transactions safely and securely with the help of Pocket Universe.
It doesn’t matter how well you store the keys to your digital assets, if you sign a dodgy transaction you can still be scammed for all them. Pocket Universe can help make sure this doesn’t happen!
Pocket Universe
Pocket Universe (PU) is a Web3 extension that helps you to keep safe on signing and transacting. There are other such apps in the Web3 ecosystem too like Fire.
PU is incredibly useful and couldn’t be simpler to use, and really its existence is down to a UX flaw in the current wallet software available.
When you transact on Ethereum with a wallet like Metamask the information about the transaction that it brings up is not particularly useful. By looking at it you have no real idea what the output of the transaction will be.
The Pocket Universe extension creates an additional layer of UX when transacting. It does this by creating a first step before Metamask is even called where it simulates the transaction and shows you what the output will be.
We may see Metamask and other wallets doing this themselves some day, but for now since they do not, its highly recommended you use something like Pocket Universe.
Every time you are asked to sign a transaction you will get a preview of the final output of the transaction first, meaning you genuinely know what will happen and can avoid signing dodgy transactions that may for example drain all your assets!
PU claim to have over 63,000 users already and supports several EVM networks including Ethereum, Polygon, BSC, Optimism, Arbitrum, and Base.
Setup
Setting up couldn’t be simpler, you literally just download the extension!
Open up their website pocketuniverse.app and click the “Add to Browser” button which will open a link to their Chrome store.
Once installed you’ll have a new icon on your browser for Pocket Universe.
Clicking on it you’ll see the following options. It shows the networks they support and gives you a switch to toggle it on or off.
Really you couldn’t get much simpler, just one click to download and start using!
Use
Using Pocket Universe is incredibly simple too. Every time you run a transaction PU will simulate the output for you.
For example, on PU’s site you can see that they are working on a new wallet and offering early access through an NFT mint.
If you choose to mint their NFT you will get an immediate example of Pocket Universe in action.
On selecting mint a pop-up appears from the PU extension giving a more detailed description of what will happen on singing the transaction:
As it shows, in this example the transaction will take 0.02 ETH from my wallet and in return give me a 1 “Pocket Universe Wallet Pass” NFT!
I have the option to “Reject” and block the transaction from going through, or click “Continue” and then the transaction will pop up in Metamask as usual.
Looking at the transaction above in Metamask is pretty uninformative. If it wasn’t for Pocket Universe I would have no idea that I was sending exactly 0.02 ETH for 1 NFT since Metamask doesn’t have a clear interface to explain the transaction output.
On confirming, the transaction will proceed as usual and the output will be as shown from the Pocket Universe pop-up.
If for example I’d ended up on a similar page on a scam website and clicked to mint, then PU would have clearly shown that my account was going to be drained, so I could have rejected the transaction before it even reached Metamask!
Stay Safe
Pocket Universe adds a layer of protection that I imagine all wallets will have in the fullness of time.
With the ability to see the outcome of a transaction before even running it you are truly prepared and protected against hackers and scammers. This space is full of scammers, so we should use all the tools in the arsenal to keep ourselves safe!
Recently Pocket Universe also added insurance so that you are protected up to $2000 in any scam transaction if they incorrectly inform you about the scam.
PU are so confident you will not fall for any hacks or scams while using it that they even insure transactions and have put up to $100k of their own money on the line.
And to top it off its also free and only a single click to download and start using!
Really if you are reading this and not using something like Pocket Universe you should 100% download it right now.
Once you start using Pocket Universe you’ll be surprised you were running all your transactions “blind” beforehand.
Stay safe out there!