Opera, unveiled its Crypto Browser Project, offering users direct, frictionless access to Web3 services with beta versions immediately available for Windows, Mac and Android. The new beta offering caters to the crypto-native and the crypto-curious, placing Web3 front and center in the browsing experience. With its crypto browser project, Opera intends to make it easier than ever to browse decentralized apps, games, and metaverse platforms for a more seamless cross-platform experience.

The browser comes equipped with a news and data aggregator, dubbed Crypto Corner a dedicated space with key information including crypto news, crypto asset prices and gas fees, in addition to crypto events, airdrops and even podcasts. The Opera browser is already one of the most secure privacy browsers in the world, due to its no-login VPN, and native ad & tracker blocker. The crypto browser integrates these same standards and services with a new set of novel features that make using the new blockchain-based web as simple as accessing Web2.

These include direct access to decentralized exchanges, Web3-based NFTs, and gaming Dapps as well as integrated Telegram and Twitter support — accessed directly from the browser's sidebar. A built-in non-custodial wallet will initially support Ethereum in beta but will soon extend interoperability across the major networks and naming systems through partnerships with Polygon, Solana, Nervos, Celo, Unstoppable Domains, Handshake, ENS, and many more to be announced. The wallet supports both fungible ERC-20 standards as well as non-fungible standards including ERC-721 tokens with ERC-1155 coming in first quarter 2022.

It also allows users to purchase crypto via a built-in fiat-to-crypto on-ramp, as well as facilitate direct crypto-to-crypto swaps. Users can also check their crypto balance and gas prices, and even access a built-in NFT gallery. Partnerships with Ethereum Layer 2 solutions, such as Polygon, will enable Opera's Crypto Browser Project to address one of the most crucial issues associated with blockchain technologies the environmental costs of carrying out each transaction.

To illustrate, the Polygon network consumes just 0.00079 terawatts of electricity per year several orders of magnitude below the energy consumption by the major Proof-of-Work blockchain networks which average between 35 to 140 per year.