Trust Wallet CEO Felix Fan on Building a Crypto Wallet That Keeps Up With the Market
In February 2026, Felix Fan took over as CEO of Trust Wallet, succeeding Eowyn Chen. More typically than not, a new CEO spends months attending to know the firm, however Fan began by transport new options to considerably enhance the person expertise for Trust Wallet’s 220 million customers.
Trust Wallet shipped the Trade Menu shortly after he arrived. Within 48 hours, 4 extra merchandise adopted, together with swap value affect safety, an up to date Trending Page, prediction markets by means of predict.enjoyable, and 1-click swaps.
“I didn’t want months to audit Trust Wallet,” he instructed BeInCrypto. “I got here in with a clear perspective, and the group had already been doing the exhausting work. My job was to speed up innovation, not hesitate.”
What’s much less apparent is why Fan sees this second as pressing, and what he thinks Trust Wallet is definitely turning into.
He Thinks the Category Has Missed a Few Things
Fan got here to Trust Wallet from OKX, the place he ran product. He’s seen the house from a number of angles, and when requested the place self-custodial wallets have fallen quick, he doesn’t hedge.
Speed is the very first thing he names. “When you see a market transfer, you need to be capable of act in seconds. Most wallets nonetheless make that unnecessarily exhausting,” he stated.
Then there’s the person no one constructed for. People who’ve performed a few trades and wish to go deeper, not newbies, not energy customers, simply someplace in the center with no clear trajectory.
“The business obsesses over first-timers and energy customers,” Fan famous. “The individuals who’ve performed a few trades and wish to go deeper? They’re largely underserved. There’s no pure development.” That’s much less a design hole than a product philosophy hole. The center tier received skipped.
And then belief indicators, which Fan frames as a accountability the pockets itself ought to carry. Users signal transactions they will’t absolutely parse, get uncovered to rip-off contracts with none warning from the app. “The pockets must be a layer of safety,” he stated. “That’s an space the entire business has under-invested in, and it’s one thing we’re taking significantly — being the most safe pockets is a core a part of our id.”
Why the Trade Menu, Why Now
Something shifted in how folks commerce crypto. They don’t sit down and resolve between swapping and perps. They see a market transfer and need in. The resolution is intent-based, not product-based. Most wallets didn’t get that memo. Features are scattered. Execution is buried. The second of motion will get slowed down by the interface.
The Trade Menu is the repair for that, at the least the starting of 1. Swap, perpetuals, predictions, trending performs are in a single place and solely require one faucet.
“That friction has a actual price,” Fan stated. “The Trade Menu removes it. One entry level for all the things. That’s not a small UX tweak — that’s a assertion about what sort of pockets we’re constructing. A command middle for decentralized finance, not simply a steadiness checker.”
Some of what’s coming on the roadmap isn’t new territory. Live charts, clear price buildings — CEX merchants have had these for years. Fan stated as a lot. “Fair problem. Yes, a few of what’s coming are issues CEX customers count on as baseline. We ought to have had them. We’re fixing that. But that’s the basis, not the vacation spot.”
The vacation spot is more durable to categorize. Fan describes a pockets the place customers broadcast intent and the community handles execution — self-custodial by default, cross-chain natively, not routed by means of any centralized order ebook.
“That’s not a CEX or a DEX. That’s a new class,” he stated. “The Trade Menu is the first step towards that.”
“Simple by Default” Might Be Harder Than It Sounds
The precept working by means of the product is “easy by default, superior by selection.” Fan doesn’t gown it up.
What does the person see first? That’s the resolution all the things comes again to. Show an excessive amount of and also you overwhelm. Show too little and energy customers hit a wall instantly.
“The hardest half is entry factors,” Fan defined. “Every further choice you floor provides cognitive load. Every choice you conceal dangers irritating a energy person.”
With the Trade Menu, the name was to optimize for the second of intent — clear default view, superior controls there while you need them. The middle-tier person complicates that. The one who’s previous fundamental swapping however not but doing something subtle.
“We should earn their belief steadily and provides them extra as they’re prepared,” Fan stated. “That’s a sequencing problem as a lot as a design one. We’re not good at it but. But that’s precisely the sort of factor we’ll maintain iterating on.”
On Independence
Fan’s goal to boost Trust Wallet comes when CEX-backed wallets have gotten severe. Several now provide actual self-custody, deep liquidity behind them, person bases fed immediately from their mother or father exchanges.
Yet, he doesn’t suppose that makes the case for self-custodial wallets any more durable. If something, it makes it extra necessary.
“CEX-backed wallets have a structural ceiling. They will all the time be optimized — consciously or not — for his or her mother or father trade’s liquidity, merchandise, and pursuits. That’s simply the actuality,” he stated. “Our solely job is to offer customers the finest accessible costs from decentralized markets, the finest expertise, and full management over their very own property. We can combine the finest liquidity sources, not simply the ones we personal. Independence is a function. And 220 million folks have already voted for it.”
The Number Trust Wallet Is Actually Building Toward
Under his management, Trust Wallet has flagged buying and selling, UX, and AI as H1 priorities. On sequencing, Fan is obvious that UX comes first as a result of it impacts each person proper now.
“AI is just pretty much as good as the product it’s constructed on. If the swapping expertise is clunky, the AI inherits that friction. So higher UX isn’t simply good for customers immediately — it’s the basis that makes AI truly work tomorrow,” Fan stated.
Trust Wallet has begun constructing out developer-facing AI infrastructure. In late February, the group shipped an MCP server for immediate entry to its documentation, an open-source Claude Code expertise market. That was adopted by the launch of the Developer Portal, giving AI brokers read-only entry to knowledge throughout greater than 100 chains.
Most not too long ago, Trust Wallet launched the Agent Kit, a toolkit that lets AI brokers execute actual crypto transactions throughout greater than 25 blockchains inside permissions outlined by the person.
Consumer-facing options come after.
And when requested about the early indicators that they’re shifting in the proper course, Fan watches engagement depth, dealer retention, and qualitative indicators on whether or not the app feels quicker.
“We wish to be the primary cell pockets with over 40% lively customers. Not simply downloads. Not simply installs. People who open Trust Wallet as a result of it’s genuinely the finest place to behave on crypto. That’s the bar we’re constructing towards,” he stated.
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