What is the best wallet for Base?

It depends on who signs. For a person, the trade is convenience against key protection across browser extensions, mobile wallets, smart accounts, and hardware signers. For a program the requirements differ entirely, since interactive approval is impossible and safety must come from bounded authority instead.

Can an AI agent use a normal wallet?

Not usefully. Consumer wallets assume a person will review and approve each transaction, and that approval is doing most of the security work. An autonomous process cannot answer a prompt, so it needs a key whose authority is bounded by the account rather than by a human check.

Why can't an agent use a hardware wallet?

Because a hardware signer requires physical confirmation for each signature, which is exactly what makes it strong for a person and unusable for automation. An autonomous process cannot press the button, so the protection it offers cannot apply to that use case.

What is a smart account?

An account whose logic lives in a contract rather than being a plain keypair, enabling recovery paths, spending policies, multiple signers, sponsored fees, and session keys with enforced limits. It costs more gas than a plain account and can do things a plain account cannot, which is the point.

How should an agent's key be stored?

In the operating system keychain rather than a file or an environment variable, so access is controlled and the key does not end up in a repository or a log. Pair that with scoped authority at the account, so that even a leaked key cannot exceed its registered limits.

Choosing a Wallet for Base

For human use on Base, the choice is between browser extensions, mobile wallets, smart accounts, and hardware signers, traded off on convenience against key protection. For programmatic use the requirements differ entirely: keys must be usable without prompts, and safety has to come from bounded authority rather than from a person reviewing each transaction.

For a person

Browser extension wallets are convenient for interacting with applications and keep keys on a device exposed to the browser's threat surface. They are the default for development work and the most common target for phishing, since a malicious page's whole goal is to obtain a signature.

Mobile wallets benefit from platform key storage and app isolation, which is a meaningfully better position than a browser extension, at the cost of being less convenient for desktop development.

Hardware signers keep the key in a separate device that signs after physical confirmation. This is the strongest protection for keys a person controls, and the confirmation step is precisely what makes it unusable for automation.

Smart accounts move account logic into a contract, enabling recovery paths, spending policies, multiple signers, and sponsored fees. They cost more in gas than a plain account and can do things a plain account cannot, which is what makes them interesting beyond convenience.

Whichever you choose, obtain it from the official source. Fake wallet applications and extensions are routine, and a wallet that asks you to enter an existing recovery phrase into a website or a support chat is an attack, without exception.

The thing all human wallet advice assumes

Every recommendation above rests on one premise: a person is present to look at a transaction and approve it. That premise is doing most of the security work. It is what catches an unexpected recipient, a surprising amount, or an approval request that should not have appeared. Remove the person and you have removed the control, which is why wallet advice written for humans transfers so poorly to autonomous systems and why treating an agent as a user with a wallet is the wrong starting point.

For a program

Prompts are disqualifying. An autonomous process cannot answer a confirmation dialog. Anything requiring interactive approval is unusable, which excludes hardware signers and most consumer wallet interfaces regardless of their other merits.

Safety has to come from scope, not from review. If nothing reviews each transaction, the protection must be that the key cannot do the wrong thing. A session key registered with a smart account, carrying a spending cap, an asset and recipient allowlist, and an expiry, enforced by the account, is the mechanism that replaces the human check. Without that, an automated signer is an unbounded signer.

Key storage should use the platform, not a file. An operating system keychain gives you access control and storage that is not a plaintext file in a repository or an environment variable in a log. This is a small implementation detail with a large effect on what a routine mistake costs.

Separate the authority that can change things. The key the process holds should not be able to raise its own limits, revoke other keys, or move the account's full balance. Keeping the controlling authority outside the running process is what makes a compromise bounded.

Plan for revocation and rotation. Keys need to be replaceable and stoppable, with the path tested before it is needed, and the account rejecting a revoked key regardless of who holds it.

Fund gas separately. Base fees are paid in ETH, so an agent needs an ETH balance alongside whatever it spends, with monitoring on it. This is the most common reason an otherwise correct automated signer stops working.

Expect to hold a float, not a treasury. The balance reachable by an automated key is the exposure. Small and topped up beats large and carefully limited.

Where the two cases overlap

One arrangement serves both, and it is worth naming because it is the practical answer for most teams. A smart account controlled by a person, holding the main balance, registers a session key that a program uses for day to day spending. The human retains the strong signer, possibly a hardware device, and uses it rarely: to fund the account, adjust limits, and revoke keys. The program holds something deliberately weak, capable only of what its registration permits and only until it expires. Neither side is compromised to accommodate the other, because they are doing different jobs with different keys. The mistake this avoids is the common one of picking a single key and then trying to make it both convenient enough for automation and protected enough for a treasury, which produces something that is neither.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best wallet for Base?: It depends on who signs. For a person, the trade is convenience against key protection across browser extensions, mobile wallets, smart accounts, and hardware signers. For a program the requirements differ entirely, since interactive approval is impossible and safety must come from bounded authority instead.
Can an AI agent use a normal wallet?: Not usefully. Consumer wallets assume a person will review and approve each transaction, and that approval is doing most of the security work. An autonomous process cannot answer a prompt, so it needs a key whose authority is bounded by the account rather than by a human check.
Why can't an agent use a hardware wallet?: Because a hardware signer requires physical confirmation for each signature, which is exactly what makes it strong for a person and unusable for automation. An autonomous process cannot press the button, so the protection it offers cannot apply to that use case.
What is a smart account?: An account whose logic lives in a contract rather than being a plain keypair, enabling recovery paths, spending policies, multiple signers, sponsored fees, and session keys with enforced limits. It costs more gas than a plain account and can do things a plain account cannot, which is the point.
How should an agent's key be stored?: In the operating system keychain rather than a file or an environment variable, so access is controlled and the key does not end up in a repository or a log. Pair that with scoped authority at the account, so that even a leaked key cannot exceed its registered limits.