While working on this PR https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/18570 I ran into a bit confusing situation where in one function a **CWallet reference** was expected while two others dealt with **CWallet pointers**. My initial reaction was: `let's harmonize them by making them references`. However, not being part of the PR itself I did't change anything and completed the PR first.

Now, after having analyzed the `rpcwallet.cpp` code I came to the conclusion that:

* converting them all into references is not the solution as they're originally **shared_ptr**s
* but also: there is no (visible) reason why every RPC function should begin like this:

```cpp
std::shared_ptr<CWallet> const pwallet = GetWalletForJSONRPCRequest(request);
const CWallet* const pwallet = wallet.get();
```

This clearly defeats the purpose of shared pointers for no obvious reason. *Maybe I am missing something?*

In my (unpublished) [code changes](https://github.com/brakmic/bitcoin/commit/0b3ee615491edf6f542631bf6ae6f72eac406550) all raw pointers got replaced with **shared_ptr**s but kept their original names (that is, *pwallet*). In the end, they're pointers too, so the most of the original code remained untouched.

However, some of the helper functions couldn't be changed because external code is accessing them and I didn't want to make this task "virulent". So I introduced new ("Ref") variants that expect **shared_ptr** parameters, namely: 

```cpp
void EnsureWalletRefIsUnlocked(const std::shared_ptr<CWallet>);
bool EnsureWalletRefIsAvailable(const std::shared_ptr<CWallet>, bool avoidException);
```

I have tested the code, with python and boost-tests, and could not find any errors. 
But before opening a PR I would like to open a discussion about this. 

Is there any reason to keep on working with raw pointers when every function call actually begins with *shared_ptr*s?

Regards,
ssTx << psbtx;
        result.pushKV("psbt", EncodeBase64(ssTx.str()));
    }
    result.pushKV("origfee", ValueFromAmount(old_fee));
    result.pushKV("fee", ValueFromAmount(new_fee));
    UniValue result_errors(UniValue::VARR);
    for (const bilingual_str& error : errors) {
        result_errors.push_back(error.original);
    }
    result.pushKV("errors", result_errors);
    return result;
},
    };
}
static RPCHelpMan bumpfee() { return bumpfee_helper("bumpfee"); }
static RPCHelpMan psbtbumpfee() { return bumpfee_helper("psbtbumpfee"); }
static RPCHelpMan rescanblockchain()
{
    return RPCHelpMan{"rescanblockchain",
                "\nRescan the local blockchain for wallet related transactions.\n"
                "Note: Use \"getwalletinfo\" to query the scanning progress.\n",
                {
                    {"start_height", RPCArg::Type::NUM,  "0", "block height where the rescan should start"},
                    {"stop_height", RPCArg::Type::NUM, RPCArg::Optional::OMITTED_NAMED_ARG, "the last block height that should be scanned. If none is provided it will rescan up to the tip at return time of this call."},
                },
                RPCResult{
                    RPCResult::Type::OBJ, "", "",
                    {
                        {RPCResult::Type::NUM, "start_height", "The block height where the rescan started (the requested height or 0)"},
                        {RPCResult::Type::NUM, "stop_height", "The height of the last rescanned block. May be null in rare cases if there was a reorg and the call didn't scan any blocks because they were already scanned in the background."},