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In my (unpublished) [code changes](https://github.com/brakmic/bitcoin/commit/0b3ee615491edf6f542631bf6ae6f72eac406550) all raw pointers got replaced with **shared_ptr**s but kept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,
UniValue detail = DescribeWalletAddress(pwallet, dest);
    ret.pushKVs(detail);
    ret.pushKV("ischange", pwallet->IsChange(scriptPubKey));
    ScriptPubKeyMan* spk_man = pwallet->GetScriptPubKeyMan(scriptPubKey);
    if (spk_man) {
        if (const std::unique_ptr<CKeyMetadata> meta = spk_man->GetMetadata(dest)) {
            ret.pushKV("timestamp", meta->nCreateTime);
            if (meta->has_key_origin) {
                ret.pushKV("hdkeypath", WriteHDKeypath(meta->key_origin.path));
                ret.pushKV("hdseedid", meta->hd_seed_id.GetHex());
                ret.pushKV("hdmasterfingerprint", HexStr(meta->key_origin.fingerprint));
            }
        }
    }
    
    
    
    
    
    UniValue labels(UniValue::VARR);
    const auto* address_book_entry = pwallet->FindAddressBookEntry(dest);
    if (address_book_entry) {
        labels.push_back(address_book_entry->GetLabel());
    }
    ret.pushKV("labels", std::move(labels));
    return ret;
},
    };
}
static RPCHelpMan getaddressesbylabel()