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In my (unpublished) [code changes](https://github.com/brakmic/bitcoin/commit/0b3ee615491edf6f542631bf6ae6f72eac406550) all raw pointers got replaced with **shared_ptr**s but kept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,
fIncludeEmpty = params[1].get_bool();
    isminefilter filter = ISMINE_SPENDABLE;
    if (ParseIncludeWatchonly(params[2], *pwallet)) {
        filter |= ISMINE_WATCH_ONLY;
    }
    bool has_filtered_address = false;
    CTxDestination filtered_address = CNoDestination();
    if (!by_label && params.size() > 3) {
        if (!IsValidDestinationString(params[3].get_str())) {
            throw JSONRPCError(RPC_WALLET_ERROR, "address_filter parameter was invalid");
        }
        filtered_address = DecodeDestination(params[3].get_str());
        has_filtered_address = true;
    }
    
    std::map<CTxDestination, tallyitem> mapTally;
    for (const std::pair<const uint256, CWalletTx>& pairWtx : pwallet->mapWallet) {
        const CWalletTx& wtx = pairWtx.second;
        if (wtx.IsCoinBase() || !pwallet->chain().checkFinalTx(*wtx.tx)) {
            continue;
        }
        int nDepth = wtx.GetDepthInMainChain();
        if (nDepth < nMinDepth)
            continue;
        for (const CTxOut& txout : wtx.tx->vout)
        {
            CTxDestination address;
            if (!ExtractDestination(txout.scriptPubKey, address))
                continue;
            if (has_filtered_address && !(filtered_address == address)) {