A few weeks ago, we launched our first passwordless authentication product for Web3: Log in with Ethereum. Today, we’re excited to announce our second Web3 product: Log in with Solana, allowing seamless, secure authentication across any Solana crypto wallet (Phantom, Glow Wallet, etc.). Log in with Solana works for both Web2 and Web3 applications that want to offer Web3 wallet authentication, as well as with all of the rest of the ergonomics of the Stytch authentication platform (session management, magic links, reCAPTCHA, biometrics, 2FA, etc.).
Overview: what is Solana?
Solana is a Layer 1 blockchain, similar to Ethereum. And like Ethereum, Solana is a major player in the burgeoning Web3 ecosystem. Web3 is defined by having applications that are built on an open and decentralized database and compute layer. In contrast to Web2 companies and their infrastructure (Google, Meta, etc.) where all user data lives on a centralized server, with Web3 applications that data is recorded on a shared, decentralized, and publicly accessible ledger.
Although there’s no denying Ethereum’s continued and dominant popularity among Web3 developers, Solana has been rapidly gaining market share. The main driver of that growth, and what makes Solana stand apart from other popular blockchains, is its speed and cost.
Solana’s innovation is Proof of History (PoH). PoH is a consensus mechanism that allows transactions to be logged as they enter the network at a specific moment in time, as opposed to being batched by block. Although Solana still technically uses Proof of Stake (PoS) as their consensus mechanism, PoH balances the speed vs. centralization tradeoff by instantly timestamping each transaction as it comes through. By having this agreed upon timeline, Solana can have a vast amount of validators to ensure decentralization without sacrificing speed. In practice, this means that Solana’s transactions per second (TPS) and cost per transaction are much more favorable to rival blockchains.
Smart contract platforms comparison. Source: Solwealth [Cointelegraph.com]
Rapid growth, growing friction
Solana saw incredible growth in 2021.
The Solana team put together some highlights in their Solana Solstice 2021 report that are truly staggering. From January to December 2021:
- 360 global validators -> 1,331 global validators
- 70 projects in the Solana ecosystem -> 5,145 projects
- 0 Solana NFTs -> 5 million NFTs
- $100 million in Total Value Locked (TVL, sum value of crypto assets deposited in a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol) -> $11.4 billion TVL
- 10 billion total transactions -> Over 45.5 billion total transactions
Perhaps nothing sums up Solana’s banner year better than this chart from Phantom, the leading Solana wallet.
There is clearly rabid interest in the Web3 ecosystem Solana is powering, and developers and users alike are flocking to it. However, similar to the Ethereum ecosystem, all of this growth has come in spite of the fact that the user experience for both end users and developers is convoluted at best.
For end users, not only does Web3 introduce a completely new paradigm for user accounts and authentication, they now have to juggle multiple wallets, one for each blockchain they want to interact with.
For developers, not only are there now multiple wallets for each blockchain, there are now multiple blockchains they need to consider as well. And once a user logs in, developers still have to deal with standard user challenges like managing their users’ sessions.
Stytch’s solution
User authentication in Web3 is multidimensional, and Stytch is addressing another wrinkle with our second Web3 product, Log in with Solana. Log in with Solana supports seamless, passwordless authentication for all Solana-based wallets (Phantom, Solflare, Sollet, etc.)
There are two primary benefits in working with Stytch:
Ease of use
Our documentation will show you, step by step, how to build a Log in with Solana flow and how to navigate the authentication logic. Via our API docs and integration guides, we clearly outline how to get the Log in with Solana flow working, end-to-end.
Stytch ecosystem
With Stytch, you can build secure, low-friction authentication flows for both Web2 and Web3 users with a single authentication provider. Whether a user wants to log in with Apple, Google, their FaceID, or a Phantom account, you can fully support all users with a single integration. So while our crypto wallet authentication products can be used in a standalone fashion, they become much more powerful when you combine them with the other features and ergonomics of the Stytch ecosystem and platform:
- Additional authentication factors: Beyond crypto wallet auth, Stytch offers a full suite of authentication methods such as email magic links, OAuth, biometrics, SMS passcodes, and WhatsApp passcodes.
- Multi-chain support: With Stytch, you can now support both Ethereum and Solana wallets in the same user authentication flow.
- Session management: When you authenticate a crypto wallet, you can start a session to securely keep the user logged in. Both session tokens and JWTs are fully supported for session management.
- User management: Similarly, you can use the Stytch API to easily manage your users.
Announcing javascript SDK support for log in with crypto
We’re excited to also be launching support for both log in with Ethereum and log in with Solana in our javascript SDK. Explore our docs to quickly get up and running to enable your users to log in with their wallets. The SDK seamlessly integrates with additional Stytch features like session management, to save you more time so that you can focus on building your core product.
What’s coming next
The Web3 ecosystem is constantly evolving, with new protocols and projects constantly being announced. We are excited to continue building out support for other blockchains so any Web3 developer can use Stytch for their authentication needs.
We’ll be launching SDK support for our sign in with crypto wallet products so that we can do more of the heavy lifting when it comes to building delightful user experiences, and you can focus on building your core product.
Finally, we’re excited to be announcing something for end consumers in the coming weeks. The lines between our different worlds are getting blurry, with Web3 going increasingly multi-chain and Web2 companies continuing to explore what is possible for them in Web3. End users are caught in the middle of these currents, and we hope we can provide them a vessel to better navigate these changing waters.
Getting started
Are you building a Web3 application, or are interested in enabling your users to authenticate via their Solana wallets? You can check out our documentation and sign up for a developer account here to get started! If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at support@stytch.com.
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