Traded in a costly in-house authentication for Stytch’s out-of-the-box solutions

Bitcoin.com is a multi-chain wallet, marketplace, and news outlet that makes it easy for anyone to buy, sell, trade, and learn about different cryptocurrencies. They recently broke new ground in the crypto space with the launch of Verse, a powerful utility token that rewards users in the Bitcoin.com ecosystem and eases newcomers into decentralized finance.

To support their services with a reliable account system and solid authentication, Bitcoin.com initially built onboarding and sign-in flows in-house — but they soon ran into heavy maintenance costs and workloads. With Stytch, they get cross-platform auth solutions right out of the box, plus a dedicated team that offers expert, round-the-clock support.

Partnership highlights

• Easy integration: Stytch allowed Bitcoin.com to ditch a high-maintenance in-house build for a drop-in solution that took less than a month to implement from end to end.
• Cross-platform performance: Stytch’s flexible solutions work seamlessly across the Bitcoin.com platform, including a wide variety of products for both web and mobile applications.
• Close collaboration: Stytch’s team instantly understood what Bitcoin.com was looking for in a crypto-based auth flow — and delivered tailored solutions to meet their needs.

Stytch products

• Email Magic Links
• OAuth Logins

Challenge

Bitcoin.com is committed to non-custodial crypto services, which means users have direct access to their digital assets and exclusive control over their private keys. It also means a user who loses a key has no chance of recovery — prompting the platform to offer a convenient backup option.

“We were seeing a lot of support tickets from users losing their keys,” said Paul Bergamo, Product Lead at Bitcoin.com. “We decided to add a wallet function that allows them to back up encrypted keys to the cloud — which in turn necessitated a secure user account system.”

The need for robust accounts — and equally robust authentication to protect users’ KYC data — only grew as Bitcoin.com planned for the launch of their new native utility and rewards token, Verse, which was an important moment for the company. Their head of engineering, Andrei Terentiev, described how they first built their own sign-up and login flows in-house — an approach that quickly became untenable as their business grew.

“We learned that an in-house build wouldn’t scale effectively and involved a lot of maintenance we weren’t prepared to handle on our own,” he said. “As we developed more use cases, features, and products, it became a huge undertaking that drained our engineering resources.”

Bitcoin.com began researching third-party alternatives — and found a winning solution in Stytch.

Solution

The Bitcoin.com team tested several authentication providers, including AWS Cognito and Auth0. Then, they read an article about Stytch’s passwordless product suite and realized it could provide top-notch security without the typical friction of an auth flow.

“We were seeing a lot of support tickets from users losing their keys,” said Paul Bergamo, Product Lead at Bitcoin.com. “We decided to add a wallet function that allows them to back up encrypted keys to the cloud — which in turn necessitated a secure user account system.”

“As a crypto platform, we already have mnemonics and private keys in our wallet,” said Terentiev. “We don’t want to add extra friction with a second round of passwords. Being able to secure our platform with Stytch’s simple Email Magic Links really spoke to our values — and the rest is history.”

Results

Easy implementation

Bitcoin.com was able to get their authentication flows up and running quickly, dropping Stytch’s React SDK straight into Verse’s web platform. They also built OAuth Login solutions for Google and Apple smoothly into their application, as well as Email Magic Links for anonymous users.

“We built a POC for our product team, and they were blown away by Stytch’s ease of use,” said Andreas Larsson, engineering manager at Bitcoin.com. “The integration was effortless compared to other tools, because we had so much support. There was even a Slack channel where we could ask Stytch questions and receive near-instant responses that put us on the right track. The whole process only took about a month from end to end, including testing and everything.”

Not only did the initial integration fly by — Stytch’s turnkey products gave Bitcoin.com’s team back the time and energy they needed to focus on their core products.

“Partnering with Stytch has really eliminated the pain of having to manage and maintain an immense authentication system,” said Bergamo. “Using a drop-in solution is so much simpler, as is having a team of experts by our side every step of the way.”

Cross-platform functionality

As Larsson explained, for Bitcoin.com, a successful authentication strategy isn’t just about efficiency, but about the range of services supported across the platform.

“We offer a wide variety of products for both web and mobile, as well as external partners we share our account systems with,” he said. “We need an authentication solution with cross-platform integrations, and Stytch is able to provide seamless connections across the board.”

A true partnership

For Terentiev, Stytch’s most important quality is an intuitive understanding of Bitcoin.com’s mission and a willingness to jump in with tailored solutions and hands-on, personalized support.

“With a bigger company like Auth0 or Cognito, you’re one of many clients,” he said. “You can’t really ask for additional or customized features — you just have to use what they give you. When we reached out to Stytch, it was a totally different experience.

“As a startup, Stytch connected instantly to what we’re trying to do. Traditional authentication companies don’t really understand crypto — it’s still something new. With Stytch, we get the best of both worlds. They know what they’re talking about when it comes to auth, but they also immediately grasped what we needed in a crypto solution. It was clear right from the start that Stytch is the best match for our platform.”

The bottom line

With Stytch, Bitcoin.com gets out-of-the-box, easy-to-implement authentication solutions that allow them to concentrate on their core business — not on managing and maintaining an in-house build. What’s more, they get an attentive partner that will support their crypto platform as it scales.

“Verse and Bitcoin.com are a gateway for users to transition from traditional finance to our new, decentralized world of cryptocurrency,” said Terentiev. “Stytch is helping us provide users with the tools they need to get started. We’re excited to discover what Stytch does next with their Web3 solutions and to be among the first users of their next-level authentication technology.”

What can Stytch do for you?

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