Try out `<virto-connect>` - Transact without wallets or tokens

Ecosystem
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At Virto we created a simple to use Web Component called virto-connect, it allows projects to connect their users to a Substrate blockchain like Kreivo in the simplest possible way, that is, enabling transactions without wallets or tokens!

virto-connect is a standard piece of web technology you can integrate in your front-end framework of choice or in a simple static webpage by simply copying a piece of HTML markup.

<!-- import the component in your <head> -->
<script type="module" src="https://sdk.virto.dev/virto-connect.js" async></script>
<!-- place the custom element somewhere in your <body> -->
<virto-connect id="connect" server="mydao.fun"></virto-connect>
<!-- the modal can be triggered with a <button> for example  -->
<button onclick="connect.open()">Connect</button>

Try it out!

Check our demo page, this is an early preview where you can see the component in action. In our demo we provision a temporary chopsticks fork of Kreivo with the necessary NFT membership that your DAO would normally send you during the registration process, the demo backend also simulates the authentication API that will be available for your decentralizable VirtoOS instance, VOS is an extensible backend you can install ink-like programs on and self-host or run in-browser.

Under the hood

virto-connect is the door to VOS, the backend exposing the high level APIs that make the use of blockchain clients and other decentralized technologies completely transparent.

The authentication system connects to a Substrate blockchain like Kreivo that comes with the required pallets and components to make the wallet/token-less interaction possible. The Virto team is making its core components accessible to the general public via the frame-contrib crate which includes:

  • pallet-pass: The account abstraction that gives your user a unique account controllable by multiple devices like a passkey(faceID, fingerprint, yubikey, etc.).
  • gas-tank: A non-fungibles extension that gives any member of a DAO(holder of an NFT) prepaid gas used to pay for transaction fees.

Your feedback is very valuable :pray:
I’m personally super excited about the possibilities of virto-connect, finally giving mainstream users access to blockchain technology without the usual usability walls we are used to, so please try it out and let us know what you think or share some of your use cases. You can reach out on the Kreivo matrix channel.

10 Likes
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@olanod this looks very interesting, and the demo is smooth as well, I just tried it.

I have 2 questions:

  • Are you using a “standard” account with a SS58 address format behind the scenes?
  • Is this solution trustless, or what are the trust assumptions and centralised components here?
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virto-connect is a simple front to make interaction with our trustless holy grail combo convenient: pallet-pass(no wallets) + “nft memberships with gas tank”(no tokens - part of my proposed tokenless sustainability model).

Behind the scenes pass works similar to pure proxies, it gives you a regular keyless SS58 account and allows you to register “devices” that can dispatch calls on behalf of the SS58 address, passkeys are the first kind of devices but more forms of authentication will come like verification of ZK proofs or oauth tokens.

Then you have the nft memberships, in Kreivo it’s configured centered around DAOs, with some KSM anyone can create a DAO and buy these special nfts that come with a “gas tank” and were minted by the governance of the protocol, in our case only DAOs can use the memberships to assign them to their users in whatever way the organization sees fit, for the demo a bot acting on behalf of a test DAO will give your pass account the membership it needs to submit extrinsics without having any balance. The bot is a centralized component but totally optional, you can have a DAO that adds members in other ways in including smart contracts.

2 Likes
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This looks cool! It’ll need auditing of course, so that’s one thing with which the treasury or W3F should help.

Is there a simple explination of what the actually gets signed in FIDO2/passkey/webauthn?

1 Like
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Thanks @burdges, auditing will indeed be super important to spread the usage of this toolkit across the ecosystem and having support from the treasury or the w3f will be key as we wouldn’t be able to afford it.

Regarding what actually gets signed by the authenticator, pallet-pass depends on an abstract Authenticator which in turn comes with an associated Challenger that it’s used to obtain a deterministic and time sensitive “challenge” from a given context(e.g. a recent block number,extrinsic info, etc.) so that an application can generate it on its own and the blockchain can recreate it to be able to verify it. (example)

1 Like