Web3 Without Barriers: Virto Connect
Beneficiary: | Virto Team |
Requested amount: | 9,700 KSM (~147,634 USD at 15.22 USD EMA30) |
Introduction
Virto Connect is a native solution to abstract accounts for Substrate chains designed to remove the biggest barriers to Web3 adoption.
Today, users face a steep learning curve: installing wallets, managing private keys, understanding blockchain addresses, and purchasing tokens to pay fees. These hurdles block mainstream adoption.
Virto Connect solves this with two core capabilities:
- Account abstraction via
pallet-pass
: users can log in with familiar methods —passkeys, Substrate keys, Ethereum wallets (e.g., Metamask), OAuth (Google/GitHub), and zkLogin for privacy-preserving authentication. - Feeless transactions via a native “gas tank”: users don’t need to hold tokens to interact; fees are abstracted at the protocol layer.
With this approach, we aim to make Web3 feel like Web2 while staying fully native to Substrate and universally compatible with dApps.
Our team has more than three years of experience researching and designing products that lower the barriers to use Web3 (among them, the native DAOs — yet to be implemented in the Hub after migration, and our Infrastructure for Payments — awarded with a W3F Grant).
✅ Already delivered
- FRAME components:
pallet-pass
, transaction extensions, session keys integration, gas tank extension. - Client-side: VirtoSDK and Web Component Library (registration, login, transaction signing).
- Live demo: https://demo.virto.dev
- Security audit: completed by Guvenkaya.
We request 9,700 KSM (~147k USD) to fund the implementation of this solution, covering both the already delivered code and infrastructure and the remaining roadmap features (new authenticators, seamless DAO onboarding, device permissions, account recovery, and zkLogin).
Virto Connect is open-source infrastructure for the entire Polkadot/Kusama ecosystem—lowering entry barriers, improving usability, and enabling mass adoption.
Proposal
Funding request: 9,700 KSM (~147,634 USD at 15.22 USD EMA30)
Scope: Completion of the project, including:
- Offsetting the resources invested in the delivered components (FRAME pallets, SDK, demo, audit).
- Q1: Pallet Pass improvements + Gas Tank refinements.
- Q2: Authenticators: Passkeys & Substrate wallets (production-ready integrations).
- Q3: Audit process
- Delivering remaining features (2025 roadmap):
- Q3: JWT/OAuth authenticator.
- Q4: Seamless DAO onboarding, per-device permissions & recovery, zkLogin authenticator.
Outcome: A fully featured, audited, open-source smart authentication stack that any Substrate chain can adopt to reduce UX friction and drive user growth.
📸 Demo Preview
👉 Live demo: https://demo.virto.dev
FAQ
Q: What's the difference between this solution and the «x» solution out there?
A: Virto Connect is not just a solution that abstracts accounts on the client side, or heavily relies on a third-party authentication service, but it's a native system —that can be configured in the Hub—, and it's perfectly compatible with any existing authentication mechanism (like Passkeys, but also Substrate keys, Ethereum wallets, or Google/Facebook/etc. login, or any login based on zero-knowledge proofs).
Q: Why not implement this using smart contracts?
A: We're making a native integration with the blockchain. This is basically inviable using smart contracts. For example, this system sets the account origin by signing in using passkeys, an Ethereum wallet, or your Gmail login, or handles fees without requiring tokens. Both things occur even before a smart contract starts running.
Comments (2)
Hello Virto Team
Thank you for this proposal, the project looks very promising. I have a few questions to better understand some details:
Thanks in advance for your clarifications
Hi @F331...SGhU!
Thanks for your interest in the proposal. It's always great to have comments to keep the conversation flowing. About the clarifications you mentioned:
Weight
that is renewed every certain amount of blocks, and has an expiration. To implement the gas tank on the Hub, we can open a poll to gather suggestions (on Opensquare, for example), then raise a WFC to ratify it and finally, implement it.🏛️ REEEEEEEEEE DAO
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