| Beneficiary: | Virto Team |
| Requested amount: | 9,700 KSM (~147,634 USD at 15.22 USD EMA30) |
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:
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. 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
pallet-pass, transaction extensions, session keys integration, gas tank extension. 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.
Funding request: 9,700 KSM (~147,634 USD at 15.22 USD EMA30)
Scope: Completion of the project, including:
Outcome: A fully featured, audited, open-source smart authentication stack that any Substrate chain can adopt to reduce UX friction and drive user growth.
👉 Live demo: https://demo.virto.dev
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.
Virto Connect is a tool to make using blockchains easier.