Except it's on Jungle. We are looking for people to provide feedback and help test a new wallet-like product with an easy account creation process. It's live on Jungle 4 and integrated with Unicove.
Here is the test of my comment in case it was dropped out of the below post.
"I don't think most ordinary users will be considering the "just in case" scenario of losing access and create backups.
Therefore, it would be nice to have option to back up passkey to several devices or email accounts, and some sort of a pop up encouraging this when setting up Vaulta account.
B:
Would there be an option to get the private keyif the account?
I have a couple of questions, but must point out that I'm not versed in software programming, but am asking from a user point of view anchored in anxiety of losing access to account.
A:
With respect to "passkey" solution, as such, it is a very good and easy solution for newcomers.
However, my experience has been that once in a while access gets lost due to unknown reasons and if one is lucky, then one hopefully had saved the passkey on more devices.
(I had this problem with my 1Dex access where suddenly when trying to log in, the pass key could not be found. However I had saved passkeys on a couple of other devices and could get access again.)
I don't think most ordinary users will be considering the "just in case" scenario of losing access and create backups.
Therefore, it would be nice to have option to back up passkey to several devices or email accounts, and some sort of a pop up encouraging this when setting up Vaulta account.
B:
Would there be an option to get the private keyif the account?
Backups has been one of our main focuses recently, it's a tough problem to solve. As a technology it very much was designed expecting some sort of "reset" process by a centralized entity. So we've had to work around that.
To answer your questions:
A) We're working on a few methods where users can backup their owner key (mnemonic, other wallets, etc) and making it separate from the active key (which would be the passkey). That way no matter what happens with the passkey you'll still have that backup.
B) It's impossible to get the private key from a passkey (unfortunately). So we need to go through the process of giving the user a different private key as the backup, and then making sure that key has access to the account.
C) Yes, though we're unsure how many options there will be at this point (and what different device configurations will be supported at launch.
All that said, one of the nice things about how passkeys are evolving these days is that many operating systems and/or password managers automatically sync and back them up. On Apple devices they're persisted with the Passwords app and synced across devices with iCloud (if enabled). For Google users they're saved in the Google Password Manager and offer various sync/backup methods. The same goes for Bitwarden, Lastpass, or any other operating system level password managers that helps you manage the passkeys.
There's still opportunities to lose access to those passkeys - but we definitely want to give users options on how to backup the account beyond what their password manager allows.
It’s not open source at the moment, but I’d like it to be eventually. It’s pretty tied into our internal account creation systems right now which makes that complicated.
That might be an interesting topic to write a blog post about at some point, since we’re actively trying to break that dependency by also open sourcing our account creation systems.
As for account creation options, it’ll offer 2 to begin with on Vaulta:
One free account per social login. Uses Google/Apple currently, more could be added over time.
Pay for account creation yourself with a token transfer to a smart contract. You can withdraw from an exchange to a contract to pay yourself.
The “Help” page that describes the 2nd option is here:
Here is the test of my comment in case it was dropped out of the below post.
"I don't think most ordinary users will be considering the "just in case" scenario of losing access and create backups.
Therefore, it would be nice to have option to back up passkey to several devices or email accounts, and some sort of a pop up encouraging this when setting up Vaulta account.
B:
Would there be an option to get the private keyif the account?
C:
Will there be any account backup method?'
Interesting read.
I have a couple of questions, but must point out that I'm not versed in software programming, but am asking from a user point of view anchored in anxiety of losing access to account.
A:
With respect to "passkey" solution, as such, it is a very good and easy solution for newcomers.
However, my experience has been that once in a while access gets lost due to unknown reasons and if one is lucky, then one hopefully had saved the passkey on more devices.
(I had this problem with my 1Dex access where suddenly when trying to log in, the pass key could not be found. However I had saved passkeys on a couple of other devices and could get access again.)
I don't think most ordinary users will be considering the "just in case" scenario of losing access and create backups.
Therefore, it would be nice to have option to back up passkey to several devices or email accounts, and some sort of a pop up encouraging this when setting up Vaulta account.
B:
Would there be an option to get the private keyif the account?
C:
Will there be any account backup method?
Backups has been one of our main focuses recently, it's a tough problem to solve. As a technology it very much was designed expecting some sort of "reset" process by a centralized entity. So we've had to work around that.
To answer your questions:
A) We're working on a few methods where users can backup their owner key (mnemonic, other wallets, etc) and making it separate from the active key (which would be the passkey). That way no matter what happens with the passkey you'll still have that backup.
B) It's impossible to get the private key from a passkey (unfortunately). So we need to go through the process of giving the user a different private key as the backup, and then making sure that key has access to the account.
C) Yes, though we're unsure how many options there will be at this point (and what different device configurations will be supported at launch.
All that said, one of the nice things about how passkeys are evolving these days is that many operating systems and/or password managers automatically sync and back them up. On Apple devices they're persisted with the Passwords app and synced across devices with iCloud (if enabled). For Google users they're saved in the Google Password Manager and offer various sync/backup methods. The same goes for Bitwarden, Lastpass, or any other operating system level password managers that helps you manage the passkeys.
There's still opportunities to lose access to those passkeys - but we definitely want to give users options on how to backup the account beyond what their password manager allows.
Thanks for the comprehensive response Aaron.
Looking forward to one day hopefully seeing Vaulta as something ubiquitous and run of the mill like web2 solutions are to date.
Great stuff Aaron. Two and a half questions. Is this open source? And what will be the account creation options on Vaulta. Any free options?
It’s not open source at the moment, but I’d like it to be eventually. It’s pretty tied into our internal account creation systems right now which makes that complicated.
That might be an interesting topic to write a blog post about at some point, since we’re actively trying to break that dependency by also open sourcing our account creation systems.
As for account creation options, it’ll offer 2 to begin with on Vaulta:
One free account per social login. Uses Google/Apple currently, more could be added over time.
Pay for account creation yourself with a token transfer to a smart contract. You can withdraw from an exchange to a contract to pay yourself.
The “Help” page that describes the 2nd option is here:
https://aaron-staging.web-authenticator-a83.pages.dev/en/help/contract
Nice, free social accounts is huge. Will be watching the progress!