Toniq Labs has launched Bioniq (bioniq.io), a Bitcoin-based NFT marketplace that claims to be the fastest marketplace for trading Ordinals on the Internet Computer (ICP). The platform utilizes Web3Auth to allow users to manage their own private keys, enhancing the security of their assets in a non-custodial manner.
Web3Auth is an authenticator protocol that allows users to log into crypto wallets using an email address. Traders can also benefit from fast transactions lasting less than two seconds while taking advantage of zero network fees.
Bioniq also offers a built-in wallet with Smart Wallet functionality, simplifying the process of buying and selling NFTs on Bitcoin, and the platform leverages the Internet Computer’s native Bitcoin integration to enable users to quickly and cheaply sell, trade or transfer Bitcoin-based Ordinals and Inscriptions.
As Bitcoin’s network fees continue to rise due to an influx of activity driven by the minting of BRC20 tokens and increased inscription of digital collectibles, Bioniq was created to reduce network congestion.
According to the BRC20 website, the market capitalization of BRC20 tokens has exceeded $3 billion, while Dgtl_Assets’ DuneAnalytics dashboard shows that Ordinals inscriptions have exceeded 45 million, pushing network fees higher than Ethereum for the first time since 2020.
Bioniq’s backers include some of the leading Web3-focused venture capital firms, including Polychain Capital, which raised $200 million for its fourth fund in July 2023.
Bioniq leverages ICP’s native integration with Bitcoin to unlock Bitcoin’s smart contract capabilities, allowing users to trade their assets within the ICP ecosystem rather than relying on “Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions” (PSBTs).
About Web3Auth
Web3 is seen as the future of the internet because it allows people to control their own data and digital assets, but crypto developers have been learning lessons from the past when it comes to onboarding new users.
The current cryptocurrency onboarding process is cumbersome and unnecessarily prolonged due to seed phrases — a series of words that crypto wallets create in order to regain access — which, according to Singapore-based crypto infrastructure startup Web3Auth (formerly Torus), technically account for the loss of nearly 20% of all Bitcoin in circulation, roughly equivalent to Hungary’s GDP.
Requiring users to store lengthy passwords in a secure place can be a large barrier to entry for non-technical users who are used to the simple “forgot your password?” workflow on almost all traditional internet platforms, and there are also security issues when the platform controls the user’s private keys.
Web3Auth is a non-custodial key infrastructure solution for web3 applications and wallets that hopes to solve these problems by leveraging the social accounts and devices that mainstream users already have, allowing users to intuitively manage their keys.
“Users use keys as accounts to conduct transactions, hold assets, or interact with blockchains, so it is very important to control and protect these keys,” CEO and co-founder Zhen Yu Young told TechCrunch. “Non-custodial wallets can help you manage your keys, from simply writing a sentence on paper to more secure methods.”
Web3Auth is powered by Torus Network, an open source, non-custodial, distributed key management network. Web3Auth is built on this infrastructure to make web3 authentication (including passwordless authentication, SMS authentication, or other OAuth methods like Google, Twitter, Discord, and Reddit) simple and intuitive in apps and wallets.
Back in 2019, Web3Auth raised $2 million from some of the most strategic investors in the cryptocurrency space in a round led by Multicoin Capital, with participation from Binance Labs, Accomplice, Coinbase Ventures, Sixth Horizon, and Terminal Argonautic Ventures. The round was completed quickly and was ultimately oversubscribed.
In 2022, Web3Auth completed a US$13 million Series A financing round led by Sequoia Capital India. Participants in this round included Union Square Ventures, Multicoin Capital, FTX, Bitcoin.com, DARMA Capital, Terabyte, Hashed, KOSMOS Capital, Kyros Ventures, LD Capital, Minted Labs, P2P Capital, Phoenix VC, Staking Facilities, YBB Capital, Moonwhale Ventures and Decentralab.
The new funding brings the total it has raised since its founding in 2019 to $15 million, and with the Series A funding, the company will accelerate its expansion into decentralized gaming, NFTs, and social applications, and advance its mission to eliminate seed phrases and make blockchain identity authentication decentralized and available to everyone, Young told TechCrunch, and the company also plans to increase its headcount.
Web3Auth's authentication infrastructure is designed to make it easy for developers to build familiar login flows, such as single sign-on with Google and Twitter, eliminating the need for users to interact directly with vulnerable public-private key pairs. It is also designed to allow more advanced users to connect wallets or key management systems.
"We designed Web3Auth to bypass the user experience barriers that have hindered mainstream cryptocurrency adoption. With our focus on accessibility, we want Web3Auth to meet the needs of users wherever they are. If we want to attract the next wave of mainstream users to cryptocurrency, the login flow needs to be intuitive and familiar."
“We’re excited to see that some of the best investors in the world care so deeply about the usability and accessibility of cryptocurrency, and we’re incredibly grateful for their support, which we’ll use to propel web3 into the future,” Young said.
Last year, more than 300 applications and wallets chose Web3Auth to protect the private keys of more than 4 million users, and Young noted that its user base has grown 30 times since the same period last year.
“Our primary users are web3 wallets and applications, and many popular wallets in the ecosystem, such as Binance Extension Wallet, Trust Wallet, Keplr, Kukai, Ronin, Sequence, and Safe, are powered by Web3Auth to increase conversion rates, reduce losses, and support tickets.”
“On the application side, particularly popular NFT and gaming applications using Web3Auth include Skyweaver, Rarible MyCryptoHeros, and others,” Young told TechCrunch.
Young pointed out that platforms similar to Magic Link provide key management through different infrastructures such as AWS Cloud HSM to store user keys, while Fireblock’s underlying infrastructure utilizes multi-party computation (MPC)/threshold cryptography technology.
However, Young said they are more enterprise- and internal-facing authentication than the external-facing Torus platform, adding that Okta and Auth0 are similar in the Web 2.0 authentication space.
“We believe that the non-custodial nature of web3, which allows users to control their own data and destiny, is a big step forward in giving power back to users, making data more portable and secure while continuing to enable existing onboarding product features, giving users the best of both worlds. Sequoia India is excited to work with a team and a product that is focused on making crypto more accessible, not by adding more bells and whistles, but by solving a long-standing problem at its most fundamental level,” said Anandamoy Roychowdhary, Head of Sequoia India.
Related Links
Official website:
web3auth.io
Twitter：
@Web3Auth
Discord：
discord.com/invite/web3auth
YouTube：
youtube.com/c/web3auth
Github：
github.com/web3auth
LinkedIn：
linkedin.com/company/web3auth
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