What is Phantom Auth?
Phantom Auth is a way to sign in anonymously to your Phantom Account. It’s a new kind of authentication factor, similar to passwords and passkeys. It’s safe, secure, and privacy-first. Phantom Auth is secured and powered by public-key cryptography, the same method that verifies your transactions on the Solana, Ethereum, and Bitcoin blockchains in a trustless way.
Using Phantom Auth, we can safely and securely store your off-chain data, such as your account names, icons, and, most of all, your username!
How does it work?
Phantom Auth works just like your wallet accounts—by using self-custody and public-key cryptography.
Similar to how your Solana, Ethereum, and Bitcoin addresses are derived from your seed phrase, your seed phrase derives an Authentication Public Key. This Authentication Public Key is a new kind of auth factor, one that helps you sign in to your Phantom Account.
When you log in to Phantom, your Authentication Public Key signs an anonymous message which lets Phantom’s backend verify that you own your public key. This is the same technology that allows you to sign a transaction on the blockchain and allows blockchain nodes to trustlessly verify that it’s actually you that is making the transaction.
What kinds of data can we sync?
When you’re logged in with Phantom Auth, we can sync data between all of your clients safely and securely. One piece of data we can store is your username, which is associated with your Authentication Public Key. Our clients upload synced data to our backend where it's safely indexed to your user ID.
When you link your wallets, the names, avatars, and icons you’ve set for those accounts are also synced between devices. Onboard with the same seed phrase to both your mobile app and extension to see the same username, same account names, and same account icons between devices.
What else does my username do?
With it, you can transfer (send and receive) tokens and collectibles to, and from, other Phantom users with ease. This means you no longer need to remember complex wallet addresses or worry about fat-fingering transactions.
What’s next?
Over the coming months, we’re going to publish more features and updates to your Phantom Account, such as:
- Managing your Profile
- Syncing more Settings
- …and more!