NearPass

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  NearPass introduction screen

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  NearPass description as seen on main website

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  NearPass adding new password record

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  When user stakes his/her NEAR tokens for contract storage, it is not gone forever. User can always withdraw all his/her NEAR from NearPass

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  In case user forgets his/her password, they can always reset their password by wiping their data

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  A bit of a scuffed drawing of how the two layer encryption works (most easily readable by starting at "starts here" sign)

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  A bit of a scuffed drawing of how the two layer decryption works (most easily readable by starting at "starts here" sign)

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  NearPass logo

Inspiration 💡

This project started because in this digital age you just need too many passwords to keep track of. This usually leads to having just one complex password, so if this password gets compromised you need to change it everywhere. Other option is to use password managers, which are usually developed by large companies and you have to trust your data to their servers, which might not be something that everyone would like to do.

What it does 🔐

NearPass is decentralized password manager. It stores password under two layer encryption protection on smart contract, and user can access them as long as there will be validators on NEAR blockchain. So if you don't want to remember all your passwords, from now on you can just use NearPass to safely store them! To learn more about how it actually works under the hood checkout the website here.

Main focus 🎯

Was to try make an application which would be appealing use case for users outside of cryptocurrency space. Lowering barriers to entry, simplifying UI & creating streamlined experience for users were amongst our main goals.

How we built it 🛠️

We used React for frontend, smart contract for storing data and encryption is done either completely locally (when using first layer of encryption utilizing user's passphrase) or in lambda function (which takes already encryted password and encrypts it once more with different key - we use firebase for cloud functions).

A bit of a scuffed drawing of how the two layer encryption works (most easily readable by starting at "starts here" sign):

A bit of a scuffed drawing of how the two layer decryption works (most easily readable by starting at "starts here" sign):

Challenges we ran into 🔦

Main challenge was figuring out system which would have no compromises on security, while having great UX even for users which are not Web3 savvy.

Accomplishments that we're proud of 🔥

We are extremely proud that we've build application which is seriously interesting to even people out of Web3 space. The fact is, that password manager is easily understandable to all users, the selling point (password manager where you don't have to rely on centralized entity) is clear and with NEAR it has a lot lower barrier to entry (low transaction price, high throughtput/low execution time). Password managers pricings go from 1-4€ monthly and NearPass could be easily competitive with those. I would also say that we are proud managed to build MVP that fully works, albeit it is missing some features that we would like to have further down the road.

What we learned 📚

How to interact with Near blockchain (especially from smart contract point of view). Also improved my knowledge regarding encryption algorithms and how to successfully use them.

What's next for NearPass 🔮 📈

Implementing chrome extension, mobile app, enabling different data types (other than password records) to be stored in smart contract. There are so many possibilities and I believe that with the right marketing this could be a project to onboard massive amount of new users into Web3!! 🔥🔥

Built With

• firebase
• near
• react
• stripe