LoginID Gets Research Grant From Algorand Foundation

The Algorand Foundation announced on Friday (Oct. 8) it has awarded a grant to FIDO-certified authentication provider LoginID that will allow the company to research “building a technical path towards enabling its suite of APIs and SDKS for the Algorand ecosystem.”

This means Algorand developers and enterprises can use FIDO-certified authentication for a one-touch execution of smart contracts, which don’t need plugins or downloads. FIDO integration also gives transaction confirmation, a digital signature and receipt that adds a person’s biometric details.

The Algorand blockchain has more than 13 million accounts and supports more than 1 million transactions a day.

“The Algorand Foundation is delighted to welcome LoginID to the ecosystem of the Algorand network,” said Sean Lee, CEO, Algorand Foundation, in the joint announcement.

“Providing FIDO certified, one touch smart contract execution to Algorand developers and enterprises will enable any customer to execute a smart contract by using the biometrics on their device, without any downloads or plugins needed,” he said. “Given there are over 4B devices globally that support FIDO today, this is a significant step in making Algorand available to all.”

Algorand “has really started to accelerate, helping businesses in the DeFi and commerce space, areas where we have expertise and can add a lot of value,” said Jim Brown, CRO and co-founder of LoginID, in the joint announcement.

“LoginID will help lower friction and make blockchain technology easier to interact when developers integrate our solution,” he said. “We have recently seen attacks on standard forms of authentication such as SMS. Our solution will help give Algorand developers the tools to create the most frictionless, secure interactions for their customers.”

Related: After Coinbase Hack, Authentication Expert Says, ‘We Should Be Moving To FIDO’

LoginID is working with the blockchain community on a new concept: enabling FIDO directly with the chain, CEO Simon Law told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster on Monday (Oct. 4).

“That way, you can actually provide the strong authentication and great user experience directly,” he said, adding this will take time to adopt in the Web 3.0 world because it’s still in the R&D space.

Once that happens, though, he believes a lot of the Web 2.0 platforms layering on Web 3.0 will fade away, and people will be able to start directly developing strong authentication with Web 3.0.