---
title: Onboarding and Engagement
description: Overview of seamless onboarding to NEAR BOS with Fast Auth
sidebar_position: 6
---


# FastAuth


### Highlights



* A seamless web2 style onboarding experience that allows users to easily create an account for any app on the BOS without the need for crypto. 
* It dramatically lowers the threshold for adoption and opens the door to bringing billions of web2 users into the web3 space.


### What it is:

FastAuth lets users quickly and easily create accounts for any website or app that integrates with the Blockchain Operating System (BOS). Putting user experience at the center, FastAuth creates a familiar, web2 style onboarding experience where users can create a free account using biometrics, phone prompts and an email address. This allows users the chance to quickly interact with an app, as well as the ability to easily re-authenticate to the app using the same or different devices. By combining this with decentralized email recovery, users no longer need to remember seed phrases or other difficult passwords.


### Why it matters:

One of the challenges to onboarding users in Web3 has been the complicated process and the need to remember long passwords or seed phrases.  Since most users are accustomed to centralized authentication methods like Google, they can find this off-putting, creating a barrier for entry, and making it challenging to quickly or easily onboard new people into the space.

Beyond streamlining the onboarding, FastAuth also removes the need for users to have or acquire crypto to open an account or transact, making it possible for anyone to get started right away. Along with this FastAuth also removes the need to download any specialized software or applications because everything works seamlessly right from the browser on your desktop or mobile device.

By creating an easy, user-centric experience, FastAuth makes the web3 space accessible to everyone and opens the door to mainstream adoption. 


### Who it’s for:



* Developers - The streamlined onboarding can significantly increase conversion rates for people trying your app, as well as the total addressable audience for your app and website by making it accessible to mainstream users. 
* Enterprises  -  FastAuth is the easiest way to integrate web3 and crypto technology into your business. With just a few lines of code you can onboard your existing users into powerful new community and commerce experiences that are accessible, highly-secure, and decentralized. 
* Users -  Getting started using Web3 apps and experience is now easy and accessible for everyone. Setting up a secure account, over which you have full control, now only takes seconds – it’s even easier than the passwords and usernames that you are already used to. 


### How it works:



* Fast registration
    * Users can register with biometrics (fingerprint, faceId, OS user/password challenge) and an email address.
    * Users get an auto-generated, customizable username based on an email address.
* Easy Login and Passkeys
    * Passkeys ([Apple](https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/sign-in-with-passkeys-iphf538ea8d0/ios#:~:text=A%20passkey%20consists%20of%20a,held%20only%20by%20your%20devices) & [Google](https://developers.google.com/identity/passkeys)) are used to facilitate logging-in using biometrics from any device that is capable of sharing compatible passkeys with the original authenticating device.
* SSO Account Recovery
    * Users can recover their accounts via an SSO sign-in process with the email used for registration.
    * Account recovery is decentralized via multi-party-computation and does not give custodial access to full access keys to any single custodian. 
* Meta Transactions and Zero Balance Accounts
    * These technologies allow for account registration and creation with zero cost to the user.
* Relayers
    * Relayers, which are definable by the developer, are used to sponsor initial interactions for new users at no cost.
    * On Near.org, new users will be able to interact with social functions without needing to purchase $NEAR.


![](@site/static/img/fast-auth_account.png)



![](@site/static/img/fast-auth_keys.png)



![](@site/static/img/fast-auth_recovery.png)



### What’s coming next:



* The ability to extend relayers and FastAuth to additional gateways beyond near.org
* Further MPC decentralization
* Multi-chain compatibility 
* Two-factor authentication