Passkeys 101: Your Guide to Passwordless, Self-Custodial Login

Pera now supports native, decentralized passkeys, giving you passwordless login and Web3 authentication without relying on centralized services. Just you, your device, and your keys.

What Are Passkeys?

A passkey is a modern, passwordless way to sign in to apps and websites. Instead of typing in a password, you use your device’s built-in security (like Face ID, Touch ID, or a hardware key) to prove your identity.

Behind the scenes, a passkey is a cryptographic keypair:

• A public key, stored by the site or service you’re signing in to.
• A private key, kept safely on your device.

Only your device knows the private key, and it never leaves it. When you log in, the site sends a challenge that your private key signs, proving it’s really you. No passwords, no phishing, and no data leaks.

Why Passkeys Are Safer Than Passwords

Passwords can be stolen, guessed, reused, or phished. Passkeys cannot. Here’s why:

• Phishing-proof: Passkeys only work on the correct website or app. Even if you click a fake link, your key won’t sign in there.
• No weak or reused passwords: There’s nothing to remember, type, or store in a password manager.
• No centralized storage: Unlike passwords or cloud-managed passkeys, your Pera passkey is generated and stored locally.
• Future Recoverable through your wallet: With Pera, in the future your passkey can be recovered through your wallet’s 24-word seed phrase.

What Makes Pera’s Passkeys Different

Most passkeys today are managed by large tech companies and stored in their cloud infrastructure. That means they are ultimately controlled by centralized systems and tied to personal data such as your name, email, or device information.

Pera’s passkey system is fully decentralized. Your passkey is:

• Generated deterministically from your wallet’s root key, not stored in any cloud.
• Secured by your 24-word seed phrase, ensuring your identity remains fully owned and recoverable by you.
• Completely portable and not tied to any single provider or platform.
• Private by design: No personal information or metadata is shared when you authenticate.

No lock-in. No cloud sync. No middlemen. Just pure cryptographic ownership, aligned with the original vision of Web3.

How It Works

1. You create or restore your Pera Wallet.
2. Your wallet generates a root cryptographic key from the 24-word seed phrase of your Universal Wallet.
3. From that root, your passkey is created, unique, private, and recoverable.
4. When you log in to a FIDO2 Auth supported site (like GitHub), Pera signs the authentication challenge locally, without sending any personal data.

This system is powered by Liquid Auth, a new authentication protocol built on Algorand by the Algorand Foundation. Liquid Auth combines FIDO2/WebAuthn standards, enabling secure, decentralized, and peer-to-peer authentication.

Nothing is stored or exposed to centralized servers.

Why It Matters

This is more than a login feature — it’s a foundation for true digital ownership. With decentralized passkeys, you gain:

• Passwordless convenience
• Phishing-proof security
• Full self-custody and recoverability
• Quantum-resistant protection

This is how authentication should be: private, portable, and user-owned. Pera’s decentralized passkeys bring us one step closer to a secure, self-sovereign internet.

Get started with Passkeys from Pera

Follow Pera:

X: https://twitter.com/PeraAlgoWallet YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PeraWalletApp Telegram: https://t.me/PeraWallet Discord: https://discord.gg/gR2UdkCTXQ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/perawallet/

Disclaimer: Some websites require more information than just the Passkey. We are working on a backup solution that allows for all passkeys to be restored upon key recovery. This is a highly experimental feature.