Stardust Wallets-as-a-Service (WaaS)

When it comes to games, user experience is key. After all, tech or gameplay mechanics that create hassle for players are a huge no-no for developers. Our user-first approach to wallets is one that industry-leading studios including web3 gaming luminaries such as Midnight Society, Shrapnel, and BloodLoop have adopted since the launch of our custodial wallet solution, ‘Wallets-as-a-Service (WaaS)’, in Q1 2023. But what are the specific benefits of WaaS for developers and their players?

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WaaS it all about?

Wallets aren’t just for web3 games (more on that later) so it’s worth covering the fundamentals, and where WaaS comes into play. Simply put, our wallets are a little like the one you probably carry around with you every day but, instead of physical cash and cards, they hold digital, blockchain-based assets such as NFTs and cryptocurrency. Just as a physical wallet can carry multiple currencies and cards from different banks, Stardust’s wallet enables users to store assets from 250+ blockchains at the same time, in the same place. We call these wallets ‘custodial’ because the responsibility to look after them and their contents falls on Stardust instead of the developer or player.

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Invisible but powerful

If we could sum up WaaS with one word, it would be ‘invisible’. Like X-rays and radio waves, WaaS is a vital service unseen to the naked eye. It’s designed to go unnoticed, sitting behind a traditional gaming or web3 tech stack, and existing entirely on the server-to-server backend. Game devs don’t need to work around tech like an SDK, authentication widget, and chrome extension to build their ideal game and user journey. Players don’t want to be interrupted by private key management and transaction signing mid-game, so we make sure that doesn’t happen. We also don’t expect our clients to do our marketing, so Stardust logos will never appear to players anywhere.

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Chain-agnostic choice

WaaS supports games across multiple chains; whether you’re building on any EVM network (such as Avalanche or Polygon), or a Move network (such as Solana or Sui), Stardust has you covered. It provides a modular experience for developers where any smart contract, auth system or payment provider can be used. This allows Stardust to handle any and all on-chain transactions on behalf of players, whether it’s simple transactions, staking, interacting with DeFi, or even calling custom smart contract methods.

These actions and transactions can look and feel like any other in-game action, making them an interesting option for mainstream games and web3 games alike. We’ll deep dive into the benefits of wallets for mainstream games in a later blog, but if you can’t wait until then get in touch to hear more about how they can level up your monetization and user acquisition.

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Safe and sound

Security underpins all of WaaS. Leveraging the same security and compliance frameworks used by Coinbase and Stripe, Stardust ensures maximum data protection. For security and compliance aficionados, Stardust employs Mutual TLS to ensure data is end-to-end authenticated and is SOC 2 compliant. We’re proud to hold more than 25 Money Transmitter Licences (MTLs) and counting.

The custodial nature of the wallet also lessens the risk of social hacking. By ensuring wallets are not exported by players, there’s a lesser chance of users losing their inventory due to a lack of technical know-how or being scammed. Ultimately, it’s game developers who get the final say on their users’ activity: preventing credit card chargebacks to avoid users taking ‘free’ NFTs is just one of many benefits.

Our multi-layered security approach means game developers and gamers alike are kept safe and sound. 

If you’re interested in hearing more about how WaaS can help scale your game, contact us.