What are Embedded Wallets?
MetaMask Embedded Wallets (formerly Web3Auth) provides a pluggable embedded wallet infrastructure to simplify Web3 wallet integration and user onboarding. It supports OAuth-based logins and multiple platforms, allowing users to access Web3 applications through familiar authentication methods in under a minute.
Users enjoy seamless onboarding while maintaining full control of their non-custodial wallets, ensuring both convenience and security.
Key features
🔐 Authentication made simple
Get your users started in seconds with familiar login methods they already use:
- Sign in with Google, Twitter, GitHub and other popular social accounts
- Passwordless login via email, SMS and authenticator apps.
- Bring your own auth system while leveraging our secure wallet infrastructure
🛡️ Bank-grade security
Enterprise-level protection for your users' digital assets:
- Advanced MPC technology splits keys across multiple parties
- Users maintain 100% control of their non-custodial wallets
- Distributed architecture prevents single points of failure
- Multiple backup options for worry-free recovery
💻 Built for developers
Integrate MetaMask Embedded Wallets into your app with minimal effort:
- Drop-in solution works with your existing auth system
- No complex migrations or infrastructure changes needed
- Full control to customize the look and feel
- Support for web, mobile, and gaming platforms
👥 Designed for users
The smoothest path to Web3 for your users:
- Get started in under 60 seconds
- No crypto knowledge needed
- Users own and control their wallets
- Simple, reliable account recovery
MetaMask Embedded Wallets (formerly Web3Auth) operate as wallet infrastructure, providing enhanced flexibility and security for decentralized applications (dapps) and blockchain wallets. Throughout this documentation, we'll explore the functionality of MetaMask Embedded Wallets, showcasing how it produces unique cryptographic key providers for each user and application.
How do Embedded Wallets work?
High-level architecture
The Embedded Wallet SDKs live solely on the user/application's frontend client and handle the interactions between OAuth providers and the Embedded Wallet network.
The diagram below describes the relationship between the SDKs and integrating applications. It also depicts the difference between the products that power the infrastructure for a developer-friendly integration.
Wallet management infrastructure
The wallet management infrastructure enhances security by distributing a user's wallet across various key shares, thereby avoiding direct exposure of seed phrases. These key shares form a 'web of trust' and enable wallet management akin to multi-factor account handling. Users employ OAuth logins, trusted devices, and other factors to manage their cryptographic key pairs. Importantly, the complete private keys are not stored anywhere within the wallet infrastructure system, including our databases or any participating nodes.
To create a social login share, users interact with the Embedded Wallets network, where key generation operates via a 5/9 consensus system. This setup guarantees that wallets remain non-custodial, ensuring that neither MetaMask, social login providers, nor any other party holding a key share can claim full ownership.
For managing wallets, our infrastructure uses various cryptographic techniques such as Shamir's Secret Sharing, threshold cryptography, and Multi Party Computation (MPC). To learn more about how we manage wallets, please refer to our Wallet Management and Security of our Infrastructure.
Is MetaMask Embedded Wallets a wallet?
MetaMask Embedded Wallets is not a wallet, but rather a wallet infrastructure that can be integrated into any application. It provides customizable authentication flows for dapps and blockchain wallets, solving user onboarding and key management challenges.
Unlike traditional wallets that can limit user experience, MetaMask Embedded Wallets enables developers to create tailored flows without requiring users to understand complex blockchain concepts. It provides a cryptographic key provider that can be used to build custom wallets or integrate with existing ones through Web3Auth's external wallet adapters.
Is MetaMask Embedded Wallets scalable?
The MetaMask Embedded Wallets infrastructure is built to handle millions of users. Our architecture provides:
- Global availability across multiple regions with consistent low-latency performance worldwide
- Automatic horizontal scaling that adjusts capacity based on demand, eliminating bottlenecks and ensuring uninterrupted service
- Enhanced security and reliability through distributed MPC architecture, maintaining a track record of zero downtime over three years of operation
- Enterprise-grade infrastructure running on Kubernetes orchestration for maximum reliability and performance
The SDKs are now branded as MetaMask Embedded Wallet SDKs (formerly Web3Auth Plug and Play SDKs). Package names and APIs remain Web3Auth (for example, Web3Auth React SDK), and code snippets may reference web3auth identifiers.