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Ecosystem
August 27, 2020
Portto and Flow: a portal to the open world
Guest
Portto and Flow: a portal to the open world
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This is a guest blog post from Hsuan Lee, Co-founder and CEO of Blocto

TL;DR

Portto is partnering with Flow to bring the simplest blockchain on-ramp experience to dapp users

portto’s Mission

As Marc Andreessen described in a16z podcast: From the Internet’s Past to The Future of Crypto, blockchain applications today, similar to the Internet back in the 90s, have a steep entry barrier for the general public. Portto aims to make blockchain simple and accessible for users with no technical background.

In an effort to reduce entry barriers, portto has launched its mobile crypto wallet Blocto, specifically designed with non crypto-fluent users in mind. Blocto provides an intuitive onboarding experience with keyless account management and unified cross chain fee payment so users can interact easily with dapps such as CryptoKitties & Cheeze Wizards within 1 minute of signing up. With Blocto, dapps can provide their users with a near-native experience.

portto x Flow

However, what actually matters to users the most is the dapp itself. People don’t use a dapp simply because it’s easy to use; people use a dapp because it’s fun, exciting, provides significant value, or solves a critical problem. For this reason, portto has always been actively searching for teams that produce great dapps and blockchain platforms that can empower them.

Our team at portto firmly believes that Dapper Labs and Flow hold the keys to the mass adoption of decentralized applications. Dapper Labs’ experience in creating great dapps, such as Cryptokitties and NBA Top Shot, has made them uniquely aware of the ins and outs of dapp development.  Created using that knowledge, Flow blockchain’s distinct characteristics make it particularly suitable for consumer-facing dapps, such as an account system with a built-in multi-sig mechanism, built-in fee subsidization (dapps can pay on user's behalf), and a resource-oriented smart contract language, Cadence. When compared to Ethereum, Flow provides a better scalability mechanism without sacrificing decentralization and without sharding the network, necessary improvements for mass market adoption.

One of the key technical advantages of Flow is that it ships with a well-designed JavaScript library: Flow Client Library (FCL). FCL provides all of the functionalities web-based dapps need to interact with Flow. It also defines how dapps interact with wallet services in an efficient way. Unlike common Web3 dapps in the Ethereum ecosystem where users must download a separate browser extension or mobile app to use the dapp, Flow dapp users don’t have to download any separate extensions or app, ensuring a smooth experience.

Blocto, after implementing the FCL wallet protocol, now supports Flow testnet. Flow dapp builders can integrate Blocto wallet service with two simple lines of code through FCL and see their dapps running on Flow testnet. In addition, Blocto will be available on Flow beta mainnet next month for any dapp developers to integrate with via FCL. Any non crypto-fluent user can use the Flow dapps built with FCL and Blocto wallet service effortlessly.

OWB Blocto FCL wallet video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75LpLUOIjII 

Sample code: https://github.com/portto/fcl-demo 

Blocto Documentation: https://docs.blocto.app 

What’s Next?

Portto will keep improving the experience for both entry-level and advanced Flow users. New users can enjoy the simple on-ramp Blocto FCL wallet provides and make in-game payments with credit cards or other cryptocurrencies, hassle-free. Advanced users can make use of the Blocto mobile app for more convenience and security, as they can easily manage their assets accumulated from different Flow dapps and sign transactions in a decentralized fashion right from their Blocto app, instead of Blocto’s hosted service.

Together, Flow and portto will build the simplest on-ramp to blockchain and bring dapps to the mainstream.