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Powering Consumer Crypto with thirdweb Engine

Cathal Berragan

Oct 26, 2023 • 6 min read

TLDR: thirdweb Engine is an open-source HTTP server that makes it easy for developers to launch scalable web3 apps, reliably and securely.

Engine provides a blockchain server with a simple API interface that lets developers create backend wallets and make unlimited blockchain transactions using familiar HTTP calls to any EVM chain.

Introducing thirdweb Engine

At thirdweb, we see two major obstacles to mainstream adoption in web3:

Developer complexity: To build a web3 app, developers need to piece together 10+ different tools that don't natively talk to each other — creating a messy, fragmented DX that stifles innovation.
User experience: For new users to interact with the blockchain, they need to create a wallet, store their private keys, purchase & transfer crypto, pay gas fees, and sign every action they take on a dApp — creating a daunting onboarding process that stifles adoption.

For the past two years, we have been laser focused on bringing down the barriers for developers to build apps. We’ve provided tooling used by 300k+ developers, including smart contracts, SDKs, wallets and infrastructure.

With Engine, we’re completing the developer workflow. Engine gives developers an easy way to orchestrate onchain actions from their backend wallet, including pushing airdrops to users, deploying smart contracts, and managing nonce & gas.

Engine is a backend server that provides a HTTP interface to interact with any smart contract on any EVM chain. Engine handles creating and managing backend wallets, enabling high throughput with automatic nonce and gas management.

Learn more & start building with thirdweb Engine today:

Solutions for every web3 feature in your app

thirdweb Engine is built to scale web3 apps with 5 core capabilities:

Backend Wallets: Create backend wallets, store keys securely (AWS KMS, Google KMS, etc.), and sign & send transactions at scale. Eliminate stuck transactions and scale your app to millions with automatic nonce management and gas-optimized transaction retries.
Account Abstraction: Deploy and interact with ERC-4337 smart wallets. Handle session keys and send user operations
Smart Contracts: Deploy, read, & write to any smart contract across any EVM-compatible blockchain — and build with thirdweb's audited smart contracts.
Gasless Transactions: Onboard users in an instant & create seamless web3 UX by sponsoring gas fees — for any & all transactions.
Authentication: Generate access tokens with scoped permissions and expirations. Grant or revoke programmatic access to your team as needed without worrying about private keys being compromised.

Engine is fully open-source and comes with both a managed and self-serve option. Give it a spin:

Start building with Engine

Why did we build Engine?

Over the past 3 months, several consumer apps with significant traction have emerged that use blockchain technology to solve real problems.

Decentralised social networks such as Lens Protocol, Farcaster, & friend.tech allow users to build audiences that they truly own.
The world’s most beloved brands—like Nike, Pokemon, & DC Comics—are utilizing NFTs to offer digital collectibles to their audiences.
Web and mobile game studios like Pixels, Animoca & Ex Populus are introducing a new paradigm for gaming—giving players ownership over the digital assets they collect.

The **apps-infrastructure cycle in web3**: infra leads to apps, and apps lead to infra

This traction is the outcome of major infrastructure advancements that have taken place over the past year, including The Merge, Layer 2s, and EIP-4844.

Furthermore, the web3 user experience has undergone a major transformation—with innovations like Account Abstraction, Token Bound Accounts (ERC-6551), & Embedded Wallets (web2 logins) equipping builders with all the necessary tools to create consumer apps powered by blockchain.

These apps have a few things in common. They unlock exciting new user experiences and revenue models which weren’t possible before. They also behave and feel like web2 experiences, whilst being powered by web3 in the backend.

Over the next cycle, web3 founders and the world’s biggest brands will be exploring how they can add web3 to their business.

However, developers looking to create a web3 backend that scales with user growth face a number of problems:

Security: Managing private keys for apps with backend wallets currently involves sharing passwords on shared spreadsheets or in services like 1password. This is a huge security risk for any organisation.
Complexity: Developers have to consider a number of components to configure their backend, including nonce management, gas payments, signers, private key security and more.
Reliability: Even after setting up a complicated web3 backend, stuck nonces, gas spikes & network instability can impact the performance of your app.

Engine solves all of these problems—bringing speed, security, & reliability to web3 apps at scale.

It will will bring the power of web3 to every web developer in the world—regardless of their experience or knowledge with blockchain technology.

Start building with Engine

Engine is already trusted by industry leaders in web3

thirdweb Engine is already powering apps and experiences for some of the biggest companies in web3—such as Ava Labs, Layer3, & Ex Populus.

And for Mainnet 2023, a flagship annual crypto summit, Coinbase brought half of all 2,000+ attendees to crypto via various onchain experiences:

Base brought delightful onchain experiences to the real world — using Engine to power smooth NFT user experiences for the Home Base lounge, Base Cafe, and Based Merch store:

Collectibles: When attendees checked in at the Home Base in Mainnet, they received a summary of the day’s agenda — and were simultaneously airdropped an exclusive Home Base collectible that served as proof of their attendance.
Memberships: When attendees visited the Base Cafe, they could purchase coffee & pastries via the Coinbase Wallet app — with instant, gasless USDC payments & messaging via XMTP for seamless ordering. Ordering a coffee minted a commemorative Base Cafe NFT to their wallets.
Phygital Items: Attendees that visited could purchase limited-edition swag at the Based Merch store — with a digital version of their items airdropped into their wallets for every purchase.

Every onchain experience delighted customers with limited-edition digital collectibles that served different use cases — with claimable NFTs at every step of the activation.

With built-in smart contracts, wallet management, gasless transactions, and all of the managed infrastructure for any EVM chain, the Coinbase team used Engine to guarantee seamless NFT creation, delivery, & transaction management on Base — successfully creating smooth user flows for the activation in just days.

Learn more about how Coinbase uses Engine to power onchain experiences on Base:

The next phase of the apps-infrastructure cycle is (already) driving mass adoption

We're optimistic about the future of web3, and are excited to see more consumer applications with mainstream adoption.

With thirdweb Engine, we're excited to continue accelerating the ecosystem & paving the way for mass adoption.

Engine is available today! Start building:

Learn more about how Engine can power your web3 apps – see it in action & reach out to the team:

Book a demo