Welcome to Portal

Portal is a comprehensive toolkit for businesses to authenticate, get paid, and issue tickets to their customers without any intermediaries while maintaining full privacy.

What is Portal?

Portal leverages the power of Nostr protocol and the Lightning Network to provide:

  • Decentralized Authentication: Secure user authentication without relying on centralized identity providers
  • Lightning Payments: Process instant payments using Bitcoin's Lightning Network
  • Privacy-First: No third parties, no data collection, full user privacy
  • No Intermediaries: Direct peer-to-peer interactions between businesses and customers
  • Ticket Issuance: Issue Cashu ecash tokens as tickets and vouchers for authorized users

Key Features

🔐 Authentication

  • Nostr-based user authentication using cryptographic keys
  • Support for both main keys and delegated subkeys
  • Secure challenge-response protocol
  • No passwords, no email verification needed

💳 Payment Processing

  • Single Payments: One-time Lightning Network payments
  • Recurring Payments: Subscription-based payments with customizable schedules
  • Real-time Status: Live payment status updates via WebSocket
  • Currency Support: Millisats with exchange rate integration
  • Cashu Support: Issue and accept Cashu ecash tokens

🎫 Ticket Issuance

  • Issue Cashu tokens (ecash) as tickets to authenticated users
  • Request and send Cashu tokens peer-to-peer
  • Mint and burn tokens with your own mint
  • Perfect for event tickets, access tokens, and vouchers

👤 Profile Management

  • Fetch user profiles from Nostr
  • Update and publish service profiles
  • NIP-05 identity verification support

🔑 Session Management

  • JWT token issuance and verification for API authentication
  • Session tokens issued by user's wallet app
  • Businesses verify JWT tokens without needing to issue them
  • Perfect for stateless API authentication

🌐 Multi-Platform Support

  • REST API with WebSocket support
  • TypeScript/JavaScript SDK
  • JVM/Kotlin client
  • React Native bindings
  • Docker deployment ready

Use Cases

Portal is perfect for:

  • SaaS Applications: Authenticate users and process subscriptions
  • Content Creators: Monetize content with Lightning micropayments
  • Online Services: Provide privacy-respecting authentication
  • Event Ticketing: Issue and verify Cashu token-based tickets
  • Membership Sites: Manage recurring memberships
  • API Services: Verify JWT tokens issued by user wallets for API access

How It Works

  1. Deploy the Portal SDK Daemon: Run the REST API server using Docker
  2. Integrate the TypeScript SDK: Connect your application to Portal
  3. Authenticate Users: Generate authentication URLs for users to connect
  4. Process Payments: Request single or recurring payments
  5. Issue Tickets: Generate and send Cashu tokens as tickets to users

Architecture

Portal consists of several components:

  • SDK Core: Rust-based core implementation handling Nostr protocol and Lightning payments
  • REST API: WebSocket-based API server for language-agnostic integration
  • TypeScript Client: High-level SDK for JavaScript/TypeScript applications
  • Nostr Relays: Distributed network for message passing
  • Lightning Network: Bitcoin Layer 2 for instant payments

Getting Started

Ready to integrate Portal into your application? Start with our Quick Start Guide or jump directly to:

Open Source

Portal is open source and available under the MIT License (except for the app library). Contributions are welcome!

Next Steps: Head over to the Quick Start Guide to deploy your first Portal instance.