# `fix(onboarding): resolve issues preventing new users`

Hello everyone, Luis here, heading innovation at Mintbase. Today, I'm excited to share our journey and insights from the past five years on user onboarding and our ongoing efforts to elevate user experience.

### What is Mintbase?
Mintbase began its journey on Ethereum in 2018 as a prominent NFT factory. Users deployed over a thousand contracts, adhering to NFT standards, and the platform also doubled as a ticketing solution for events like NFT NYC.

However, 2020 brought new challenges with soaring Ethereum gas fees and slower transaction speeds. Our co-founder proactively sought alternatives to maintain the quality of our user onboarding experience.

### Why NEAR?
Ultimately, we settled on NEAR due to its lower fees, scalability, and the ability to deploy contracts written in Rust, among other features. Initially, NEAR had its limitations, including a lack of standards and a fledgling ecosystem. Mintbase stepped in, building infrastructure, establishing NFT standards, and nurturing the ecosystem, laying the groundwork for innovative products like Minsta.

### Introducing Minsta
Minsta, born out of an internal hackathon, is a photo-sharing app with a twist: every photo is an NFT. With a user-friendly feed and easy photo minting, Minsta demonstrates the power of NFTs in capturing moments. It's been a hit at crypto conferences, showcasing Mintbase's robust infrastructure and the speed and cost-effectiveness of NEAR transactions.

### The Challenges of User Onboarding
Despite our efforts, we discovered that even at Web3 conferences, not everyone has a funded crypto account ready to use. Some attendees are cautious about connecting their accounts to new apps, while others simply don't have their ledger on hand.

### Our Solution
To address this, we've updated Minsta to allow for account creation without funds, sidestepping the need for fiat on-ramps. You can now create a human-readable account name and mint tokens with a fresh account, hassle-free.

### Get Hands-On with Minsta
I invite you to try Minsta for yourself at [Minsta.mintbase.xyz](https://minsta.mintbase.xyz). The process is straightforward and free to explore on our [GitHub repository](https://github.com/mintbase).

### The Mintbase Wallet
Our wallet complements Minsta perfectly, offering a non-custodial, secure, and private user experience. With meta transactions, even users without funds can participate, and the wallet's use of passkeys ensures easy and secure transaction signing, like using Face ID.

### NEAR Accounts vs. Ethereum Accounts
Understanding the difference between NEAR and Ethereum accounts is crucial. NEAR accounts can have multiple key pairs with varied permissions, increasing security and flexibility.

| | Ethereum Wallet | NEAR Account |
|--------------------|--------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
| Public Identifier | Public Key (`0x123...`) | Account ID (`alice.near`) |
| Secret Key | Private Key (`0x456...`) | Multiple Keypairs with permissions: <br> - FullAccess key <br> - FunctionCall key |
| Characteristics | - Private key gives full access <br> - Account doesn't have to be created via a transaction | - Permission-based keypair <br> - Account ID must be created via blockchain transaction |

### What's Next: Everyday Language for Everything
Looking ahead, we aim to make everyday language the standard for interaction. This involves leveraging language models like ChatGPT for functions like querying and executing transactions. Our own AI chat, accessible at [ai.mintbase.xyz](https://ai.mintbase.xyz), showcases this technology in action.

### Join Our Hackathon and Grants Program
As part of our commitment to innovation, we're sponsoring a bounty at the upcoming hackathon for the best Minsta customization. We're also excited to announce our second cohort of Mintbase grants, supporting projects that utilize NFTs and NEAR.

Thank you for your time, and let's open the floor for Q&A. Meanwhile, feel free to scan the Minsta QR code and capture this moment as an NFT.

*Happy minting,*
*Luis from Mintbase*