AuthLN introduces a new paradigm in identity security. With that shift come important questions — here are the ones we hear most. Need deeper technical detail? Contact our team.
PFA is a patented FIDO2 passkey plus a Bitcoin Lightning invoice placed in front of every identity access attempt — an economic gate on authentication. Authorized users satisfy it instantly with a passkey and never pay. Attackers must commit real value to even attempt access.
No. Authorized users present their device-bound passkey and the invoice is satisfied and cancelled automatically — typically in about 1.2 seconds. They never see a payment, never pay anything, and never need a wallet or any knowledge of Bitcoin.
No. AuthLN is a pre-authentication gate that plugs in front of your existing IdP — Okta, Microsoft Entra ID, Google Workspace, and others. Your SSO and MFA flows stay intact downstream. It adds a factor; it doesn't replace one.
Without a registered passkey, the only path forward is to fund the Lightning invoice. Automated tools fail silently because they can't programmatically pay. Most attackers abandon (the invoice times out). The rare few who pay are still denied on identity — and leave a traceable, attributable on-chain trail.
Traditional MFA either blocks or fails silently, with no record of who tried or what they were willing to risk. AuthLN adds an economic factor that deters attempts up front and produces binary, false-positive-free resolution plus per-user attribution at the authentication boundary.
Bitcoin's proof-of-work and decentralization make the cost real, non-reversible, and impossible to fake at scale. The Lightning Network settles micro-stake invoices instantly and refunds authorized users automatically — making "economic cost per attempt" practical in a live login flow.
A per-user, timestamped audit record of every attempt and its outcome — usable for incident-response prioritization, zero-trust policy tuning, threat-intelligence sharing, and compliance evidence (for example, NYDFS 23 NYCRR 500 MFA audit trails).
Schedule a demo and we'll show Pay Factor Authentication running in front of your own identity provider. Schedule a demo →