Crypto-friendly e-commerce giant Shopify has released a suite of blockchain commerce tools with the intention of improving the customer experience of its Web3-centric businesses that are hosted on the platform.

In particular, the improved functionality for connecting crypto wallets and “tokengating” application programming interface (API) tools stand out. Previously, the latter was exclusively accessible to a limited number of retailers until it entered early access beta access mode in June 2022.

Through the use of tokengating, relevant Shopify merchants now have the ability to build their businesses in such a way that they can choose which token holders get access to exclusive items, non-fungible token drops (NFTs), and perks and which don’t.

The app verifies a user’s eligibility by using the associated wallet and is marketed to NFT merchants as a convenient method of rewarding certain customers or adding an element of exclusivity to certain items.

Shopify has merged with the Session Initiation Protocol with Ethereum (SIWE), which is led by the Ethereum Naming Service (ENS) and the Ethereum Foundation. This integration allows Shopify to provide enhanced support for cryptocurrency wallets.

SIWE enables secure user logins and authentication of Ethereum accounts and ENS domains without revealing private identifiers to third parties, such as names, phone numbers, and residential addresses. Essentially, SIWE makes it possible for users to securely log in and authenticate to Ethereum accounts and ENS domains.

In the past, Shopify has had some trouble protecting the privacy of its customers’ information. Regarding a major user data breach that occurred in 2020, a group of dissatisfied customers filed a class action lawsuit against the company and hardware wallet provider Ledger in April 2022.

“The statementGenerator property gives you the ability to modify the statement that is displayed each time an Ethereum login message is presented. According to the document, “the function gets the address of the wallet that has been linked, giving it allows you to expand and tailor your message statements to be more aligned with your brand.”

At this stage, once a merchant plugs in the SIWE feature in Shopify wallet connect, it appears that users will be able to click the “sign in with Ethereum” button to connect their addresses through SIWE partner brokers such as Coinbase, Fortmatic, WalletConnect. , Portis and Bull. This is something that users will be able to do once the merchant has connected the SIWE feature in Shopify wallet connect.