3Box.js⁂
User-centric data and identity SDK for decentralized applications — adopted by 100+ early projects including Uniswap, Gitcoin, and Aragon.
const box = await Box.openBox(address, provider)
- Key signature derives deterministic 3ID signing & encryption keys
- Public profile resolved: { name: "Danny", emoji: "🛠️", image: "ipfs://..." }
- Zero centralized auth server — keys live in browser local keychain
await box.openSpace("gitcoin-quests")
- space.private.set("draft_submission", encryptedPayload)
- space.public.set("completed_badges", ["open-web-2019"])
- Replicated via OrbitDB CRDT log over libp2p pubsub
Why 3Box.js Led Directly to Ceramic
- Browser-based IPFS/OrbitDB peer sync took 4–9s on cold start
- Global GraphQL queries across 100+ apps needed indexing beyond per-user logs
- Lesson: replace client-heavy OrbitDB with Ceramic event streams + ComposeDB
An open-source JavaScript SDK that gave decentralized applications user-controlled data storage and identity profiles. Instead of every application building its own user system, 3Box.js provided a shared identity and data layer where people owned their information and could carry it between applications.
The SDK was adopted by over 100 early decentralized applications including Uniswap, Gitcoin, Aragon, and dozens of open-network and governance tools. It handled encrypted private data, public profiles, messaging threads, and cross-application data sharing — all anchored to a user’s cryptographic account and stored on IPFS and OrbitDB rather than any centralized server.
3Box.js proved the demand for user-centric decentralized data infrastructure, but also revealed the limitations of building on IPFS for production workloads — performance, reliability, and query capabilities all needed fundamental rethinking. These lessons directly informed the design of Ceramic.