Torus Network: What It Is and Why It Matters in DeFi and Crypto Identity

When you want to use a DeFi app but don’t want to juggle seed phrases or worry about losing your private key, Torus Network, a decentralized login system that lets you sign in to crypto apps with your Google, Facebook, or Apple account. Also known as Torus Wallet, it removes the biggest barrier to entry for new users: the fear of losing access forever. Before Torus, if you messed up your 12-word phrase, your crypto was gone. No reset. No customer service. Torus changed that by using threshold cryptography to split your key across multiple trusted servers—so you never hold the full key yourself, but still own your assets.

Torus doesn’t just make logging in easier. It connects directly to wallets like MetaMask and Phantom, letting you move between apps without re-authenticating. That’s why projects like DeFi lending platforms, NFT marketplaces, and even gaming dApps used Torus in 2021–2023 to onboard users who had never touched crypto before. You didn’t need to understand blockchain—you just needed an email. But here’s the catch: Torus isn’t a wallet itself. It’s a bridge. It lets you access wallets built on Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, and others without forcing you to learn how to manage keys. And that’s why it became so popular among DeFi projects trying to scale beyond crypto natives.

But Torus isn’t the only player. Alternatives like Web3Auth and Auth0 have since emerged, offering similar features with more customization. Still, Torus was one of the first to prove that social login could work securely on-chain. Today, many of the projects listed here—like dead DeFi tokens, failed airdrops, and abandoned exchanges—relied on Torus for user onboarding. Some still do. Others moved on. The ones that stuck with Torus often did so because they wanted simplicity over control. And that’s exactly why some of them failed: users signed up easily, but never learned how to take ownership. They trusted the login, not the system.

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably seen a token that promised easy access, only to vanish. Or a platform that said "log in with Google" and then disappeared overnight. Torus made that possible. It didn’t cause the failures—but it made them easier to build. And that’s why understanding Torus matters. It’s not just a tool. It’s a lesson in how convenience can mask risk. Below, you’ll find real stories of projects that used Torus to grow fast—and then collapsed just as quickly. Some still have active wallets. Others are ghost chains. All of them started with a simple login.