Are decentralized digital identities the future or just a niche use case?
As users take advantage of online services and explore the internet, they eventually create a digital identity. This type of identity is then tied to central entities like Google and Facebook, which make it easier to share data with new services through simple sign-in buttons.
While these digital identity management systems are convenient, they are relying on centralized intermediaries that hold and control user data. Personal identifiers and attestations are in their hands, and they can decide — or be forced — to share this information with other parties.
Blockchains offer a solution: decentralized digital identities. These allow individuals to manage information related to their identities, create identifiers, control who they’re shared with and hold attestations without relying on a central authority, like a government agency.
A decentralized identifier for a decentralized identity can take the form of an Ethereum account. Users can create as many accounts as they want on the Ethereum network without anyone’s permission and without anything being stored in a central registry. Credentials on the Ethereum blockchain are easily verifiable and tamper-proof, making them extremely trustworthy.
Other use cases are out there. In August 2022, Binance catapulted the decentralized identity debate to social media platforms after moving to launch its first soulbound token, BAB, serving as users’ Know Your Customer (KYC) credentials.
Whether decentralized identities are the future of online activity remains to be seen.
Speaking to Cointelegraph, Witek Radomski, chief technology officer and co-founder of nonfungible token ecosystem Enjin, revealed he sees a future in which the metaverse will see a “blend of social media networks, email,
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