1/ Self-sovereign identity is not going to happen just because people want an identity. People want value and identity emerges as a side effect.
No one wants Social Security Numbers, Equifax, or FB to own identity. They want govt benefits, credit cards, and to find their friends
No one wants Social Security Numbers, Equifax, or FB to own identity. They want govt benefits, credit cards, and to find their friends
2/ The leading contenders to back in to identity are trading, lending, gaming, layer 2, and messengers with crypto built-in.
People want to do these things without identity. All of these get much better if there is a stable identity in the mix.
People want to do these things without identity. All of these get much better if there is a stable identity in the mix.
3/ If @Coinbase made it easy to send money using a cross-chain identifier to any person or merchant, you would quickly back in to identity.
If @compoundfinance or @MakerDAO did credit worthiness and thus identity, they could lend at preferential rates to people with good credit.
If @compoundfinance or @MakerDAO did credit worthiness and thus identity, they could lend at preferential rates to people with good credit.
4/ Being able to play games with friends or have leaderboards may require some stable identity, ie the @CryptoKitties and @dapper_labs approach.
People want to have a track record of their winnings in real money games, their reputation, or guilds all of which require identity.
People want to have a track record of their winnings in real money games, their reputation, or guilds all of which require identity.
5/ Layer 2 approaches will also benefit significantly from stable identity -- knowing that there is a credible merchant and credible buyer on either side of the transaction has significant impact on fraud and potentially fees.
6/ Projects showing up with identity and adding cryptocurrency also gets very interesting, e.g. @mobilecoin or @Libra_ or even the Chinese Govt. In these cases they don't need to boostrap identity, they leverage an existing benefit and add additional value via crypto
7/ In all of these cases, what matters is that there is some core value/utility first.
Identity emerges because it creates significant benefits on top of the core utility. Not because people want an identity.
Identity emerges because it creates significant benefits on top of the core utility. Not because people want an identity.
