Bitcoin maximalist Jack Dorsey announced a web platform called Web5, a combination of the centralized internet Web 2 and the decentralized internet dubbed Web3. The product is part of Square’s subsidiary TBD which attempts to create a suite of BTC-based tools to transform the financial system.

According to its official website, Web5 is an “extra decentralized web platform” that will provide users with power over their identity and their data. The next step in the evolution of the internet, it will aim at removing third parties’ control over their users’ information. The announcement claims:

Web5 brings decentralized identity and data storage to your applications. It lets developers focus on creating delightful user experiences, while returning ownership of data and identity to individuals.

Web5 includes four components that I am going to describe below:

Web5’s DID component leverages ION, an open, public and permissionless second-layer DID network that runs atop the Bitcoin blockchain. It is based on the deterministic Sidetree protocol, which requires no special tokens, trusted validators or additional consensus mechanisms to function.

A DID is essentially a globally unique persistent identifier that doesn’t require a centralized registration authority and is often generated and registered cryptographically. It consists of a unique uniform resource identifier (URI) string that serves as an ID with additional public key infrastructure (PKI) metadata describing the cryptographic keys and other fundamental PKI values linked to a unique, user-controlled, self-sovereign identifier in a target system such as the Bitcoin blockchain.

ION only allows DIDs to be deactivated by their owners, being hence censorship-resistant, and includes registry capabilities to support decentralized package managers and app stores. The decentralized network can in theory process thousands of DID operations per second.

The DWN leveraged by Web5 is a reference implementation of the Decentralized Identity Foundation’s DWN draft specification. Two people from Block have contributed to the specification: Moe Jangda as a contributor and Daniel Bucher as an editor.

According to the specification, a DWN is a mechanism for data storage and message transmission that participants can leverage to locate public or private data linked to a given DID. It enables the interaction between different entities that need to verify the identity of each other in order to transfer information to one another.

“Decentralized Web Nodes are a mesh-like datastore construction that enable an entity to operate multiple nodes that sync to the same state across one another, enabling the owning entity to secure, manage, and transact their data with others without reliance on location or provider-specific infrastructure, interfaces, or routing mechanisms,” per the specification.

TBD’s goal is to produce a first version of the current draft specification along with a reference implementation by July 1, 2022.

Contributions from the development community are welcome. Interested developers can submit proposals as pull requests to the GitHub repository. Likewise, issues can also be submitted on the same GitHub repository.

Web5’s SSIS is a web service that wraps the ssi-sdk.

The SSIS interacts with the standards around verifiable credentials, credential revocations, requesting credentials, exchanging credentials, data schemas for credentials and other verifiable data, messaging using DWN and usage of DIDs.

“Using these core standards, the SSIS enables robust functionality to facilitate all verifiable interactions such as creating, signing, issuing, curating, requesting, revoking, exchanging, validating, verifying credentials in varying degrees of complexity,” per its webpage.

The ssi-sdk encapsulates standards related to self-sovereign identity.

“The ssi-sdk intends to provide flexible functionality based on a set of standards-based primitives for building decentralized identity applications in a modular manner: with limited dependencies between components,” per its webpage.

this web platform is built to provide two core use cases: individuals will have the ability to “own their data”, and they will be able to “control their identity”. These use cases will be supported by wallets, decentralized web nodes (DWNS), and decentralized web apps (DWAS).

In that way, one user will be able to grant authorization to apps and manage their own data without the need for a third-party company. Wallets will also remove the need for users to remember long passwords, as they can simply use their wallets to unlock the apps and always “carry their data with them”.

According to the official website, this decentralized web platform will operate like TBD, as a public good:

Today’s financial systems leave people behind. We build systems for anyone with internet access. And we’re creating it like the web itself: as a public good. Our projects are open source and, where appropriate, built on open standards.

Two use cases according to the official website:

• Control your identity

Alice holds a digital wallet that securely manages her identity, data, and authorizations for external apps and connections. Alice uses her wallet to sign in to a new decentralized social media app. Because Alice has connected to the app with her decentralized identity, she does not need to create a profile, and all the connections, relationships, and posts she creates through the app are stored with her, in her decentralized web node. Now Alice can switch apps whenever she wants, taking her social persona with her.

• Own your data

Bob is a music lover and hates having his personal data locked to a single vendor. It forces him to regurgitate his playlists and songs over and over again across different music apps. Thankfully there's a way out of this maze of vendor-locked silos: Bob can keep this data in his decentralized web node. This way Bob is able to grant any music app access to his settings and preferences, enabling him to take his personalized music experience wherever he chooses.

No. No, there will not be a token to buy.

If you are familiar with Web3 and all the things you can do with and through it, you probably know that Web3 itself is not complete. Web3 has a very long journey to become the “web” we expect it to be. You can have your identity, your signature, your money, your NFTs, and many other things in your Web3 wallets but not all of your digital identity can be there, yet.

Bitcoin blockchain, in my opinion, is not designed to be a blockchain for personalization and identity. It is designed to be the only money of the world. But Ethereum blockchain is designed for decentralized apps and through decentralized apps you may have a digital identity.

Noticing all above, I believe that Web5 cannot replace Web3 or will not get better than it. Maybe Bitcoin maximalists will love this kind of product, but not all people will use Web5 over Web3. Other than that Web5 is kind of a Web3 only on Bitcoin blockchain with no other differences. Therefore, Web3, which is more mature and much more usable now, will be the “web of tomorrow”.

In one sentence, I don’t see Web5 to become the future of web.

Bitcoin maximalist Jack Dorsey announced a web platform called Web5, a combination of the centralized internet Web 2 and the decentralized internet dubbed Web3. The product is part of Square’s subsidiary TBD which attempts to create a suite of BTC-based tools to transform the financial system.

According to its official website, Web5 is an “extra decentralized web platform” that will provide users with power over their identity and their data. The next step in the evolution of the internet, it will aim at removing third parties’ control over their users’ information. The announcement claims:

Web5 brings decentralized identity and data storage to your applications. It lets developers focus on creating delightful user experiences, while returning ownership of data and identity to individuals.

Web5 includes four components that I am going to describe below:

Web5’s DID component leverages ION, an open, public and permissionless second-layer DID network that runs atop the Bitcoin blockchain. It is based on the deterministic Sidetree protocol, which requires no special tokens, trusted validators or additional consensus mechanisms to function.

A DID is essentially a globally unique persistent identifier that doesn’t require a centralized registration authority and is often generated and registered cryptographically. It consists of a unique uniform resource identifier (URI) string that serves as an ID with additional public key infrastructure (PKI) metadata describing the cryptographic keys and other fundamental PKI values linked to a unique, user-controlled, self-sovereign identifier in a target system such as the Bitcoin blockchain.

ION only allows DIDs to be deactivated by their owners, being hence censorship-resistant, and includes registry capabilities to support decentralized package managers and app stores. The decentralized network can in theory process thousands of DID operations per second.

The DWN leveraged by Web5 is a reference implementation of the Decentralized Identity Foundation’s DWN draft specification. Two people from Block have contributed to the specification: Moe Jangda as a contributor and Daniel Bucher as an editor.

According to the specification, a DWN is a mechanism for data storage and message transmission that participants can leverage to locate public or private data linked to a given DID. It enables the interaction between different entities that need to verify the identity of each other in order to transfer information to one another.

“Decentralized Web Nodes are a mesh-like datastore construction that enable an entity to operate multiple nodes that sync to the same state across one another, enabling the owning entity to secure, manage, and transact their data with others without reliance on location or provider-specific infrastructure, interfaces, or routing mechanisms,” per the specification.

TBD’s goal is to produce a first version of the current draft specification along with a reference implementation by July 1, 2022.

Contributions from the development community are welcome. Interested developers can submit proposals as pull requests to the GitHub repository. Likewise, issues can also be submitted on the same GitHub repository.

Web5’s SSIS is a web service that wraps the ssi-sdk.

The SSIS interacts with the standards around verifiable credentials, credential revocations, requesting credentials, exchanging credentials, data schemas for credentials and other verifiable data, messaging using DWN and usage of DIDs.

“Using these core standards, the SSIS enables robust functionality to facilitate all verifiable interactions such as creating, signing, issuing, curating, requesting, revoking, exchanging, validating, verifying credentials in varying degrees of complexity,” per its webpage.

The ssi-sdk encapsulates standards related to self-sovereign identity.

“The ssi-sdk intends to provide flexible functionality based on a set of standards-based primitives for building decentralized identity applications in a modular manner: with limited dependencies between components,” per its webpage.

this web platform is built to provide two core use cases: individuals will have the ability to “own their data”, and they will be able to “control their identity”. These use cases will be supported by wallets, decentralized web nodes (DWNS), and decentralized web apps (DWAS).

In that way, one user will be able to grant authorization to apps and manage their own data without the need for a third-party company. Wallets will also remove the need for users to remember long passwords, as they can simply use their wallets to unlock the apps and always “carry their data with them”.

According to the official website, this decentralized web platform will operate like TBD, as a public good:

Today’s financial systems leave people behind. We build systems for anyone with internet access. And we’re creating it like the web itself: as a public good. Our projects are open source and, where appropriate, built on open standards.

Two use cases according to the official website:

• Control your identity

Alice holds a digital wallet that securely manages her identity, data, and authorizations for external apps and connections. Alice uses her wallet to sign in to a new decentralized social media app. Because Alice has connected to the app with her decentralized identity, she does not need to create a profile, and all the connections, relationships, and posts she creates through the app are stored with her, in her decentralized web node. Now Alice can switch apps whenever she wants, taking her social persona with her.

• Own your data

Bob is a music lover and hates having his personal data locked to a single vendor. It forces him to regurgitate his playlists and songs over and over again across different music apps. Thankfully there's a way out of this maze of vendor-locked silos: Bob can keep this data in his decentralized web node. This way Bob is able to grant any music app access to his settings and preferences, enabling him to take his personalized music experience wherever he chooses.

No. No, there will not be a token to buy.

If you are familiar with Web3 and all the things you can do with and through it, you probably know that Web3 itself is not complete. Web3 has a very long journey to become the “web” we expect it to be. You can have your identity, your signature, your money, your NFTs, and many other things in your Web3 wallets but not all of your digital identity can be there, yet.

Bitcoin blockchain, in my opinion, is not designed to be a blockchain for personalization and identity. It is designed to be the only money of the world. But Ethereum blockchain is designed for decentralized apps and through decentralized apps you may have a digital identity.

Noticing all above, I believe that Web5 cannot replace Web3 or will not get better than it. Maybe Bitcoin maximalists will love this kind of product, but not all people will use Web5 over Web3. Other than that Web5 is kind of a Web3 only on Bitcoin blockchain with no other differences. Therefore, Web3, which is more mature and much more usable now, will be the “web of tomorrow”.

In one sentence, I don’t see Web5 to become the future of web.