Do you remember the number of online accounts you have created? What sites or services know your phone no, credit card info, biometrics, etc? Or how many times have you been sold?

An average person visits 100 websites. Creating 100 accounts for them and memorizing them is a hectic task. Remembering passwords for all those accounts is hectic and having the same password could lead to a breach of personal data.

Last few years we have experienced a lot of data breaches. Whether it was the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal or the biggest breach of all time from Yahoo(3 billion accounts), data breaches had been a headline in the market lately.

Because of this increasing data breaches and problems recalling many passwords, a new more private, and more secure approach has been developed called “Decentralized Identity”.

This identity has the potential to change how we represent ourselves or how we interact digitally.

Identity is an accumulation of details related to an individual, place, or thing. For individuals, it is typically composed of full name, place, date of birth, nationality, and a unique national identifier like passport number, SSN, or driving license. Governments are responsible for releasing these data points and storing them in centralized databases on their servers. This keeps the information secure and easily accessible.

Decentralized identity or DID, is a digital identity that helps us to have a single unique ID that allows us to interact on all websites, apps, and other platforms.

The data is stored on a decentralized database, so it is more secure and it is immutable because it is on the blockchain. The user has complete power over his identity which means they can manage their own identity information and authentication data which is to be shared.

Let’s understand this through an example.

Suppose you want to show your passport to the Airport authority while traveling. You need to show different credentials like full name, age, date of birth, nationality, and others. The people from the authority will verify this information.

When owning a DID, your wallet generates credentials including private and public keys. The public keys are then uploaded to a blockchain or distributed ledger for secure storage.

This is what you can represent to the officer and then the officer can verify as all the data are available on a public blockchain. One uniqueness is that you have the option of sharing certain parts of your data with the authority. For instance, you can only share the details that are mandatory, and the rest will be hidden.

Holder:- The person who holds his personal digital decentralized identity. In this instance, the person who wants to show his passport.

Issuer:- The authority who issues the verifiable credentials with their private keys and delivers them to the holder. In this situation, the government authority issues information about citizens.

Verifier:- The authority who verifies the credentials given by the holder. In this circumstance, the Airport Authority is verifying the credentials of the person.

There are numerous advantages of having a decentralized identity:-

• Increased Privacy - The data is stored on decentralized servers and databases. So as compared to centralized servers, they are more private and we also have the option of what to display and what not to which helps us not show irrelevant data to other people.

• Portability - Since every unique DID can just be stored on a smartphone. So we can easily move it from one place to another without any hassle. We can use it whenever and wherever we want.

• Security - The data on these servers are more secure as it is decentralized and the probability of being hacked decreased in such a scenario.

• Unique Identity - Everyone has a unique identity that is available on a public ledger and it is also immutable as everything is on the blockchain. Changing a single byte of data can completely change the ID.

A lot of different protocols and projects are actively working on bringing decentralized identity(DID) to the masses. Some of the top projects are as follows-

• Gitcoin Passport

• Polygon ID

Passport is a decentralized identifier(DID). DIDs allow anyone to own, manage and verify their digital identity without relying on a centralized database.

As a Passport holder, you can collect “stamps” from different authenticators around web2 and web3, such as Bright ID and Proof of Humanity, that act as credentials for your Passport. By collecting your stamps in one place, Passport verifies your identity and builds trust across multiple platforms without sharing your private information.

Validate your online identity without sharing your private information:

• Connect your wallet at passport.gitcoin.co

• Connect different accounts to collect and verify your stamps

• Select which data points you’d like to verify for the account

• Complete verification by signing off with your wallet

Polygon ID, with the help of zero-knowledge proofs, lets users prove their identity without the need of exposing their private information. This ensures both the Freedom of Expression to anyone who intends to use the Polygon ID and Privacy by Default, as users’ identities are secured by zero-knowledge cryptography.

Polygon ID has the following properties:

• Blockchain-based ID for decentralized and self-sovereign models

• Zero-knowledge native protocols for ultimate user privacy

• Scalable and private on-chain verification to boost decentralized apps and decentralized finance

• Open to existing standards and ecosystem development

Although decentralized identity isn’t a big space as of now. But it is one of the most emerging spaces, especially in web3. A lot of companies and VCs are heavily investing in this. It would be interesting to see how the users will react and how these big companies adopt according to the feedback of users. This could be one of the new trends in the next bull market.

Will this next big trend in the crypto world?Will this change the way we login into dapps?

Only time will tell this!Till then stay safe and stay happy. #wagmi