Underwhelming State of On-chain Identity

Still to this day, users interact and transact on apps using EOAs (externally owned accounts) that can be attached with a username from a naming service (such as ENS for .eth). Deserving praise, the ecosystem has effectively adopted this username identity through most applications. However, this naming convention lacks personality and creativity as a sole identity. Beyond that, consensus says the current wallet solutions are restrictive and hinder individualism on-chain.

In an increasingly globalized and governing digital world, the yearning to express over binary code is more dire than ever before. Although the promise of Web3 is decentralization and provenance, the paradigm shift of AW is to take these blockchain foundations and realize a greater future of open expression, collaboration and self-governance. When societies become an application of Autonomous Worlds (AW), on-chain worlds require a virtual embodiment of the user that far surpasses the current state of a public key and username.

In Web1, email and text messages relied on a simple and static username. The desire for individuals to express themselves inspired the progression into Web2 social networks ushering in new formats like pictures, videos and memes. In the same vein, Web3 still to this day is reminiscent of Web1 in how users interact with blockchains. With only an obscure public key and baseless username as identity, there is a lack of higher fidelity output, which will be more widely adopted than text as evidenced by TikTok and Instagram. Not only does Web3 have more friction, it is the status of identity that results in an underwhelming experience for users. Identity is essential for both converting new users and enhancing the Web3 experience to transcend Web2. Text alone can be limiting in the expression of individuality and the overall scale of content possible, which is why AW will inspire new elevated forms of identity for Web3.

Frontier Identity Projects

On the frontier of Web3 social identity, Lens and Cyberconnect are making headway with their social graphs and vertically-integrated platforms. Although robust in functionality and innovative in data architecture, there is insufficient modularity to support the complexity and expansiveness of AW. Analogous to the AI race, an open source social graph should be greater in scale and depth for the long term. Moreover, social profiles and analytics should be composeable by the application and community on what they find important and value in.

Framing Identity across Autonomous Worlds

Identity requires provenance, interoperability, composability and depth to unlock meaning and value from everything on-chain. At STP, we envision a multi-layer identity for every user traversing in the ever-growing cosmos of AW. Our mission is to build and scale an identity layer for Autonomous Worlds.

Identity should be structured socially, politically and economically in AW. Therefore, we will construct an identity engine that will leverage our data APIs across on and off-chain interactions to consummate a complete identity. Focused on the long-term, our solutions will be architected to reflect the nuances and knowledge across all industries. For example in gaming, we believe choosing a different path or losing a fight are instrumental in telling and shaping how we build and connect in the open world.

Essential to collaborative world-creation, a user’s social experiences and content represent their ideals and desires to other like-minded individuals. In our concept of the “Worldly Score” (more to come in Phase 2), one’s social score and sharing are reminiscent of a public Facebook wall or TikTok library in Web2.

As unique worlds generate from one another in an autonomous universe, traversing from world to world requires an interoperable identity supported by a cross-world engine. This identity is the avatar and manager of smart wallet accounts experiencing AW through acquiring tokens such as POAPs and badge rewards. These tokens become analogous to stamps in a passport and unlock possibilities for governing world travel, which may lead to different forms of politics from world to world.

In the same vein, contribution and currency across boundless world economies require users to bank with an adaptable and accessible identity. One’s world-impacting status is reflective of on-chain transactions and contributions in these various worlds.

In totality, these are the core tenets of identification in AW. However, to support this identity layer for on-chain worlds, we must start with the necessary infrastructure, tooling platforms and data indexing to allow for elevated forms of on-chain identity.

Phase 1: Authenticating and Onboarding the Next Wave of Users

Still to this day, most users rely on a single EOA wallet to connect and play visual-based applications like games and metaverses. Asset owners want provenance to be dynamically recorded at the asset level. This is why it is a major pain point that history can only be recorded at the wallet level. Therefore, asset managers would need to inconveniently transfer ownership of the wallet, which is a compromising task in itself that should be avoided, to completely transfer the entire value of history and provenance. With recent progression in account abstraction such as EIP-4337 and EIP-6551, the value of history and provenance is innate to the asset by integrating the smart contract account. These breakthroughs are essential for autonomous worlds because of the central focus of activity and interaction with on-chain digital assets.

STP is excited to unveil Phase 1 of “Clique AW” platform, which will onboard and support the next wave of builders and users in Autonomous Worlds. Through phase 1 of Clique AW, optimally onboard users, on-chain worlds and assets unique to any AW project:

1. Leveraging account abstraction, STP will create a scalable and modular Account Generator for any AW project to leverage seamless onboarding. The account will embody a user's passport and digital banking username for traversing the universe of AW applications.

2. Creating accessibility to these frontiers, STP will create an Asset Portal toolkit for owning and transacting with on-chain assets through customizable marketplaces & DEXs.

Autonomous Worlds are still in their very early stages which is why onboarding and access are crucial to their future success. Before an identity layer can be established, the foundation pieces for on-chain worlds and assets must be first created. Please stay tuned for more details on our plan to bring Identity to Autonomous Worlds!