Zero-knowledge proofs in DIDs and social networks First, let me explain the meaning of the words that will be used in the text:

Decentralized Identity (DID) or Sovereign Individual Identity (SSI): is an open standards-based framework that uses personally owned, independent, verifiable credentials and enables trusted data exchange. Credential / Attestation Attestation / Verifiable Credential Verifiable Credential (VC) / POAP / SBT: is a file in Web2 or blockchain that contains details pointing to qualifications. These can be issued by authorities or self-published. Issuers: Is the entity, institution, or organization that issues certificates, certifications, or qualifications. Verifiers: End users who look up credentials and target identities or engage in campaigns. Here's a simple example to make these words clearer: Let's say XYZ studio wants to airdrop their NFTs to all Uniswap V3 LPs. Validators are XYZ studios and they will engage in targeted engagement i.e. airdrops The credentials are Uniswap V3 NFTs held only by Uniswap LPs

The publisher is Uniswap Labs DID is a digital wallet that participates in the Uniswap protocol When validators query the NFTs of all Uniswap V3 LPs on the blockchain, the public wallet address is known to them, and this address is considered the "Verifiable Data Registry".

The meaning of the key words has been determined, and now we can start writing about how many verifiable credentials and identity stacks exist in Internet/Web2 companies, and whether Web3 is relevant to them. Identity, VC and Social Networking in Web2 Meta, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Quora, Weibo, Douyin are all social media platforms. They couple user identities, published content, and social networks in a clean, easy-to-use prepackaged platform that in turn can collect user personal data such as their hobbies, activities, location, interests, and more. The business model behind this is simple - these social media platforms sell anonymous user data to advertisers, who can then use the information to conduct more targeted campaigns. Meta and Google even enabled an auction model that lets marketers bid on ad slots. This business strategy can be hugely profitable for social platforms — the top US social media companies make around $181.1 billion from advertising. 81% and 97.9% of Google and Meta's total 2021 revenue, respectively, will come from this strategy.

When profits of this magnitude are pledged, no company will have an incentive to open-source their identity database to make it more user-friendly. This is where Web3's philosophy of decentralization, transparency, tamper-proof and privacy-preserving social solutions comes into play. The evolution of Web3 social infrastructure Some of the main principles of social infrastructure on the blockchain are shown in the diagram below. Data ownership is critical for end users who have complete control over their digital identities.

The State of Social Infrastructure in Web3 The current on-chain social data market is divided into dStorage solutions, social graphs, certificate issuers, and combinations of issuers and social graphs.

Key challenges facing the industry include: On-chain data lacks granularity On-chain data such as wallet holdings (ERC20 & NFTs), transactions, dApp interactions, transaction frequency, etc. are the main data that can be collected.

Apart from analyzing the type of nft purchased by the wallet, no other type of personal data can be obtained. Lack of privacy-preserving methods to bring off-chain data to the blockchain: such as Ceramic, which brings off-chain data to on-chain exposes user data on the public chain and can be indexed. Lack of user retention: Social networks like CyberConnect or Lens lack user retention due to the lack of apps that continue to spread the social graph. The role of ZKPs in social infrastructure A key challenge in bringing user data from social media networks like Meta or Twitter to the blockchain is the lack of privacy. Even encrypted data stored on multiple anonymous nodes is risky and vulnerable to hacking or data leakage. Zk-based applications support: Trustless verification of user data Protect the privacy of user data With the use of ZK verification in DID systems, users can introduce more fine-grained social data to the blockchain in the form of ZK certifications or credentials that can go without too many data breaches or central databases Validation of trust. Sismo Sismo's ZK turned out to be an interesting experiment in this direction. Based on user/wallet interaction, Sismo allows users to apply for ZK certification. Using Sismo's SDK, developers can now use Sismo's authentication to target groups of users. Alpha testing (currently unmoderated) allows users to mint their ZK badges on Polygon. However, these proofs are proofs of Ethereum activity in the wallet. The image below is an example of an Ethereum Super User ZK badge. Each certification/badge is non-transferable SBT (ERC1155).

First Batch First Batch brings off-chain social data from Discord, Twitter, Reddit, etc. to on-chain. They use Twitter OAuth to index off-chain data of users running through their AI system. The AI ​​will tag users' profiles with certifications like "coffee lover" and "sports fan," and further tags like "Nespresso" and "Lakers fan." These tags are converted into on-chain ZK proofs that dApp developers can interact with at the smart contract level without revealing the real identity of the end user.

Market Positioning of First Batch Trinsic ID Trinsic's star products include the Credential API for issuers, the Provider API for customers, and the wallet API for users & consumers. To use Trisic, end users must create a digital wallet and generate credentials in the wallet designed in Trinsic Studio. In addition to credentials, users must generate authentication policies to display multiple data points, such as "User is over 21". Provider APIs can access VC and wallet APIs to target their key user base and conduct on-chain activities such as airdrops. Notebook Labs Notebook enables users to set up a "notebook" that contains data that indicates they are human, and some other personal data such as name, address, social security number (optional), country of residence, etc. User notebooks in V1 are stored on AWS servers. If the user wants to prove their personality, Notebook verifies their wallet address and connects to their notebook. Clients generate a proof that they have a leaf node in the Merkle tree, which is sent to the smart contract for verification. The app would be a great solution to pre-approve KYC AML (Anti-money laundering) and easily integrate it into dApps in the future. Using ZK-based DIDs is ideal for protecting user privacy and allowing users to control editing their data without storing the entire data on-chain. Humannode Humannode is an anti-Sybil attack Layer1 blockchain that uses proof of uniqueness and proof of existence as its underlying consensus layer. The blockchain is an EVM-compatible underlying chain. Each node has equal voting rights and will be blacklisted for doing evil. The team says they have collected data on more than 10,000 people. The Humannode team specializes in cryptographic biometric authentication, combining cryptographically secure matching and validity detection mechanisms to verify the uniqueness and existence of real human identities. They use ZKP to provide proof of uniqueness and liveness to the protocol. Polygon ID Polygon recently announced their Polygon ID product, which works similarly to Sismo. They focus on proof of activity for wallets on the Polygon chain and help generate ZK proofs as a verification mechanism. The key products on the user side are the identity application and ID client toolkit shown in the figure below, which have related APIs and SDKs for developers/dApps/users to integrate.

Worldcoin Lastly is Worldcoin, developed by Open AI CEO co-founder Sam Altman. Worldcoin is positioned to provide a privacy-preserving proof-of-personality protocol and is powered by Semaphores (the ZK implementation developed by AppliedZK). They have integrated with an Optimistic Rollup called Hubble to achieve their vision of "airdropping to a billion people". They created a product called "Orb" that captures an image of a person's eye and converts it into a short digital code that checks to see if the person is registered. If not, they receive a free Worldcoin share. Epilogue Social infrastructure is the key to building any form of sustainable social network or Web3 application. Privacy, security and data ownership are key in the infrastructure space. There are already multiple companies working to solve this problem, and almost all companies concerned with identity privacy use zero-knowledge proofs as a source of verification. As the industry evolves, the key challenge for these companies will be to capture the market—and this primarily involves user data, which can only be scaled through social apps that require users to "sign up." Worldcoin is an exception to their entry into the market, but apart from them all companies are aggressively vying for the attention of developers and DApps. For these infrastructure providers, creating a functional SDK to get developers on board is paramount. They may have some gamification on their front end, but this is limited in scale, as massive user migration occurs on the concept of "entertainment," "content," or "speculation" in cryptocurrencies.

Zero-knowledge proofs in DIDs and social networks First, let me explain the meaning of the words that will be used in the text:

Decentralized Identity (DID) or Sovereign Individual Identity (SSI): is an open standards-based framework that uses personally owned, independent, verifiable credentials and enables trusted data exchange. Credential / Attestation Attestation / Verifiable Credential Verifiable Credential (VC) / POAP / SBT: is a file in Web2 or blockchain that contains details pointing to qualifications. These can be issued by authorities or self-published. Issuers: Is the entity, institution, or organization that issues certificates, certifications, or qualifications. Verifiers: End users who look up credentials and target identities or engage in campaigns. Here's a simple example to make these words clearer: Let's say XYZ studio wants to airdrop their NFTs to all Uniswap V3 LPs. Validators are XYZ studios and they will engage in targeted engagement i.e. airdrops The credentials are Uniswap V3 NFTs held only by Uniswap LPs

The publisher is Uniswap Labs DID is a digital wallet that participates in the Uniswap protocol When validators query the NFTs of all Uniswap V3 LPs on the blockchain, the public wallet address is known to them, and this address is considered the "Verifiable Data Registry".

The meaning of the key words has been determined, and now we can start writing about how many verifiable credentials and identity stacks exist in Internet/Web2 companies, and whether Web3 is relevant to them. Identity, VC and Social Networking in Web2 Meta, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Quora, Weibo, Douyin are all social media platforms. They couple user identities, published content, and social networks in a clean, easy-to-use prepackaged platform that in turn can collect user personal data such as their hobbies, activities, location, interests, and more. The business model behind this is simple - these social media platforms sell anonymous user data to advertisers, who can then use the information to conduct more targeted campaigns. Meta and Google even enabled an auction model that lets marketers bid on ad slots. This business strategy can be hugely profitable for social platforms — the top US social media companies make around $181.1 billion from advertising. 81% and 97.9% of Google and Meta's total 2021 revenue, respectively, will come from this strategy.

When profits of this magnitude are pledged, no company will have an incentive to open-source their identity database to make it more user-friendly. This is where Web3's philosophy of decentralization, transparency, tamper-proof and privacy-preserving social solutions comes into play. The evolution of Web3 social infrastructure Some of the main principles of social infrastructure on the blockchain are shown in the diagram below. Data ownership is critical for end users who have complete control over their digital identities.

The State of Social Infrastructure in Web3 The current on-chain social data market is divided into dStorage solutions, social graphs, certificate issuers, and combinations of issuers and social graphs.

Key challenges facing the industry include: On-chain data lacks granularity On-chain data such as wallet holdings (ERC20 & NFTs), transactions, dApp interactions, transaction frequency, etc. are the main data that can be collected.

Apart from analyzing the type of nft purchased by the wallet, no other type of personal data can be obtained. Lack of privacy-preserving methods to bring off-chain data to the blockchain: such as Ceramic, which brings off-chain data to on-chain exposes user data on the public chain and can be indexed. Lack of user retention: Social networks like CyberConnect or Lens lack user retention due to the lack of apps that continue to spread the social graph. The role of ZKPs in social infrastructure A key challenge in bringing user data from social media networks like Meta or Twitter to the blockchain is the lack of privacy. Even encrypted data stored on multiple anonymous nodes is risky and vulnerable to hacking or data leakage. Zk-based applications support: Trustless verification of user data Protect the privacy of user data With the use of ZK verification in DID systems, users can introduce more fine-grained social data to the blockchain in the form of ZK certifications or credentials that can go without too many data breaches or central databases Validation of trust. Sismo Sismo's ZK turned out to be an interesting experiment in this direction. Based on user/wallet interaction, Sismo allows users to apply for ZK certification. Using Sismo's SDK, developers can now use Sismo's authentication to target groups of users. Alpha testing (currently unmoderated) allows users to mint their ZK badges on Polygon. However, these proofs are proofs of Ethereum activity in the wallet. The image below is an example of an Ethereum Super User ZK badge. Each certification/badge is non-transferable SBT (ERC1155).

First Batch First Batch brings off-chain social data from Discord, Twitter, Reddit, etc. to on-chain. They use Twitter OAuth to index off-chain data of users running through their AI system. The AI ​​will tag users' profiles with certifications like "coffee lover" and "sports fan," and further tags like "Nespresso" and "Lakers fan." These tags are converted into on-chain ZK proofs that dApp developers can interact with at the smart contract level without revealing the real identity of the end user.

Market Positioning of First Batch Trinsic ID Trinsic's star products include the Credential API for issuers, the Provider API for customers, and the wallet API for users & consumers. To use Trisic, end users must create a digital wallet and generate credentials in the wallet designed in Trinsic Studio. In addition to credentials, users must generate authentication policies to display multiple data points, such as "User is over 21". Provider APIs can access VC and wallet APIs to target their key user base and conduct on-chain activities such as airdrops. Notebook Labs Notebook enables users to set up a "notebook" that contains data that indicates they are human, and some other personal data such as name, address, social security number (optional), country of residence, etc. User notebooks in V1 are stored on AWS servers. If the user wants to prove their personality, Notebook verifies their wallet address and connects to their notebook. Clients generate a proof that they have a leaf node in the Merkle tree, which is sent to the smart contract for verification. The app would be a great solution to pre-approve KYC AML (Anti-money laundering) and easily integrate it into dApps in the future. Using ZK-based DIDs is ideal for protecting user privacy and allowing users to control editing their data without storing the entire data on-chain. Humannode Humannode is an anti-Sybil attack Layer1 blockchain that uses proof of uniqueness and proof of existence as its underlying consensus layer. The blockchain is an EVM-compatible underlying chain. Each node has equal voting rights and will be blacklisted for doing evil. The team says they have collected data on more than 10,000 people. The Humannode team specializes in cryptographic biometric authentication, combining cryptographically secure matching and validity detection mechanisms to verify the uniqueness and existence of real human identities. They use ZKP to provide proof of uniqueness and liveness to the protocol. Polygon ID Polygon recently announced their Polygon ID product, which works similarly to Sismo. They focus on proof of activity for wallets on the Polygon chain and help generate ZK proofs as a verification mechanism. The key products on the user side are the identity application and ID client toolkit shown in the figure below, which have related APIs and SDKs for developers/dApps/users to integrate.

Worldcoin Lastly is Worldcoin, developed by Open AI CEO co-founder Sam Altman. Worldcoin is positioned to provide a privacy-preserving proof-of-personality protocol and is powered by Semaphores (the ZK implementation developed by AppliedZK). They have integrated with an Optimistic Rollup called Hubble to achieve their vision of "airdropping to a billion people". They created a product called "Orb" that captures an image of a person's eye and converts it into a short digital code that checks to see if the person is registered. If not, they receive a free Worldcoin share. Epilogue Social infrastructure is the key to building any form of sustainable social network or Web3 application. Privacy, security and data ownership are key in the infrastructure space. There are already multiple companies working to solve this problem, and almost all companies concerned with identity privacy use zero-knowledge proofs as a source of verification. As the industry evolves, the key challenge for these companies will be to capture the market—and this primarily involves user data, which can only be scaled through social apps that require users to "sign up." Worldcoin is an exception to their entry into the market, but apart from them all companies are aggressively vying for the attention of developers and DApps. For these infrastructure providers, creating a functional SDK to get developers on board is paramount. They may have some gamification on their front end, but this is limited in scale, as massive user migration occurs on the concept of "entertainment," "content," or "speculation" in cryptocurrencies.