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.

So what is it?

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.

How does this work?

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.

In this process, there are 3 main components.

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.

Advantages

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.

Top protocols

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

Gitcoin Passport

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

How does it work?

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

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

Conclusion:-

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

The image we upload, the comment we make, the post we share: we do not own anything we have on these social media. The company has the full right to delete any post, image, or even your account at any point in time.

After that, they are also prone to hacks as they are stored in a centralized database. We often hear a lot about data leaks and data breaches in this Internet World.

Keeping all this in mind we are moving to a world of Decentralization, and since more than 50% of the population is already using social media. Decentralized Social Media or DeSo will play an integral role in decentralization. In light of this, I would like to introduce "The Lens protocol", one of the most active protocols working in the decentralization of social media.

So what is Lens Protocol?

Lens Protocol is a composable, decentralized social graph on the Polygon blockchain. It empowers creators and puts them in control of their content and data. It allows developers to build their own decentralized social media platforms on the Polygon blockchain.

It is a user-owned, open social graph that any application can plug into and build a UI around. Each application using Lens benefits the whole ecosystem, which results in a collaborative effort.

Governance tools are built-in to the protocol, content is collectible as NFTs and profiles are composable. With the Lens Protocol, your dApp can mint a profile, follow others, and create and collect any publications, including posts, comments, and mirrors, completely on-chain.

Lens Protocol was introduced in early 2022 and gained a good amount of traction due to its revolutionary nature and the well-known Aave team developing it.

How does this work?

Lens Protocol is a unique protocol. When we create an account with the extension of “.lens”, we create a composable NFT. This dynamic NFT stores all comments likes and reposts you make. Your profile is tied to a wallet address.

The Profile NFT: It is the main object in the Lens Protocol. It is ownership over this NFT that gives you control of your content. Individual addresses own ProfileNFTs, and an address can contain multiple ProfileNFTs. What differentiates the Lens Profile NFT from other on-chain identities is the ability to post publications to it. The Profile NFT contains the history of all of the posts, mirrors, comments, and other content you generate.

Publications: These are the lifeblood of the Lens Protocol. They are all the original content, comments, and mirrors produced by creators, curators, and users alike. Publications come in three primary types: posts, comments, and mirrors. Posts are the base object, with mirror and comment providing additional functionality.

Publications are posted directly to a user's profileNFTs which ensures that all content created by a user remains user-owned and in their wallet. Publications are NOT NFT's.

Comments: It allows users to provide additional commentary on other publications. They are treated the same as base Publications with extra checks and features. Like publications, comments live in the user's Profile NFT and therefore are wholly owned by the user.

Mirrors: They are the curation tool of the Lens Protocol. They are the protocol's equivalent to reposting or re-amplifying content. Mirrors are treated the same as publications with a few additional checks and a few more minor features.

Collects: It allows creators to monetize their content. Because creators own their content via the Lens Protocol, they are able to allow their followers to purchase that content.

When a user posts a publication to their Profile NFT they have the option to set a Collect Module. This module will allow other users to mint NFTs that link to the publication's ContentURI. This module can contain any arbitrary logic to apply to the minting process and the resulting NFT.

Following: Following on Lens Protocol differs from following in Web2 social applications. When users follow a profile on the Lens Protocol, they are given a Follow NFT, which creators and communities can encode with additional value.

In short, whenever we create a profile on Lens Protocol, we get a Unique Dynamic NFT. Almost every activity that we do with that profile will be available on chain and will be associated with it.

Lens as a Protocol

Lens Protocol isn’t a decentralized social media. The lens is a protocol that is decentralized and helps us to build Decentralized social media on top of it.

All the activity that we do is available on chain and we could also monetize the content that we post without any third-party intermediaries.Several protocols have already been launched and many new products are in the pipeline in a short period of time. Some of them are:-

• Lenster

• Lenstube

• Orb

Lenster

It is a composable, decentralized, and permissionless social media web app built with Lens Protocol. It is well known in the community as Lens’ first Web3 social experience that acts as the most full-featured way to use Lens Protocol to interact with your social graph. It functions similarly to Twitter both in layout and execution, with added support for a variety of NFT types.

Lenstube

Powered by the Lens Protocol, Lenstube decentralizes social video-sharing. With a layout similar to Youtube, Lenstube boasts an explore page for finding similar content to recently viewed videos, as well as a short-form section called Bytes that is like TikTok or Youtube Shorts. Lenstube also allows content consumers to tip their favorite creators using MATIC coins and the ability to curate videos as NFTs.

Orb

With an end-to-end on-chain credibility system, Orb is using the Lens protocol on the Polygon chain to build a decentralized professional social media app for web3 working professionals. Orb connects people, companies, and projects together. Orb is like LinkedIn but for web3 and it offers many exciting features, like quizzes that reward NFTs for completion.

There are a lot of other decentralized social media products that are becoming the way. You could check out the full list here.

Can you start a lens profile?

As of now, in January 2023, Lens protocol is still in a closed beta. It isn’t available to everyone. Last year they did an airdrop for early supporters, and currently, some team members like Nader Dabit also give access to lens profiles.

There isn’t any specific date for the release of the lens protocol to the public but it is speculated that it might release this year.

Is Lens the future of DeSo?

As a protocol, the lens is growing rapidly. There are a lot of projects that are actively building on the lens.

A lot of creators are trying to build their profile on the lens. The protocol is also majorly focusing on the decentralization of social media. The team behind has already proven its capabilities.

But It's too early to say if it's the future or not.

It will be an interesting watch to see how the users will react when this will be ready for public launch. I definitely think that the team won’t launch publicly till they are completely ready.

Who knows, maybe we are in 2005 and the new Facebook is being rebuilt?