A decentralized, open identity protocol to connect profiles across Web2 and Web3, enhancing data ownership and mobility.

Hi Next.ID community! 👋

As the month of May draws to a close, we are bubbling with excitement to share all the latest happenings. Brace yourself for a whirlwind of information, including statistical reports, community member perks, hackathons, product offerings, and development updates.

Oh, and did we mention the core events we're knee-deep in? It's been a jam-packed month. Let's dive right in! 🏄

• [Data queries]

  • ProofService witnesses ~32.1M API calls per week.

    • As of now, the number of Twitter bindings recorded by ProofService is 14,352, while the number of Ethereum wallet bindings is 3,782.

• [Data insights]

  • Expect the RelationService to be ~5X faster! 💨

    • The RelationService ’s data engine transitioned from ArangoDB to TigerGraph. As part of this update, we've also upgraded our internal upstream fetching logic. And the best part? Our API calls are now approximately 5 times faster! That means you can enjoy a much smoother and more efficient performance.

      Check out the new speed by visiting https://relation-service.nextnext.id. ☝️

  • Web3.bio views & traffic sources

    • In the past week, Web3.bio has recorded a total of 1,493 page views. The majority of the traffic originates from the United States, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Canada, Japan, and Australia, indicating a notable level of engagement. 🫡

• [Conference participation]

  • Past

    • Next.ID was in Montenegro-bound for EDCON 2023! ✈

      • EDCON (May. 19 - May. 23, 2023) is a non-profit committed to serving the Ethereum ecosystem in boosting the communication and interaction of Ethereum communities worldwide.

        As a supporting community, we offered exclusive access to our SBTs (soul-bound tokens) which accumulate reputation points for future perks, in alliance with the Next Planet system.

        Developers with SBTs are given early access to Next.ID’s Web3 profile SDK and identity graph database access with the airdrop being available from June 2023 and onwards.

  • Upcoming

    • #ETHShanghai: This year, Next.ID has been selected to host one of the ETHShanghai Hacker Houses. In collaboration with the ETHShanghai 2023 Hackathon Builders, our goal is to develop tangible applications utilizing Decentralized Identifiers (DID).

      • Time: June. 24 - June. 30, 2023 (*note that the time has been adjusted)

      • Speaker (s): Wei Duan (community manager)

      • Speaking session (s): BUIDL week

      • Location: Shanghai, China

• [This summer, Next.ID is bringing the heat to OSPP 2023!] 🌞

  • Next.ID proudly supports the ethos of open source with our participation in OSPP 2023, a month-long summer program (April. 29 - June. 4, 2023) for college students to engage in the development of open-source software.

    As a part of the supporting communities, we have introduced 2 exciting projects to the program - “KVService: upload chains onto Arweave” and “RelationService: node ranking for heterogeneous social graph”. If an applicant successfully completes the project, they will receive a reward of 12,000 CNY before taxes.

    Currently, there are 2 applicants who have committed themselves. More talents are always welcome to join! If you think you’re up for the challenge, you may check us out at: https://summer-ospp.ac.cn/org/orgdetail/25086610-4c4b-4c14-8a35-680826c68f63?lang=en. You will have full support from Next.ID devs as we will address any questions and concerns you may have. 🔥

• [Community spotlights]

• Next.ID's Community Fund Pool is established - everyone is included!

  • Thanks to the generous Arbitrum community, Next.ID, part of the Mask Network ecosystem, has received a 30% portion (77,262 $ARB) of the distributed $ARB tokens to Mask Network (257,540 $ARB).

    Along with rewards received from previous competitions, now Next.ID’s Community Fund is officially established, reserving an amount of ~$10,000 USD.

    Since day one, Next.ID has been practicing the spirit of community based on open governance. This is done so via the Next Planet system, to track our community contributions. We're planning to give back to our community members who have been actively contributing! 💪

    To learn how we plan to airdrop the $ARB to our past contributors and newcomers, do follow @NextDotID on Twitter to stay updated.

    Read more>>>

• Devs, we hear ya! Expect an all-in-one Next.ID handbook for you to kickstart your Buidler journey! 📒

  • 💬: “I want to look for detailed information about how I can build upon Next.ID and where do I find those?”

    Fret not, my friend, soon we will release the external Notion page where you’re able to have it all.

• [Immerse & Discover]

  • Find more technical discussions on Next.ID’s Mirror!

    • DID can seem intimidating due to technical barriers, but don't worry, we understand. Developers and Web3 enthusiasts often struggle to find educational resources and articles on this topic. That's why Next.ID's Mirror is here to help. Our Mirror not only provides community updates but also offers educational content, technical discussions, and new findings about DID, thanks to the help of our experienced developers and content experts.

      Click on this link to explore the latest research articles. The two most recent research pieces include:

      → Role of Identity Graphs in Web3 Social Networks

      → RelationService — Why is Graph Database important for Next.ID?

      Do subscribe to our Mirror page to stay updated! Happy reading! ☕️

• [Community polls]

  • What is the most fraud-proof form of online ID verification? 🧐

    • According to the poll results, some of our users believe that the most foolproof method for online ID verification is through biometrics such as facial recognition and fingerprints, followed by official documents like passport IDs.

      https://twitter.com/NextDotID/status/1658720949280333824

      What's your take on this? Join our Telegram to discuss. 🗣️

• [Feature updates]

  • ProofService

    • The payload of the Twitter proof posts changed.

      • This change will allow us to rebuild the sign payload in the event of a submit request failure. If your proof request doesn't go through for any reason, you'll have the chance to resubmit it.

        In addition, we have implemented a new feature that logs a full request of proof submission, enabling us to track and manage all requests more effectively. And that means better support for developers all around.

    • Smart contracts will be able to query ProofService binding records on-chain.

      • The possible use cases for this feature would be airdrops and soft KYCs.

        To ensure proper data auditing and integrity, we are enlisting the help of a 3rd party smart contract team to migrate the ProofService data on-chain.

        There will be no significant changes for users in regard to the basic ProofService functionality. However, they will benefit from the ability to provide off-chain identity bindings to blockchain-only Web3 apps. This allows for more flexible identity verification and usage in Web3 applications beyond blockchain identities.

  • RelationService

    • RelationService now supports EIP1155-based ENS domains.

      • A few months ago, ENS introduced a new feature called "wrapped domains" that allows users to have more fine-grained permission management. To utilize this feature, users needed to re-wrap their ENS (ERC721) into an ERC1155 container.

        However, this change disrupted our previous logic for fetching the owner of an ENS address. Fortunately, we have now fixed this issue, and both wrapped and unwrapped domains can be now accurately fetched and displayed in RelationService and Web3.bio.

    • Web5.bio is now Web3.bio.

      • As Web3.bio merges with Web5.bio, we will be exclusively using the Web3.bio platform and phasing out the use of Web5.bio.

        Web3.bio is powered by Next.ID's RelationService, which offers a new level of digital identity visualization. With this service, you can bridge your Web2 and Web3 worlds and map your unique identity graph.

      • A new NFT viewing experience has been added to Web3.bio.

        • You can now view a user's NFT directly on Web3.bio without the hassle of being redirected to another site.

• Enjoying Web3.bio? Let’s spread the word! 🤛

  • With the recent developments in Web3.bio, user profiles are becoming more visible across both Web2 and Web3.

    Take, for example, https://web3.bio/yisiliu.eth; it is a comprehensive and enriched user profile that can easily be shared with your friends via simple copy and paste via Web3.bio.

    Not only that but as we continue to work on SEO, more profiles should be prompted in the first several pages of Google search results, making them even more visible to a broader audience. 🌏

• CoreService

  • CoreService updated the UI, making it easier to host on VPS and bring up AuthService and ProofService, as well as other potential self-hosted services.

• [Product offerings]

  • The Next.ID team is working tirelessly to delve into the best product fit which serves our users the most. That’s why we came up with the product offerings compromising 3 modules. Next.ID’s DID endeavors to serve as an infrastructure service to developers, empowering user adoption and their social experience.

    Ultimately, users can enjoy a more seamless App onboarding and profile connection experience. ⏩

    Check out the 3 modules below:

    → DID-based authentication. It uses your familiar Web2 credentials to access Web3 services with DID as a backend infrastructure, empowered by ProofService and AuthService.

    → Universal profile SDK. By leveraging RelationService and Web3.bio, all application developers should eventually be able to access a universal profile SDK that showcases users’ enriched Web2&3 social profiles easily. The connection and verification of different identities should be done with 1 simple click.

    → Identity service marketplace. Developers should find it handy within the Next.ID identity service marketplace where they can find all the helpful tools offered by Next.ID and relevant projects to build user profiles and chat forums within an App with minimum effort.

    Web3 is a place with constant changes and new trends, and we are always exploring ways to enhance our offerings.

    As we keep pitching and finalizing our product lines, we're offering our community members limited free early access to our product lines to experience firsthand. Secure your FREE early access today by emailing us at hello@next.id! ⚒️

Thanks for tuning in to the community updates of Next.ID! We're thrilled to have your support and we urge you to stay plugged into our community. Got a burning question or some spicy feedback? Slide into our DMs on Telegram and let's connect!

Previous updates: Issue #1

Each puzzle piece represents a different identifier associated with an individual, such as an email address, a wallet ID, a Lens handle, etc. The process of creating an identity graph is like fitting these puzzle pieces together to form a unified image of the individual’s online identity. Akin to how a completed jigsaw puzzle provides a clear picture, an identity graph aims to create a comprehensive view of a user’s digital identity.

Not to be confused with social graphs, while identity graphs are centered around individual users and their behaviors across different platforms, social graphs focus on relationships and interactions between users within a network. Both types of graphs provide valuable insights but from different perspectives. In this article, we will dive deep into identity graphs.

What are identity graphs?

Identity graphs are data structures that consolidate user data across multiple identifiers (e.g. email addresses, usernames, Web3 wallet IDs, ENS handles, Lens handles, etc.), to create a holistic view of the user’s online identity. The main goal of an identity graph is to understand the behavior of a single user across multiple channels and touchpoints.

How do Identity Graphs benefit users?

Personalization of User Experience

• Viewed content, product recommendations, or tailored services will be better aligned with the user’s preferences and behavior

• Lesser spam, more relevant content advertising

Seamless Cross-Device Experience

• Identity graphs track users across multiple devices and platforms. Regardless if the user is switching between mobile and desktop, identity graphs will help the user pick up where they left off in a shopping cart, or see consistent and coordinated messaging across devices

• However, some shortfalls of Identity Graphs may include raising privacy concerns due to the amount of personal data they process. Also, the problem of siloed data inflexibility for vertically integrated social media platforms.

Problem with existing Identity Graphs

Data storage

• Traditional social networks store user data in centralized databases, which creates a potential single point of failure and risk of mass data compromise.

• In 2021, social media leaks accounted for 41% of all breached data records, highlighting the security vulnerabilities of these platforms. Such breaches can lead to serious issues like identity theft and fraud, impacting both individual users and their networks.

• Traditional social networks store user data in centralized databases, which creates a potential single point of failure and risk of mass data compromise.

• In 2021, social media leaks accounted for 41% of all breached data records, highlighting the security vulnerabilities of these platforms. Such breaches can lead to serious issues like identity theft and fraud, impacting both individual users and their networks.

Portability

• Data portability is a major issue for users and developers of vertically integrated social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, due to the siloed nature of data on these platforms. Users face hurdles when transitioning between networks, as they have to reestablish connections and followings from scratch.

• For developers, the lack of an open-source identity graph creates obstacles to adding new features or applications.

• However, Web3 social networks, built on blockchain technology, offer a solution with decentralized identity graphs. These facilitate cross-platform data mobility for users and provide a basis for developers to build social dApps.

Need for Decentralization & Portability of Identity Graphs

The portability of identity graphs refers to the ability to use and share these graphs across different platforms and applications, which can only be done via decentralization on blockchains.

Here are some use cases highlighting the importance of portability in identity graphs:

Cross-platform advertising

• Portability lets marketers use one identity graph on many ad platforms, making sure they reach the right people, run their campaigns smoothly, and measure results accurately.

Fraud detection & prevention

• By sharing identity graphs, businesses can better spot and stop suspicious behavior, making their systems for preventing fraud more effective.

Data Enrichment

• Businesses can mix their own data with info from other places using shareable identity graphs. This gives them a deeper understanding, helps them make better decisions, and can be used with tools for data analysis to guide business strategies and make operations better.

Identity Graph Solutions

Next.ID aims to solve this tackle these issues by building an infrastructure layer on the blockchain, allowing users to privately host their data with Virtual Private Servers (VPS), and building a relational service that aggregates all data across Web2 and Web3 platforms

Relation Service — Open Identity Graph To Build Personalized Reputation

Relation Service takes all Web2 and Web3 IDs and aggregates them into a database. Having Next.ID as the DID layer, social dApps may use this database to perform internal functions. As more projects onboard with Next.ID, more data points are collected and the potential of the database is limitless. This service will greatly assist in the portability of identity graphs across multiple platforms.

DID-Based Authentication — Cross-dApp Identity Authentication

Down the pipeline of product updates, Next.ID plans to fabricate a cross-dApp UX which allows the user to connect all his/her identifiers (e.g. wallet ID, Web2 social accounts, etc.) once, and enjoy convenient profile migration to other Web3 dApps. An analogy would be to imagine Next.ID building a backpack (DID-based authentication system) that carries all your books (Web2 & Web3 identifiers). You as a student (user), will be free to carry the backpack to attend different classes (Web3 dApps) at your school.

Universal Profile SDK — All-In-One Access To Your Identity Graph

Next.ID also plans to build an SDK to showcase the user’s profile across the web from a bird’s eye view. Developers may look to use our SDK to build on their projects which involve user profiling (e.g. Gaming, Social, Wallets). Check out Web3.bio to understand how identity aggregation is demonstrated from a front-end perspective.

Read the 2023 roadmap for Next.ID to find out more.

Wish to build with us? Find out more at docs.next.id or contact us at developer@next.id. Follow us on Twitter: @NextDotID

References

1. https://atlasvpn.com/blog/social-media-data-leaks-account-for-41-of-all-records-breached

2. https://www.richpanel.com/blog/what-is-an-identity-graph

3. https://content-hub-static.crypto.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/2022.12.06-Social-Graph-and-Digital-Identity-in-Web3.pdf

4. https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/decentralized-identity-market-report?utm_source=prnewswire&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ict_26-sep-22&utm_term=decentralized-identity-market-report&utm_content=rd

A decentralized, open identity protocol to connect profiles across Web2 and Web3, enhancing data ownership and mobility.

🗞️ Welcome to the inaugural edition of our community update for Next.ID! This is where you'll find all the latest developments, news, and events related to the Next.ID community.

• [Feature updates]

  • ProofService

    • Headless browser: A headless browser is a browser without a graphical interface. With the recent tweaks made to the headless browser, now the production server records are able to display the correct is_valid status.

      • To enhance the functionality of proof_server and expand its support for various services, we decided to incorporate a headless browser. This decision was made due to the difficulty some platforms face when attempting to perform the fetching through proof_post by API or single HTTP GET in the real world. APIs can be restricted by platforms like Twitter, which means developers can lose access to user content. To avoid this, developers may need to make their automation flow appear like normal user behavior. The purpose of the headless browser is to simulate a user's page-browsing flow and complement the current API-based proof post-fetching channel.

        In order to encourage the participation of developers, we joined the Gitcoin Social Hour Hackathon 2022. As part of this initiative, we offered a total prize of $6000 and selected two winners from the five submissions we received.

        Among 5 submissions, we selected these two as the final winner: https://github.com/nextdotid/proof_server/pull/47 and https://github.com/nextdotid/proof_server/pull/44/, which excited us for their beautiful implements.

        And now thanks to the recent tweaks made, developers and projects can easily do code works in the browser without caring about GUI. We now can get rid of Twitter’s API from it stopping us from fetching users’ proof tweets.

  • RelationService/Web5.bio

    • Added Farcaster/Space.ID platform support.

      • Now users can to view others’ Farcaster profiles through simple searches and look up their .bnb domains through Web5.bio.

    • Next up is the .arb domain support.

  • CoreService

    • The marketplace is up.

      • Design: CS clones GitHub repo and provides local API https://github.com/NextDotID/core_service_bucket. Right now, it’s in a very early stage, you’re welcome to contribute and build together.

    • Now AuthService and Mastadon can be launched by CoreService.

• [Milestone reached]

  • Next.ID recently released our v1.1 version in which KVService, RelationService, and CoreService became the 3 major services we have. Future developments will be built upon them. For example, Web5.bio’s new upgrade on RelationService and CreateSuite(read the initial code at CreateSuite repo and its front-end repo) on CoreService.

• [Data queries]

  • ~140, 000 times API calls/per hour on ProofService .

• [Data insights]

  • RelationService now indexes 2.79 M ENS domains, 115 K Lens handles, 11 K Farcaster handles, and 21.4 K dotbit (.bit) domains. With the recent Unstoppable Domains partnership, over 3.3 M UD domain queries are added.

• [SBT hodlers are growing]

  • Next.ID SBT hodlers reach a number of ~2K! Thanks to the support of Next.ID’s community members, Next.ID has witnessed active participation in virtual and IRL events such as Twitter Spaces, Discord AMA, community calls, and hackathons.

    Community members contribute by building apps, creating educational content, and participating in workshops. The Next.ID DAO rewards engaged members by issuing verifiable credentials to track their contributions, with potential perks or tokens

    Join the Next Planet>>> | View past events>>> | Check your eligibility for a Next.ID SBT>>>

• [Partner announcement]

  • Unstoppable Domains x Next.ID

    • Next.ID now welcomes Unstoppable Domains as our partner! The collaboration with Unstoppable Domains has further enhanced the database query to over 3.3 million UD domains, alongside other underlying Web3/Web2 identity connections.

      Learn more>>>

  • Collab.Land x Next.ID

    • Next.ID is now a premiere identity partner of Collab.Land! With the mission to create the best DID and identity graph infrastructure for developers, it is our great pleasure to partner with Collab.Land and enrich the experience of millions of users.

      Learn more>>>

  • XMTP and TON partnerships are in the making.

• [Conference participation]

  • Past

    • 2023 Game Developers Conference recap

      • At GDC 2023, several game studios, including Playmint and Loot community game studios, expressed interest in incorporating decentralized identifiers (DID) into their fully on-chain games.

        Our discussion focused on expanding identity and social graphs to on-chain games, which would enable greater interaction and engagement among players. Additionally, the idea of incorporating game communities and DAOs was also discussed.

    • ETHDenver 2023 recap

      • Imagine a week-long gathering that brings together brilliant minds from all over the world to create, innovate, and share ideas about the future of Web3. That's what happened during ETHDenver's BUIDL week in February 2023.

        The feedback we received from ETHDenver was overwhelmingly positive and reinforced our belief in the bright future ahead for Next.ID as an early-stage product.

        Read full recap>>>

  • Upcoming

    • #ETHBeijing:

      • Time: April. 7, 2023

      • Speaker (s): Sannie (developer)

      • Speaking session: workshop demo

      • Location: Beijing, China

    • Hongkong Wanxiang Web3 Summit

      • Time: April. 12 - April. 15, 2023

      • Hosts: Wanxiang Blockchain Labs, Hashkey Group

      • Speaker (s): Yisi Liu (core initiator)

      • Speaking session (s): Web3 Financial Infrastructure: Digital Wallet and DID

      • Location: Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC)

    • Dokidoki at #ETHTokyo

      • Time: April. 16, 2023, 4 PM - 10 PM

      • Speaker (s): David Phillips, Linda Yeboah

      • Speaking session (s): socializing

      • Location: Tokyo Tower, Japan

    • MIT Bitcoin Expo

      • Time: April. 22 - April. 23, 2023

      • Speaker (s): Yisi Liu

      • Speaking session (s): DID Panel

      • Location: Building 32 and 10, MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

    • #ETHShanghai

      • Time: June. 8 - June. 18, 2023

      • Speaker (s): Wei Duan (community manager)

      • Speaking session (s): BUIDL week

      • Location: Shanghai, China

• [Hacking with Next.ID at Blockbooster]

  • Time: April. 6 - April. 10, 2023

  • Speaker (s): Yisi Liu (core initiator), Wei Duan (community manager)

  • Register here: https://blockbooster.io/

• [Next.ID Thailand]

  • Next.ID is looking to expand in the Thailand market which will be city and university-based. Starting from Thailand, we wish to tap into the South-Eastern markets in the coming future.

• [Community spotlights]

  • Next.ID wins 3rd place at Alibaba Cloud Web3 Startup Competition 2023

    • Time: March. 25, 2023

    • Hosts: PlatON, Alibaba Cloud, Hashkey Group

    • Award prize: 5000 USDC will be the initial fund for community engagement.

  • Bi-weekly community call updates

    • To make our community calls more friendly to earlier contributors, we'll be booking slots with them in advance instead of running the calls on a regular schedule. We'll then broadcast the information to the community at least one week ahead of time.

• [Dev contributions]

  • A hacker from Singapore helped integrate Next.ID's ProofService with apps on StarkNet.

    • The developer added support for linking users’ StarkNet wallets to their Next.ID core identities.

      This allows users to use Next.ID across all StarkNet apps, with validation achieved by users signing a human-readable message using their StarkNet wallets such as Argent X and Braavos, and validating it with the StarkNet RPC using a specific contract-based signature validation protocol.

      If the validation is successful, the StarkNet ID can be added to the user's Next.ID Avatar.

• [New members]

  • Introducing our newest team member, David Phillips - the Product Manager and DevRel.

    • David will be leading the product team in defining and executing our vision, strategy, and roadmap, identifying new opportunities for the data graph in Web2 and Web3, and ensuring our product delivers the best value to our users and developers.

      When not working, you can find him riding big waves as a surfer. Follow him on Twitter @davidpco and check out his GitHub at Davidpco.

Thanks for tuning in to the community updates of Next.ID! We're thrilled to have your support and we urge you to stay plugged into our community. Got a burning question or some spicy feedback? Slide into our DMs on Telegram and let's get chatty!

Next.ID is a decentralized identity (DID) protocol that integrates all Web2 and Web3 digital identities, aggregating them together into an “Avatar”. This service is used to power decentralized social networks.

In the context of Next.ID’s RelationService, Graph Databases are crucial for supporting a full range of identity queries and social use cases. Graph Databases focus on relationships between data, making them a better option when dealing with complex relationships between intertwined data stored in multiple tables.

In this article, we will elaborate on how our understanding of Graph Databases influences our choice over other traditional Relational/SQL Databases.

Graph Database

What is a graph database?

A graph database is a database that focuses on relationships, i.e. Something — is related to — Something else

• It is a class of NoSQL databases

• Stores relationships, reflecting entity-to-entity relationships

• Uses directional-based nodes to represent data, rather than rows and columns in a table

Below is a detailed description of what a graph database is, the features that make it different from other databases, and what types of data problems it is designed to solve. There are many different types of databases (Key-value, Document-Oriented, Column Clusters, Graphs, etc.). The main focus of comparison for this article is on the differences between Graph Databases and Relational Databases.

Graph Databases vs. Relational Databases

When do we use Graph Databases?

The term “Graph” is used to describe a collection of nodes, each containing information (attributes) and labeled relationships between nodes (edges). A good analogy would be to think of graphs as social networks. The individuals in the social network are the nodes, the characteristics of each individual (e.g, name, age, etc.) are the attributes, and the lines connecting the individuals (with labels such as “friend”, and “acquaintance”) represent their relationships.

In a traditional Relational/SQL Database, queries can take a long time to process because relationships are implemented with foreign keys and are queried by joining tables. In contrast, Graph Databases store relationships, reflecting entity-to-entity relationships, and use directional-based nodes to represent data, rather than rows and columns in a table. With Graph Databases, accessing related nodes is straightforward, and satisfying a query is a simple matter of “traversing” the graph.

Since Next.ID involves dealing with intricate relationships, the use of a Graph Database will be a more optimum solution.

Application of Graph Database in Next.ID

Graph databases, such as the one used by Next.ID, offers a powerful way to model, manipulate, and analyze data. By representing data as a series of interconnected nodes, edges, and attributes, these databases can effectively manage complex relationships and information.

Next.ID takes advantage of this technology to create a comprehensive personal identity graph, which incorporates both on-chain data like wallet IDs, transactions, and smart contracts, as well as off-chain data from platform accounts like Twitter, Facebook, and Github. This approach enables the seamless integration of various digital identities across different platforms and blockchain networks.

1. Data Model

The data model employed by Next.ID involves several steps.

Step 1 — Data is represented as a graph with direct relationships and two-way bindings

Step 2 — Individual nodes are selected, each carrying simple and distinct attributes.

Step 3 — Personal identity graph is built to consolidate various identities across platforms and contract addresses across different blockchains.

Step 4 — Relationships between nodes, relationships, and attributes are modeled to capture relevant connections.

2. Database — Append, Delete, Edit, Search

Managing a graph database involves performing basic operations such as creating, reading, updating, and deleting nodes, edges, and attributes. While writing data is relatively straightforward, reading can be memory-intensive, and the speed of querying results largely depends on the number and complexity of relationships. We aim to optimize these processes to ensure efficient and effective management of identity graphs.

Example: Identity Graph Management

This is a demo of a query search by Web3.bio (Web3 Search Engine), powered by NextID: digital assets linked to a domain name.

3. Data Analysis

3.1. Finding Fixed Patterns: Triadic Closures

Data analysis within Next.ID’s graph database focuses on various techniques, such as finding fixed patterns through triadic closures. This principle posits that two people with a mutual friend in a social network are more likely to become friends in the future.

3.2. Similarity Algorithms

Similarity Algorithms assign scores to pairs of vertices based on their similarity, which can help identify closely related identities.

3.3. Traversing through Path-Finding Algorithms

Path-Finding Algorithms explore routes between nodes, starting from a specific node and traversing through relationships until the destination is reached. This enables the discovery of the most efficient path in terms of the number of hops or weight.

The traversal starts from a specific “startNode” and follows all edges connected to that node, all the way to the “endNode”. Multiple iterations will be performed to find all possible solutions to the relationship.

https://docs.next.id/relation-service/rs-graphql#query-an-identity-w-its-relations-to-other-identitites

4. Status of Identity Graph

https://web5.bio/?s=sujiyan.eth

RelationService — Next step to perform

1. Using RelationService to enrich relationships between Identity Graphs

E.g. Transactions of sending/receiving Red Packets with Mask Browser Extension on Ethereum

Red packet “Send” record

Red packet “Received_by” record

The initiator created 10 Red Packets, sending them to 2 different recipients, and formed an enriched relation graph amongst the 3 identities.

“Send” and “Received_by” are both relationship methods used to form a relationship between an identity and a contract. NextID takes this information to redefine and enrich social interactions.

2. Using RelationService for analytics

RelationService Analytics vs. Dune Analytics

Dune Analytics

Dune is a free blockchain analytics platform that allows users to find events associated with a specific address. It also allows you to see the amount of ETH transferred by the associated address. Dune makes it easy for users to transform blockchain data into actionable charts and metrics. Using Dune, anyone is able to query data from a dataset and create visualizations using the query output.

RelationService Analytics

Using RelationService Analytics, anyone can query data from a dataset and create visualizations using the queried output. Visualizations include but are not limited to linear and graphical charts. For example, if the project is more concerned about NFT-related communities, they can find active people from the available data and promote their friends or friends of friends. Anyone can query using our tool (and also customize the weights) according to their needs.

It is also possible to integrate community discovery, node classification, node hierarchy, graph classification, link prediction, and other analysis functions

Queries

Tables

Graphical Visualizations

In summary, Next.ID leverages the power of graph databases to model, manage, and analyze complex data sets. This technology enables the creation of comprehensive personal identity graphs, incorporating both on-chain and off-chain data to provide a holistic view of an individual’s digital presence. Through various data analysis techniques, Next.ID can identify patterns, similarities, and efficient paths within the graph database, enabling more accurate and actionable insights.

Intrigued? Find out more at docs.next.id or reach out to us at developer@next.id. Follow us on Twitter: @NextDotID

The aim of the hackathon is to build a comprehensive stack that enables the formation of a Network State that includes Social, On-chain Games, User-Generated Content, Creator Economy tools, etc.

We are excited to have selected a few of the Next.ID bounty winners to share their accomplishments with us.

1. TheSkyvalkeR (Individual) — Starknet validator for NextID

TheSkyvalkeR has integrated Next.ID to include compatibility with all Starknet-supported apps. The integration is on the network level so it involves identity aggregation of all Starknet-based identities.

The standard Next.ID identity verification process involves using an Ethereum wallet to generate a Proof Post on Twitter for identity verification of your Twitter profile. The same can be now done so with all Starknet wallets (e.g. ArgentX & Braavos). Your Starknet identities will now be validated and aggregated across all Starknet platforms with Next.ID.

During the validation, Next.ID will prompt the user to sign a human-readable message with their Starknet-supported wallets which will be validated against the Starknet RPC using the Starknet-specific contract-based signature validation protocol. If there is no discrepancy, the validator service will be successfully added to your Next.ID Avatar.

2. Starsocial — Starknet social media aggregator app

Socialstar is a social media aggregator app that combines multiple web3 socials like Farcaster and Lenster into one platform and solves the problem of social media overload. With so many social media platforms available, it can be challenging for users to keep up with their accounts across multiple platforms. Socialstar solves that problem by allowing users to view and interact with their social media accounts from a single platform, making it more efficient and convenient.

Users can easily switch between different social media platforms, post updates across all platforms, and customize their feeds based on their preferences. By aggregating web3 socials into one place, the app streamlines the user’s social media experience, saving time and reducing the burden of managing multiple social media accounts.

Like any Web3 social aggregator platform, users will require the public addresses of the individuals they want to search for. Initially, on StarSocial, users will have to know their friend’s public address (0x…) to find their latest Farcaster or Lenster posts. Now, with the integration of the Next.ID RelationService, users are able to find their friends with their Twitter username (@myfriend), as long as their friends are connected to Next.ID’s ProofService through Twitter. As such, Next.ID has helped ease the onboarding process for StarSocial users.

3. RewardSphere — Web3 Social Impact Incentive Protocol

Rewardsphere is a decentralized tool for social impact incentives developed by the TBook team during the Network State Hackathon.

With Rewardsphere, you as a content creator, have the ability to create a shareable NFT by minting your tweet, which can be awarded to your fans based on their level of engagement and contribution in promoting the content created for yourself.

This innovative tool offers creators a unique way to build engagement and loyalty among their followers. By leveraging the power of blockchain technology, Rewardsphere provides greater transparency and control over the distribution of rewards, enabling creators to foster a more direct relationship with their fans.

Since Next.ID provides the best solution for identity mapping between Web2 and Web3, RewardSphere is able to leverage it and further enhance their product. They will continue to improve the onboarding process of RewardSphere by integrating with Next.ID.

4. Feedbeats — Web3 Feed For All Gamers

As Web3 gamers, it is difficult to know how the users in alpha communities are playing on-chain games. It’s absolutely valuable for all web3 gamers to catch up with the latest trend and get a position.

With Feedbeats. gamers can see what games and which events the alpha users play. Gamers can get the event information of users they follow on Lens protocol as content seen in their feed. We specifically fetch on-chain gaming via RSS3, with the use of Next.ID’s API. As a result, game developers are able to focus on what’s important — building a good game — rather than having to worry about getting user traction. Feedbeat will do it for them.

With Next.ID’s RelationService, we were able to aggregate and track the on-chain activities of alpha gamers, create a feed, and relay the info to the followers.

Closing

These trailblazing projects have not only showcased the transformative potential of web3 technologies but have also elevated Next.ID’s presence on Starknet. By fostering seamless integration and identity validation across various platforms, Next.ID is cementing its position as a key enabler of innovation within the web3 ecosystem.

As we celebrate the accomplishments of these talented developers, we’re also witnessing the dawn of a new era, where Next.ID emerges as a cornerstone in bridging the gap between web2 and web3 experiences, driving the evolution of the digital landscape.

If you would like to contribute to our open-source community, you may find out more at docs.next.id or reach out to us at developer@next.id. Follow us on Twitter: @NextDotID

Imagine a week-long gathering that brings together brilliant minds from all over the world to create, innovate, and share ideas about the future of Web3. That’s what happened during ETHDenver’s BUIDL week in February 2023.

Next.ID had the pleasure of participating in ETHDenver’s BUIDL week, where we co-hosted the Web3 Social House event alongside other innovative projects, to name a few: Mask Network, ChainBase, Firefly, and Collab.Land. Web3 Social House provided a platform for developers, entrepreneurs, and visionaries to connect, discuss, and collaborate on the future of Web3, shaping a decentralized, secure, and user-centric internet.

As one of the co-hosts, we showcased our product and engaged in educational sessions, panel discussions, and presentations about Web3 Social, DIDs, security, data, and smart contract wallets. The event itself was a success and led to valuable connections with projects such as Disco.xyz, Spruce.ID, Axelar, OrangeDAO, etc., and fruitful discussions with venture capital firms.

One key takeaway was the growing demand for DAOs to sign in with wallets from multiple chains and the ability to prove assets from wallets. We are actively exploring collaboration opportunities to enhance private binding, credential verification, and wallet integration, which will contribute to a more secure and decentralized Web3 ecosystem.

Another focus of ours includes refining the identity graph as a product for existing and potential customers, completing private binding and encryption key, device/subkey, and Avatar recovery, and potentially porting identity graphs to a blockchain with external collaborators.

The Web3 Social House event was an excellent opportunity for Next.ID to gain insights, collaborate with like-minded individuals, and showcase our commitment to contribute to the DID space.

Check out more of our workshop videos at ETHDenver 2023 and stay tuned for more updates from Next.ID!

Official Site: https://next.id/

Twitter: @nextdotid

GitHub: https://github.com/nextdotid

Telegram: https://t.me/NextDotIDofficial

Discord: https://bit.ly/NextID_Discord_Official

Bilibili: https://space.bilibili.com/1004643496

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC17C9xWKp0h_pZhfxbNtHsg

Imagine the following scenarios:

1. You are a Web3 startup founder; a well-known freelancer reaches out to you on Twitter and his portfolio impresses you upon reviewing his work accomplishments. You decide to engage him for his services and he sends you an ENS domain for payment. Because of the prevalence of fake accounts on Twitter, you wish to do a background check to ensure the legitimacy of the Twitter profile, and that the ENS domain actually belongs to the freelancer.

2. You would like to buy a specific domain name that is currently owned by someone else, but you have no idea how to reach out to the owner.

3. You are a huge fan of a particular influencer OR you support a particular profile for a certain cause, and you would like to:- Make an anonymous donation to him/her for whatever reason- Follow all of their Web3 & Web2 social accounts

You may now do so with Web3.bio — An identity search engine that provides visualization of your Web3 & Web2 IDs, powered by Next.ID’s RelationService. This is a workable example of how users can search for Web3 domain connections.

Web3.bio Main Page

Using Web3.bio, users have been able to query 2.79M ENS domains, 115k Lens handles, 11k Farcaster handles, and 21.4k dotbit (.bit) domains.

The recent collaboration with Unstoppable Domains have further enhanced the database query to over 3.3 million UD domains, alongside other underlying Web3/Web2 identity connections.

If you are a developer or founder who might benefit from Next.ID’s services, feel free to reach out to us on Twitter or Telegram!

How will this partnership benefit Unstoppable Domains users?

Next.ID’s RelationService — 1 of 4 existing Next.ID services have now integrated UD domains into its database of IDs, offering a more enriched identity graph for dApp developers. This is indicated as shown in Web3.bio.

Web3.bio Search Bar

Web3.bio Identity Graph

RelationService is an aggregation of existing DIDs, identity graph queries, and IDs bound to and in parallel to Next.ID. It opens up a range of possibilities for integration with external protocols and creates greater Web3 native social use cases. Developers can access the prototype of the RelationService server here.

More details are to be revealed in Phase 2.

Promotional Rewards

In the meantime, be sure to get yourself your favorite domain name at Unstoppable Domains at a discount before it gets taken: https://unstoppabledomains.com/?ref=0cad24b8e7aa47b

10 lucky Next.ID community members will stand a chance to win $100 worth of UD credits. To enter, follow the instructions below:

1. Register UD domain with affiliate link

2. Follow @nextdotid & @unstoppableweb

3. Like and retweet 4. Leave a comment with a screenshot of your domain search using Web3.bio All entries should be submitted before 12th April 2023 (GMT+8 00:00 AM) Happy claiming! About Next.ID Next.ID is a decentralized identity protocol that integrates Web2 and Web3 identities, offering a comprehensive and verifiable identity management and database for open-source developers and projects to innovate and build dApps on. Next.ID creates an identity infrastructure that securely aggregates and authenticates users’ identities into a Decentralized Identifier (DID) called Avatar, making it the primary touch point for interfacing with any app or dApp. Next.ID’s identity Avatars exist independently from Web2 and Web3, using a blockchain-like model to retain data integrity. This allows Next.ID to connect to all Web2 and Web3 platforms, aggregating all identities in a fully-agnostic way, unifying them into one single DID. About Unstoppable Domains Your Unstoppable domain is your identity for Web3. Use your Unstoppable Domain to build and verify your digital identity, log in seamlessly to applications, games, and metaverses, make payments easier by simplifying lengthy crypto wallet addresses, and create and host websites that you fully own. Unstoppable Domains are minted on the blockchain with zero gas fees. Best of all, once you buy and claim a Web3 domain, it’s yours forever — no renewal fees.

💡 Our goal: We want to reward developers and technical writers who are participating in our online and offline workshops, building apps and contributing to the services of Next.ID, and making educational content about how to use Next.ID.

We are rolling out “Next Planet” to keep track of active contributors/community members by launching an SBT (Soul-Bound Token — Non-Transferrable) for everyone to collect.

By collecting credentials like OATs (On-chain Achievement Tokens, by Galxe), POAPs (Proof-of-Attendance), and GitPOAPs (Issued to developers who contributed to Next.ID’s Github repository), community members and developers are able to accumulate reputation points, which is then translated and reflected on the SBT.

Essentially, Next.ID will reward SBT holders with potential community perks or tokens. There will be different tiers of rewards that are tied to the level of reputation points. The higher the reputation points, the better the rewards.

Objective

• To reward our recognized list of open-source devs & community buildooors/supporters

• Each wallet can only qualify for one SBT (non-transferable)

• To achieve the highest-tiered reward, the user will need to collect ≥ 10 tokens (OAT/POAP/GitPOAP)

• Reputation-driven instead of monetary driven

• Different tiers of levels of Reputation for members to signify their commitment to Next.ID

Next Planet

• Register to claim your Next Planet on Clique, the SBT will be airdropped on Polygon chain

• Contains dynamic metadata that updates according to the number of Next.ID OAT/POAP/GitPOAP that are held in the wallet

• Next.ID OAT are all minted on Galxe’s platform (Polygon)

• Next.ID POAP & GitPOAP are all minted on POAP’s platform (Gnosis)

• According to the No. of OATs collected, users will be able to qualify for the different tiers of rewards (Refer to the table below)

• Ideally, you would want to claim the SBT airdrop with the wallet that contains all of your Next.ID OAT/POAP/GitPOAP that you’ve been collecting

Next Planet Design

List of Next.ID Campaign Tokens

1. Galxe OAT (On-Chain Achievement Tokens)

• OATs are given out to online campaign participants (Twitter Space, Discord AMA)

• Minted on Polygon

2. POAP (Proof of Attendance Protocol)

• POAPs are given out to IRL event participants (Offline events, Panel Discussions, Conferences)

• Minted on Gnosis

3. GitPOAP

• GitPOAPs are given out to Next.ID GitHub contributors

• Minted on Gnosis

How to claim your Next.ID Community SBT?

• Connect your credentials (Wallet, Twitter, Discord) on Clique’s platform to get an airdrop of the SBT

How it works and how to contribute

What is the role of ProofService in Next.ID?

NextID, as a decentralized identity service, aggregates the digital identities of web2 and web3 applications into an Avatar.

ProofService uses cryptographic public-private key pairs to verify and authenticate the user’s Avatar across their Web2 and Web3 accounts. Subsequently, allowing the user’s Avatar to establish a trusted and verifiable connection with the respective Web2/Web3 platforms.

How does ProofService work?

To start off, the user signs the Avatar with his private key and publicly posts the signature on the platform that needs to be connected. This is called “Proof Post”.

The user will be required to send the “Proof Post” link back to ProofService, where the content of the link (Platform account, Wallet ID, Signature) is collected and verified. If the verification is successful, the connection is properly established.

These platform-bound identities (Avatars) are stored in a blockchain-like structure called ProofChain. Each Avatar is aggregated onto ProofChain and all data storage and modification of the ProofChain is recorded on Arweave. This ensures that all data is open, transparent, and publicly verifiable.

For more details, please refer to this documentation: https://docs.next.id/getting-started/quick-start

The example in the above documentation uses Twitter as an example, showing the process of generating an Avatar which consists of a public and private key pair, using an elliptic curve. After which, you will be required to generate a “Proof Post”, post it on Twitter, send the URL of the Twitter post to Proof Service, and finally successfully bind your Avatar to your Twitter account. This pretty much sums up the layman step-by-step process of binding your Avatar to your Twitter account.

How to contribute to Next.ID as a developer?

As an open-source project, we welcome all interested developers to contribute and build with us. All of our existing supported platforms for ProofService can be found at https://github.com/NextDotID/proof_server#readme

If you wish to get involved with Next.ID, a great way would be to help integrate ProofService with more platforms. We are ecstatic to see developers who are already trying this.

Criteria for selection of platform integration

To start off, you may select from the list of platforms as shown in our planned roadmap and work on them. Of course, platforms that are not listed are also welcomed. In order to know if the selected platform is able to access ProofService, we would have to consider:

1. The user is able to post on the platform (content is not limited to text, but can be in any form, e.g., images, audio, video), through which the Avatar private key signature is posted.

2. The post has to be public to allow verification.

How to get started?

1. Open an Issue

• In ProofService’s code repository, create a new Issue, eg: [Feature] support XXX platform

• Clarify and elaborate on how the above 2 criteria for accessing the platform are met. Any uncertainty can be addressed in the Issue so other developers are able to chime in to help and discuss. Once the idea is deemed feasible, you may start on the development phase.

2. Coding

• In the structure of the code, there is a validator folder with access implementations for each platform

• You may refer to template implementations for other platforms and implement the corresponding GeneratePostPayload(), GenerateSignPayload(), Validate() methods. Proceed to add the new platforms to: https://github.com/NextDotID/proof_server/blob/ develop/types/platform.go

• The corresponding step-by-step test procedure can be found in our documentation: https://docs.next.id/getting-started/quick-start

3. Merge Request

• Do a merge request upon the completion of the new platform implementation

• Our core contributors will verify and comment on the written code to confirm the feasibility of the implementation and perform the corresponding merge operation

Conclusion

NextID is a community-led project and we encourage open-source contributors and enthusiasts to participate and build with us. ProofService is merely one of the many services you may work on.

Interested? You may join us on our biweekly calls to get project updates, ask questions, and partake in discussions.

Next.ID will be hosting a panel with Collab.Land, Ceramic, Spruce, and Disco, discussing Web3 social apps, DIDs, security, data, and the state of smart contract wallets. There will be product presentations and educational sessions on building with Next.ID and other open social protocols as well.

Located in downtown Denver, Web3 Social House is just steps away from major hotels. Enjoy a comfortable and well-equipped space with excellent Wi-Fi, power outlets, and workstations, along with complimentary snacks and drinks. Network, relax, and connect with attendees from various Web3 social projects and open protocols.

Check out Next.ID’s past achievements and goals for 2023:

Sneak peek of the 2-day event rundown (more details to be updated):

Next.ID’s official developer-facing debut with the ETHDenver community

• Variety of workshops showcasing Next.ID

• Developer Q&A hours

• Opportunity to meet and chat with Next.ID founders, core developers, and Dev-Rel folks

Chainbase workshop

• How to use Chainbase’s Data Cloud API to generate an account-based DeFi portfolio overview

Web3 Users’ Security Afternoon: A sub-event hosted by GoPlus

• Different dimensions to protect Web3 user security

• Decentralized security data framework for Web3

• Event Registration

**DID Panel: Collab.Land, Spruce, Ceramic, Disco.xyz, Next.ID\ **

**Impact Panel — With Scott Moore (Gitcoin) and Suji Yan (Mask Network)\ **

Web3 Wallet Panel

Web3 Mass Adoption Panel — Web3 growth & playbook

Happy Hour Networking Night — Chill music and abundant drinks

Community Members — Lens, Farcaster, RSS3, Gitcoin, and more

Lists of Participants & Sponsors

Web3 Social House Co-hosts:

• Mask Network (@realMaskNetwork): Your Portal to the new, open internet

• Next.ID (@NextDotID): Your reliable DID infrastructure layer for all social dApps to build upon. We connect your Web2 & Web3 identities.

• Chainbase (@ChainbaseHQ): Chainbase is a leading web3 data infrastructure that provides datasets accessed with APIs and lets you build custom data pipelines.

• Collab.land (@Collab_Land_): Collab.Land is an automated community management tool that curates membership based on token ownership.

Web3 Social House Sponsors:

• KNN3 (@Knn3Network): One-stop Web3 User-centric DataFi solution for dApps and smart contracts

• GoPlus (@GoplusSecurity): Security Infrastructure Builder For Web3 By providing Open, Permissionless, User-Driven Security Services

• MirrorWorld (@joinmirrorworld): A content matrix that aggregates all the Blockchain-based games in the Mirror World Ecosystem

• Quest3 (@Quest3_xyz): Marketing Tool Collection for Sustainable Web3 Project Growth

Web3 Social House Community Sponsors:

• Gitcoin (@gitcoin): The community of builders, creators, and protocols at the center of open web ecosystems

• Lens Protocol (@LensProtocol): A permissionless, composable, & decentralized social graph that makes building a Web3 social platform easy

• RSS3 (@rss3_): Information dissemination of the Open Web

• Ceramic (@ceramicnetwork): Decentralized data network for building Web3 applications with composable data

Web3 Social House Strategic Support:

• SevenX Ventures (@SevenXVentures): Providing relentless support, from marketing to fundraising, from tokenomic design to resource integration, for projects and helping entrepreneurs succeed

• DWF Labs (@DwfLabs): the global digital asset market maker

Join us from February 28th to March 1st and be a part of Web3 Social House!

Registration is free — get your spot today: https://lu.ma/yawp7vd8

Here’s a look back at 2022 and what’s in store for Next.ID in 2022.

Our Team

The Next.ID team is globally distributed and remote-first, with members mainly in the US and Asia. Rather than having a physical office, we gather in different locations whenever possible for team events and workshops. If you need to reach out, we are active on Twitter, Telegram, and Discord.

How Developers Use Next.ID Today

Next.ID is a decentralized identity aggregation protocol that integrates all Web2 and Web3 digital identities, offering a verifiable identity database for open-source developers and projects to innovate and build dApps on.

4 Main Services For Developers

ProofService — Ensure data integrity with cryptography

ProofChain follows a blockchain-like model to retain data integrity, using cryptography and the private-public key pairing system. Only users with the right private keys can add to the data in each “block”.

ProofService and every change in its history are fully visible on Arweave, true to the Next.ID community’s commitment to complete transparency for its protocols.

KVService — Organize and make sense of the data provided by users

As users and protocols read and write data using Next.ID, KVService sets up a framework to organize the information neatly. This enables smoother frontend usage of Next.ID, as well as allowing developers a clearer understanding of how Next.ID can be utilized.

RelationService — Enable comprehensive identity queries and social use cases

RelationService takes all Web2 and Web3 IDs and aggregates them into a database. Having Next.ID as the ID layer, social dApps may use this database to perform internal functions. As more projects onboard with Next.ID, more data points are collected and the limit to the database is boundless. Developers can access the RelationService server here.

AuthService — Self-hosted service that provides authentication and authorization for web apps and dApps

Social dApps may use Next.ID’s AuthService for ID authentication. Think of it as the Web3 version of “Sign-in with Google/Twitter”.

Integrated with Web2 and Web3 platforms

Community Engagement Efforts

Over the past few months, there has been a myriad of different marketing and community engagement efforts dished out by the Next.ID core community. Ranging from Twitter Spaces, Discord AMAs, and Hackathons, to IRL panel discussions. Here are some of the key highlights:

• DID Summer #1: Being Human in Web3 — We hosted our 1st Twitter Space and invited renowned DID projects and Web3 builders such as Collab.land, Ceramic, KNN3, .bit, and Unipass. The topic of discussion was the importance and use cases of DIDs.

• Hacktoberfest 2022 — We participated in Hacktoberfest, an open-source event where developers were rewarded for contributing to Next.ID’s repository.

• Ethereum Foundation Devcon 2022 — We participated in a panel discussion in Devcon, Bogota, which was geared toward Ethereum and Web3 builders. The keynote dialogue was themed around AI games, gaming identity, personal data ownership, and how to collaborate with local communities in South America.

• Social Hour Hackathon — We organized a virtual hackathon in conjunction with Gitcoin to encourage open-source developers to get remunerated as crack their brains and problem-solve.

• Bangkok Identity Meetup — We hosted a panel discussion in Bangkok where Web3 & identity thought leaders gathered to exchange ideas and discuss the concept behind DIDs. We had guest speakers who are DID enthusiasts, along with representatives from Port3 Network and AC Capital. Great way to connect with fellow Web3 builders in the budding city.

• Gitcoin Educational Bounty — We decided to engage our community members by getting them to channel their creative juices and partake in content creation for Next.ID. We had a fun time reviewing the video and article submissions and were blown away by the effort that was put in. Definitely looking forward to organizing similar events in the future!

Content

Apart from being hyper-focused on building the best-in-line DID protocol, we also place a strong emphasis on educating the general public on the concept of DIDs. Even if you are a Web3 native like us, there are constantly new ideas to be learned as boundaries are being challenged every single day. You may refer to some of our thought pieces below:

• Why We Need To Own Our Digital Identities In A Decentralized World

• Digital Identity: What It Is, What It Solves & What Lies Ahead

• How Digital Identity Evolved Over The Years — Web1, Web2, & Web3

• Is a DID a wallet? Let’s debunk myths about identities in Web3

Partnerships

Since Next.ID is a DID infrastructure layer, our key metric of impact is to get dApps to entrust us with their backend identity management and social graph integrations. Next.ID will provide these dApps with our comprehensive social graphs and best-in-class user authentication so that they can have ease of mind and focus on building their product.

Here are a few success stories:

• DID partner of choice with Mask Network and Firefly

• Alpha Test Partner with SwapChat, KNN3, .bit, and RSS3

• Next.ID’s identity graph service supports 0xScope and Web3.bio

Outlook For 2023

Let’s take a look at what Next.ID envisions achieving in 2023. The main gist would be to reduce and consolidate the existing 4 main services into 3 — ProofService, RelationService, and CoreService. Below is the list of plans moving forward.

Proof Service — Smoother DID Verification & Management

Relation Service takes all Web2 and Web3 IDs and aggregates them into a database. Having Next.ID as the DID layer, social dApps may use this database to perform internal functions. As more projects onboard with Next.ID, more data points are collected and the potential of the database are limitless. In 2023, Next.ID would like to:

1. Include more data sources from Web3 and Web2 platforms

2. Ensure 100% credibility of data sources

3. Improve graph algorithms by Heterogeneous graph mining, Weighted node score, etc.

4. Develop a dune-like open dashboard for backend access

5. Optimize graph database for better performance

Core Service — Self-hosted Tech Stack To Expand DID Use Cases

You are in for a treat as Next.ID is looking to launch a new module named Core Service soon! As you may already know, Next.ID uses Arweave as a 3rd party decentralized data storage solution. Moving forward, we would like to allow our end users to self-host their DID and network of data so as to minimize external risks and regain absolute control over their own database. Keep your eyes peeled as we will release more updates soon.

Closing

We’re growing! Our core team has evolved in a major way and we’re gearing up for a big run in the new year. In addition to our current core contributors, we’ve also been actively onboarding talents across the different functions of the team.

We look forward to branding Next.ID as the leading DID infrastructure and key opinion project by building out benchmark use cases, content reservoirs, and leading industry discussions.

Also, the team is laying the groundwork for Next.ID to eventually operate as an open-source community governed as a DAO. We call for more builders to join our mission of making decentralized identity the gateway to interconnected and fair cyberspace.

Intrigued? Find out more at docs.next.id or reach out to us at developer@next.id. Follow us on Twitter: @NextDotID

Speaker Info

• Hannah Shen, Head of Growth @ Next.ID

• Max, CEO @ Port3

• Vincent, Partner @ AC Capital

• Kai, DID Builder

• Moderator: Yisi Liu, Initiator @ Next.ID

You may watch the full recording on YouTube: youtu.be/hdcOIXtUVEo?t=1373

Concept and framing of the term “Decentralized Identity (DID)”. Why does it matter? (37:00 Yisi)

38:21 Kai: Digital identity should not be directly linked to your digital assets, bank statements, NFTs held, etc. There should be an intermediate layer that protects user privacy while providing information necessary for apps to function properly. DID is an umbrella term that encapsulates projects and services such as ENS, privacy-preserving protocols, ZK solutions, etc.

40:13 Vincent: When we think about DID, we first ask ourselves,” Why decentralizing matters?” If we look at Web2 account systems, they are all generated in a centralized manner, in a centralized server. If the entity so wishes to ban your account, it can easily be done so. However, with DIDs, we will be able to generate accounts/wallets locally and you have control over what you own.

Secondly, DID enables interoperability of your account/wallet. With a single wallet address, the user will be able to interact with multiple protocols and Web3 services, without any boundaries. Unlike that of Web2 whereby user accounts are bound specifically to a particular website/server. (e.g. Google accounts can only be accessed with Google services).

43:30 Max: In the Web3 world, DID allows for universal accessibility of your digital identity. Say, for example, you have been active on Facebook for a long time. Your connections, posts, likes, and comments on Facebook will remain solely on Facebook’s server and it cannot be seen and accessible on other platforms. If you do wish to build your brand on another platform like Twitter, you have to start from scratch. However, the concept of DIDs will allow you to bring your digital identity and footprint across other platforms.

46:07 Hannah: The concept of DID is the same as Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI). At its core, users have control over their private keys and public addresses and be able to verify/attest credentials among themselves, without involving a 3rd party.

From the value protection side in the future, when users access services and authentication through DID/SSI, it will give users freedom and safety.

From the value creation side, there could be reputation scoring built using DID methods.

The idea of SSI has been around for more than a decade. However, Web3 has provided the technology to utilize this idea. Right now there are many wallet addresses on different blockchains that contains different on-chain behaviors across different ecosystems. Web3 DID is an idea that connects the on-chain world with the off-chain world and that is what Next.ID has been working on it actively.

How do we strike a balance between the online freedom of users and user privacy/security? (49:30 Yisi)

50:25 Vincent: We are unable to enforce this idea because users simply do not care. People do not mind trading their online information for user convenience. Especially so for the majority of people who have other priorities in life and need to make a living. Their personal private information is deemed to be not important and they do not mind giving it up, as long as they can get things done as quickly as possible.

The way to get mass adoption for DIDs would be to get role models in the space and eventually make it into a social norm for the rest of the people to follow.

54:50 Max: What Port3Network does is that we request users to provide their cross-platform identity. It is done by providing incentives to users from other projects.

59:38 Hannah: While we have all the privacy-protecting benefits of DID, it comes with an entry barrier for many users. We builders constantly need to think about educating end-users and how to get them to care.

In terms of getting end-users to enjoy the freedom of their ownership through DID technology, there are 2 parts.

1. How DID can be a better service for builders and developers to get onboard. E.g. DID login authentication is used as an alternative or additional option to sign in on their server, be it a decentralized or centralized server. It provides a gateway for users to learn about what DID and it allows them to set up DID while using their services. In order to achieve this, we need consensus from Web3 applications to adopt it as the default ID management/login solution.

2. In terms of finding the needs of end-users on the application side, like what Max mentioned, would be to encourage users to verify themselves through DID which could bring benefits such as better reputation building and credit scoring, without relying on 3rd parties. This form of verification is done so through gamification of on-chain actions. This will greatly incentivize end-users to adopt and care about DID, not solely on the moral high ground of “protecting user privacy” point-of-view, but it actually brings real benefits. For application layer builders, This is something that application layer builders can think about, find out the true needs of cyber citizens which are not being fulfilled on centralized platforms today.

Do you think users need to be educated about the concept of DIDs? (1:08:40 Yisi)

1:09:00 Hannah: Users do not need to know the ins and outs. It depends on the targeted users. To target early adopters, we will need to get them to understand why DID in general is necessary. Whereas for mass adoption, the level of understanding may be weaker. However, the bare minimum is for users to know what a private key is, similar to the understanding of how you manage your current accounts.

1:09:40 Max: “When you fly on a plane, do you think a user needs to know the aerodynamics of how the plane works?” Users do not need to understand the concept of DID. Instead, it is important for users to know how will DID benefit them in delivering the service that is needed, which is not attainable with other identity services.

Main Takeaway

1. Is Decentralized Identity (DID) the right framing? Why it matters? DID is the response to the centralized account system and the privacy in Web2. We’ve seen movements on self-sovereign identities and DID long before Web3 but the growing crypto adoption makes blockchain-based identifiers more relevant, giving rise to Web3 DIDs and hybrid IDs.

2. We should first think about what kind of applications and developers could benefit from DID versus traditional web2 id system or wallet-first solution and find the utility and motivation for users to own DIDs.

3. End-users should at least know how to manage their DIDs similar to remembering their password but we don’t need everyone to agree with the technical and philosophical reasoning around decentralized identities and related technology.

Project Info:

• Next.ID is the world’s first Decentralized-Identity-as-a-Service (DIaaS) protocol

• Port3 is a one-stop platform to create, utilize and evolve your Web3 identity.

• AC Capital is an investment firm focusing on Blockchain and Fin-tech, committed to discovering unicorns and boosting their development.

For anyone who is interested in Next.ID and DIDs in general, please do follow Next.ID’s official Twitter account @NextDotID and join our Telegram and Discord groups. We will be hosting more similar events and will continue to invite more industry leaders and emerging Web3 builders to talk with us.

Next.ID is a decentralized identity protocol that integrates Web2 and Web3 identities, offering a comprehensive and verifiable identity management and database for open-source developers and projects to innovate and build dApps on. Next.ID offers Decentralized-Identity-as-a-Service (DIaaS).

As the world’s first DIaaS, Next.ID creates an identity infrastructure that securely aggregates and authenticates users’ identities into a Decentralized Identifier (DID) called Avatar, making it the primary touch point for interfacing with any app or dApp.

Next.ID’s identity Avatars exist independently from Web2 and Web3, using a blockchain-like model to retain data integrity. This allows Next.ID to connect to all Web2 and Web3 platforms, aggregating all identities in a fully-agnostic way, unifying them into one single DID.

Next.ID is looking for experienced developers who want to build on Next.ID as a public good, to create a framework that empowers users, and to create a digital society that stands apart from traditional constraints.

About 0xScope

0xScope is the first Web3 Knowledge Graph Protocol. It solves the problem that Web3 data analyzes addresses instead of real users by establishing a new identity standard — — the new Scope Entity from the data layer. And it unifies the standards of different types of Web2 data and Web3 data by utilizing its knowledge graphing capability, which greatly reduces the difficulty of data acquisition and improves data penetration ability.

0xScope has built a robust and growing database. As of now, we have identified over 84 million entities, and fully analyzed over 640 thousand tokens, 11 thousand protocols, and 51 million smart contracts. At the same time, we have more than 1.4 million identity labels, over 5 million behavior labels, over 17M risky address labels, and more than 31M exchange deposit and withdrawal address labels.

To this date, 0xScope has launched Watchers, a B2B data service and a developer platform, providing entity-based transaction tracking, risk scoring, and portrait identification capabilities, which can be integrated into partners’ businesses in a variety of flexible ways through APIs, data collaboration, custom data analysis reports, etc.

(We are actively seeking cooperation with the Web3 pioneer team to build a new data standard layer and elevate the quality of the Web3 product experience and security standards to the same level as Web2.）

Core collaboration scope between 0xScope & Next.ID

Next.ID’s RelationService — 1 of 4 existing services that enable comprehensive identity queries and social use cases, and powers 0xScope’s knowledge graph protocol.

RelationService is an aggregation of existing DIDs, identity graph queries, and IDs bound to and in parallel to Next.ID. It opens up a range of possibilities for integration with external protocols and creates greater Web3 native social use cases. Developers can access the prototype of the RelationService server here.

The search bar on 0xScope’s platform leverages Next. ID’s RelationService to populate data for each searched address. 0xScope has an algorithm to calculate an entity’s risk score/credit score. With Next.ID’s RelationService, more social identity data of each address will be aggregated into 0xScope’s API, further enhancing the entire database. 0xScope will also use the Next.ID’s database to backtest the data algorithm’s accuracy and to improve its relationship graph.

How will this partnership benefit 0xScope users?

Next.ID authenticates and aggregates identities from Web2 and Web3 applications using secured cryptographic methods to give users a self-sovereign digital identity.

0xScope takes the aggregated data and elevates its value by bringing in the element of risk analysis — Know Your Entity (KYE) — a comprehensive risk control service that allows the exploration of the complex relationship between multiple addresses. The protocol incorporates various machine learning algorithms to provide real-time analysis, signals, and reports for the platform user. 0xScope’s integration with Next.ID will allow 0xScope to provide a more accurate analysis of different customers.

With 0xScope, you can instantly get all related addresses by simply searching for one address. 0xScope is necessary to locate, classify, and examine the connections between addresses inside a network. Next.ID allows users to associate wallet addresses with social profiles while protecting and verifying addresses with users having full data ownership. This collaboration will enhance 0xScope’s platform user experience and further explore improvements in identity and knowledge graphs.

Links for Next.ID

Official Website: https://next.id/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NextDotID

Telegram: https://t.me/NextDotIDofficial

Medium: https://medium.com/@Next.ID

Docs: https://docs.next.id/

Notion: https://www.notion.so/nextid/Next-ID-Home-0fb4ba9200d6458ab6c4fa81778f6a7b

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC17C9xWKp0h_pZhfxbNtHsg

Discord: https://discord.com/invite/PhRCmFCskY

Links for 0xScope\ Logo: https://docs.watchers.pro/marketing-material

Website: https://0xscope.com/

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/scopeprotocol

0xScope Website: https://0xscope.com/

0xScope Developer Center: https://developer.0xscope.com/

Twitter：https://twitter.com/ScopeProtocol

Learn more: https://medium.com/@0xscope_labs

The Next.ID community would like to encourage active discussion through the following series of articles:

1. What feature or system of DID do users benefit most from?

2. What are the user migration costs for moving from Web2 to Web3?

3. What can DIDs offer to users in Web3 that is unachievable in Web2?

Is MetaMask a form of DID?

MetaMask’s current monthly active users (MAU) are approximated to be > 30 million. With this large user base, many projects naturally would want to create an identity layer through MetaMask. However, given that MetaMask is merely a wallet with no DID applications, this idea would not work.

Metamask is an EOA-like (Externally Owned Address) wallet. One of the biggest problems surrounding the use of such wallets is the risk of users losing all of their digital assets if their private key or seed phrase gets lost or compromised.

As long as MetaMask fails to solve this pain point, Web3 adoption would still be a huge curveball.

Let’s take a step back and take a look at some of the immediate problems of Web3 identities.

1. Web3 needs to find a solution for wallet recovery

• Using a simple analogy here. Each individual has a name and unique ID number (or driver’s license or passport) in Web2 analogous to the public and private keys of Web3 respectively.

• If a Web2 user loses his ID card, by the analogy of private keys, he will still be able to apply for a new ID card through one of the centralized certification bodies (i.e. national public security authorities) and his corresponding assets will not be lost.

• Web3 also needs to do the same. How can the user regain control of his account through a decentralized authentication network, even after the loss of the private key? If there is a method to do so, Web2 to Web3 migration will be much easier.

2. Seed phrases are cumbersome in Web3

• As we all know, whenever we create a brand new wallet on different dApps and platforms, we would be given different recovery phrases to jot down. We are told to not lose them as it will risk losing all assets in that wallet.

• With so many wallet addresses, private keys, and seed phrases to remember, it surely is a very unpleasant user experience.

• There needs to be a decentralized Web3 version of 1Password or LastPass to aid users in better wallet management.

So what’s the problem? Let’s go back to the Web2 world and think about it.

A wallet like MetaMask is essentially like a bank account, which is used to conduct financial transactions. We can only open a new bank account using a unique ID like an ID number (or driver’s license or passport). However, if one takes a Citibank account and requests withdrawals at Standard Chartered, it would simply not work.

This is because the user “identity” and “bank account” are not the same thing.

Recently, the Ethereum community passed the proposal of EIP-2938 — using “Account Abstraction” for the development of smart contract wallets. Another popular DID product, UniPass, also takes a similar approach.

We are seeing more proponents of decoupling the “identity” (public-private key pair) from the “bank account” (abstracted account, wallet address) and building a completely new mechanism. Below are some potential solutions to the aforementioned idea.

Generating a new private key for the one that was previously lost. Some potential methods may include:

1. Social recovery — A way to guarantee wallet ownership through high-quality on-chain interaction with friends and connections who are able to justify on your behalf.

2. Backup questions — A series of private and security questions can be used to assist in recovering the private key of the wallet. For example, what was the name of my childhood pet, who was my high school English teacher, etc.

The management of all related Account Abstraction (Web2 IDs and Web3 Abstracted Accounts) can be directly bound and collected into a digital identity (public-private key pair). This is what we call “Avatar” in Next.ID. As shown in the diagram below.

So far, we have touched on the foundational layer of defining DIDs with a “public-private key pair”. In the aspect of DID private key management, we would need the help of the greater Web3 community to explore together the use of social recovery and personal privacy quizzes to lower the barrier to user adoption.

Have we truly considered the proper use of DID before?

Back in Aug 2022, the regulatory sanctions of Tornado Cash (TC) brought upon by the U.S OFAC had caused much fear and uncertainty amongst many Web3 practitioners. Wallet addresses that interacted with TC had been frozen. Even wallet addresses that did not specifically use TC but unknowingly had crypto transferred over to them from another wallet address that used TC, had their wallets frozen. This incident made people question if Web3 is truly resistant to censorship.

At the same time, many DID projects in the market are nonchalant with their services. They are blatantly disregarding the potential risks of leaking personal information, rushing to ship imperfect products for the sake of chasing the hype, and putting no long-term progressional thoughts into it. Given that Web3 privacy protection technology (e.g ZK proofs) has not yet fully matured, we should not expose ourselves to such flaws, putting ourselves in danger of getting another regulatory sanction. If another incident were to arise from exposing the flaws of DID in a regulatory manner, it could get rather embarrassing.

Are DID projects overly focused on external clients and neglecting the needs of users?

From the user’s point of view, the overall implementation of a DID system should go beyond the foundational layer of defining DID identity as the public-private key pair, as discussed earlier.

• In order to properly integrate DIDs, it needs to achieve the same level of interoperability and user-friendliness, similar to Web2 counterparts like OpenID/OAuth. It needs to be as simple as possible whereby only a few clicks are needed to complete logins.

• Also, all Web2 (e.g. Twitter and Instagram) and Web3 accounts (e.g. Abstracted Accounts and Smart Contract Wallets) should be aggregated under the premise of protecting user privacy. If the user chooses to be anonymous/pseudonymous on their Web2 accounts, there should not be any way to reveal his identity. Ultimately, they can only be traced to an online virtual identity — a string of alphanumeric characters.

What kind of Web3 “one-click login” do users need?

In the Web2 era of apps, every user is familiar with using the one-click log-in. Easy to use and no more annoying passwords.

Advantages

• Password required for the first registration.

• Subsequent logins can always use Google, Facebook, Email, etc.

Disadvantages

• Users do not have ownership of their own data and they are putting their private info at risk by giving full control of it to the platforms.

• Users are bombarded with all kinds of forced advertising as most platforms heavily rely on advertisements to generate revenue and sell user info to these advertisers

With the help of Web3, the issue of data sovereignty can be solved. However, the user experience of dApps in Web3 is not user-friendly and still remains to be improved. It needs to achieve somewhat the same level as the experience we have on Web2 apps if we ever want to talk about user adoption.

Potential improvements in Web3 user experience

AuthService — The Next.ID community has come up with a new idea to improve the UX in Web3 social account interactions. It is designed with the following flow.

Flowchart for Next.ID’s AuthService

1. Users can leverage Next.ID’s AuthService SDK for dApp account authorization operations. The data sources are bound to Next.ID’s in-house ProofService.

2. The authorization operation is verified by a VPS (Virtual Private Server) deployed by the user.

3. Upon successful authorization, the user will specify the “scope” to reveal private info related to the user account.

The key 1st step is to use Next.ID when logging into the dApp.

The next step would be to access the authorized account’s data (Wallet ID, Twitter Authentication, etc.). (Step 3 as shown in the main diagram)

Finally, the data of the account gets released (Steps 5 & 6 as shown in the main diagram)

In the subsequent articles, we will dive deeper into the topics related to “privacy” and “security”, and also further explain the VPS (Virtual Private Server) idea behind AuthService.

Thank you for reading and feel free to comment and reblog — the Next.ID open source community warmly invites you to join us in promoting the DID ecosystem.

[1] W3C’s definition of DID is “Decentralized Identifier”. In the Web3 social space, “Decentralized Identity” is used instead for better commercial and product context.

Official Site：https://next.id/

Twitter: @nextdotid

Github：https://github.com/nextdotid

Discord: https://bit.ly/NextID_Discord_Official

Biweekly Community Call Recording：

YouTube (EN): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC17C9xWKp0h_pZhfxbNtHsg

Bilibili (CH): https://space.bilibili.com/1004643496

Next.ID is one of the main sponsors of this Social Hour Hackathon. We used this AMA opportunity to address any possible queries that participants might have with regard to approaching the bounties. With these rewards, we hope to be able to attract and incentivize developers who wish to explore building with us.

Gloria from Gitcoin shared with the audience what it is like to join a Hackathon. Participants can either team up or go solo. You may find video recordings of past workshops Gitcoin has held on its YouTube channel to get a better foothold. To follow Next.ID’s future developments, you may join our Telegram or Discord as we exchange ideas amongst our developers and other community members.

The reason why we encourage developers to participate in hackathons is because it gives good exposure to industry needs and it is a tremendous boost to their portfolio.

Between the period of 28 Oct to 15 Nov (12 AM UTC+0), there will be 3 bounties with a grand total prize of 6000 USD to be claimed:

1. Headless Browser For Fetching Proof Post

2. Help Us Expand The `Relation_server` Social Graph With More Data Sources

3. Support More Platforms On `Proof_server`

If you would like a walk-through and find out more about the bounties and what Next.ID is up to, feel free to watch the AMA recording:

Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter in Oct 2022 with intentions of tackling the existing problems of censorship, bot infestation, content moderation, etc., it gave rise to the possibility of using Web3 to solve some of these issues. The idea of protocol decentralization and the need to use DIDs to power our identities have certainly been accelerated. We at Next.ID believe that now is the perfect time to bring more awareness to the public about the future of Web3 social, along with use cases of DIDs.

In the current state of social media, we do not truly own the data on these Web2 platforms, resulting in potential mishandling of our private data as platforms are known to sell our personal data to 3rd-party companies. These Web2 social media giants do not want their users to know how their data is being used.

Right now, the idea of Web3 is to shift away from the absolute powers of these conglomerates and build toward a decentralized model of social media. In this newly envisioned version of Web3 social media, users will have greater ownership of all online activities and identities. He/she can decide what info to share, and how much they want to share.

We are gradually seeing more projects sharing the same vision and building on DIDs. It is surely challenging to decentralize our social identities and platform as the technology is still very nascent. Next.ID is evangelizing its DID-aggregating service by reaching out and collaborating with social media dApps, providing them with decentralized identities and social layer graphs. We intend to help dApps lower onboarding friction, eliminate phishing, enhance identity integrity, and enrich social connections.

People are re-evaluating the use of existing Web2 social apps and they have been trying to find alternatives these days. They are now more aware of the importance of data ownership and self-sovereign identities. Early builders and developers are playing the visionary role in making all of the aforementioned ideas a reality.

For the uninitiated, you may listen to the recording as our speakers exchanged some brief explanations of the technicalities and terminologies.

Next.ID is not building just another Web3 protocol. We’re building to facilitate a paradigm shift in an identity infrastructure.

If you are excited about Next.ID and the identity space in general, come forth and join our tribe in helping to build the new foundational layer of the new open internet. Do follow us on Twitter and Discord as we will be hosting many more similar events to chat with leading Web3 industry practitioners and builders.

Speakers:

Hannah Shen, Head of Global Growth at Next.ID

Wei Duan, OSS Community Manager at Next.ID

Gloria, Hackathon and Event Team Member at Gitcoin

Official Site: https://next.id/

Twitter: @nextdotid

GitHub: https://github.com/nextdotid

Discord: https://bit.ly/NextID_Discord_Official

For WeChat Users: add up BinaryHB to join our official group

Bi-weekly Community Call Recordings：

Bilibili: https://space.bilibili.com/1004643496

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC17C9xWKp0h_pZhfxbNtHsg

WAMO Summer Dali Web3 Fest DID Camp is one of the decentralized themed camps of the Dali Web3 Fest. Next.ID, UniPass, MetaID, and KNN3 co-hosted a round-table talk both online and offline. During the talk, the projects focused on building Web3 decentralized identities (DIDs) gathered and took a deep dive into the application level, imagination room, and the current problems in the DID build-out phase.

Here are the key takeaways from the round-table talk.

1. Why do we need DIDs? What are the biggest problems with the current ID system? Are DIDs solving the problems?

• DIDs provide users with the ability to prove their identities online without dependence on a third party. They are the foundation for the entire Web3 self-sovereign narrative. Only through DIDs can users fully own their identities.

• Problems with the current ID system:

  • User data is stored on the respective servers of the different applications

  • Due to the lack of trust among these applications, the data stored is much fragmented, causing data silos in Web2.

  • Users can not fully own their data and are dependent on the mercy of these application providers.

• Blockchain-based DIDs solve the existing problems in the ways of

  • Both user information and their data are stored on-chain, making it nearly impossible to tamper and stay permanently on-chain.

  • Thanks to blockchain’s trustless and transparent nature, data generated by DID-based Web3 applications no longer belong to any business entities, and is interconnected and interoperable, fully owned by users themselves.

  • Historical changes will be made by DIDs. Web3 without DID might be a false assumption.

2. What are the typical solutions for DID? Their pros and cons?

• DID, as well as Web3, is in the early stage. Different projects have their own understandings of DID, which does lead to differentiated focuses. Their visions might be identical, but the roadmap will not be the same. Which is the correct way is still under observation.

• The one and only criterion to decide whether a solution is successful is ultimately the number of satisfied users. The DID narrative has a strong network effect which will eventually benefit all projects on the same track.

• Typical solutions:

  • Smart contracts

  • EOAs (externally owned accounts)

  • UTXO model

  • Domain names

  • To-Cs

• UTXO model and its pros and cons:

  • Easier to make data fully on-chain.

  • Larger user capacity.

  • Lower transaction fees.

  • Costs: there are fewer developers and users on UTXO, which makes it more difficult to start.

3. What are the prerequisites for DID to become mainstream? What is its biggest value proposition? What are the biggest blockers for now?

• Having enough use cases is key. Lowering the entry bar and better user experience will also be vital.

• Values provided by DID-based Web3 applications are relatively intangible to users.

  • It is until there are more Web3 applications in the market and more interoperable data coming into being can users better understand the values of DID.

  • This process is not short-termed, meaning the growth of decentralized identities will be a hard one but also will be exponential in later stages.

• The biggest blocker at present is the lack of infrastructure.

• Gas fees remain an obstacle for DID to achieve mass adoption for the high costs and the difficulty to obtain it. To solve this:

  • Make gas fees lower.

  • Onboard users with fiat on-ramps on gas fees.

4. Wallets, e.g. MetaMask, have become a common user identity layer for Web3 services. Are wallets equivalent to DIDs?

• Wallet and DID are two different applications at the fundamental key pair management level.

  • MetaMask, for example, is built for financial purposes without optimizations in the DID use cases. While DID is more focused on identifying data.

  • Wallets don’t provide users with enough rights to manage their permissions.

  • DID solutions, on the contrary, lower the entry bar and provide users with a more flexible account permission management. Data is not interconnected and interoperable among different wallets, and a user’s identity is not unified cross-chain. MetaMask for now wouldn’t be enough to be an ideal DID-compatible wallet. We need better wallets for this.

5. What’s the relation between DID and social graphs? How do we build our own DIDs and reputation system in the Web3 era? Can the reputation system replace the voting power of tokens in DAO governance? How to build a non-tokenized social network?

• If DID-based Web3 projects go mainstream, because the data is linked, a user will only have one social graph on-chain then. This is a brand new experience for users and users will start to be careful with what they do on-chain as reputation will be an essential part of users’ identity assets.

• There is a large possibility that the reputation system can replace the voting power of tokens in DAO.

  • Tokens only mean how much a user has invested, which doesn’t fit certain monetary scenarios, such as profit allocations.

  • DIDs are more quantified metrics to identify DAO participants.

6. How to balance user privacy and data transparency since DID emphasizes openness?

• Privacy is always key in Web3 and is also an important standard to measure a DID solution/protocol.

• A good DID solution should be one that cares about privacy protections but doesn’t encourage anonymity.

  • An anonymous society isn’t necessarily a perfect society. Introductions of technologies such as ZKP (zero-knowledge poof) are good ways to protect users’ privacy.

  • After DID becomes popular, it should be less advantageous to speak and socialize anonymously. In the foreseeable future, there might be less anonymity.

7. How are SBT (soul-bound tokens) manifested in DID?

• SBT is a sub-DID to some extent, or we can say a good DID solution itself is an SBT.

8. Relations between DID, NFT, DAO, and DeSoc.

• Most of the current NFTs, DAOs, and DeSoc lack DIDs as their foundation, which will be hard for them to popularize.

  • Only with DIDs can Web3 applications and NFTs, etc. be connected in the data layer.

  • The network effect of such data connectivity will have a crushing advantage over applications that don’t have DIDs.

9. From DID to an immortal Metaverse

• DID is the foundation for Web3 and Metaverse.

• An immortal Metaverse is upon us:

  • Combined with AI and DID, it’s highly probable that our minds live eternally in the Metaverse.

  • The future Web3 and Metaverse, based on DID, is a tamper-proof digitalized virtual space that is not controlled by any business entities. As all our online activities become visible on-chain through DIDs, all our on-chain behaviors and our minds can be stored permanently on-chain.

  • When most of our daily lives happen in the Metaverse or in the digitalized world, all this data can be moved on-chain. AI can then simulate our behaviors, our languages, and our minds through machine learning. 4). Immortality is realized when even our close friends and family members cannot tell the difference between AI and us.

Highlights from KNN3

With the rapid growth of Web3 and everyone's concerned about their privacy, DIDs as the carriers for the digital world have come to the spotlight today.

Currently, KNN3 Network as an aggregator of relational data has integrated with different DID protocols such as Next.ID and .bit.

The presence of DIDs allows for a better container for building the reputation system and social graphs. Web2 and Web3 are more relevant to each other thanks to it. A user’s on-chain activities and reputation no longer point to a single wallet but to a more figurative actor.

As DID protocol and the application of ZK continue to take shape, privacy will be greatly enhanced on the basis of users fully owning their data. We expect DIDs to take a bigger role in Web3 social in the future.

Highlights from Next.ID

DIDs are equivalent to ID cards and passports in Web2. Whether we can build a distributed and secure DID system following the Web3 paradigm will be the first step of dApp construction.

At present, EOA (externally owned account) wallets such as MetaMask are still the mainstream for users to use Web3 services for identity authorizations. Meanwhile, some services such as Web3Auth which builds identity authorization in the Web2 manner don’t serve the purpose of self-sovereign identities and full data ownership.

Next.ID wants to allow users to completely have control over their own data through VPS (virtual private server).

Project Info

UniPass: UniPass is a multi-chain unified crypto identity and your universal passport to the crypto world and the metaverse.

• Official site: https://wallet.unipass.id/

• Open-source link: https://v1.tryunipass.com/login

MetaID: MetaID is a Decentralized Identity (DID) sub-protocol of Metanet, the next generation of the Internet.

• Official site: https://www.metaid.io/

KNN3 Network: KNN3 Network is a Web3 Relationship Aggregator on multi-chain to empower Web3 social discovery & user enabling.

• Official site: https://www.knn3.xyz/

Next.ID: Next.ID, the world’s first protocol offering Decentralized-Identity-as-a-Service (DIaaS) is moving into beta testing. It is a decentralized identity aggregation protocol that integrates all Web2 and Web3 digital identities, offering a comprehensive and verifiable identity database for open-source developers and projects to innovate and build dApps on.

• Official site: https://next.id/

• Open-source link: https://github.com/nextdotid

• Discord: https://bit.ly/NextID_Discord_Official

• For WeChat users: BinaryHB

• Bi-weekly community calls：

  • Bilibili: https://space.bilibili.com/1004643496

  • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC17C9xWKp0h_pZhfxbNtHsg

About WAMO Summer Dali Web3 Fest

WAMO Summer Dali Web3 Fest is a two-day camp in the picturesque province of Yunnan, joined by a group of decentralized and DAO communities. The fest brings together tech talents, entrepreneurs, incubators, projects, and DAO practitioners to connect people to build a better Web3.

The internet was born in 1989, thanks to the legendary Tim Berners-Lee. It looked like this:

According to Insider, this is what the first-ever website looked like in 1992.

Today, the internet looks different. For one, there are colors. Even the most basic of websites feature more HTML code than the first-ever website created. For another, hundreds of thousands of people are learning, exploring, and growing the entire ecosystem.

How did we get here? What is here? And where do we go from here? To properly understand this, we need to dive into what digital identities are and how they shape the worldviews we have of the internet.

What is a digital identity?

In a nutshell, our digital identities are how we understand our relationships to the internet.

Take, for example, your passport. As long as you hold it, you have a claim over your birth name and birth date. We can call this your physical identity. As long as you hold your passport, you have rights in your home country that tourists don’t.

Similarly, your Digital Identity gives you rights online, depending on how you use it. We’ll delve into them later, but it’s important to recognize that whenever you do anything online with your digital identity, you will knowingly leave “footprints” behind in the form of posts you create, but also unknowingly leave “footprints” behind in the form of cookies and metadata.

Now that we have a high-level understanding of Digital Identity, let’s go back in history and take a chronological look at how it has evolved over time.

Digital Identity in Web1 (the “Read-Only” phase) from a user’s perspective

Scroll up and look at the first picture in this article again. Text and hyperlinks. Those were what made up the majority of Web1, which is why it was known as the read-only phase of the internet. Pictures came later, and when Dr. Fun, one of the first webcomic platforms, was published, it was heralded as “a major breakthrough for the Web” by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.

Where did Digital Identity come into play against such a landscape? This is a bit of a trick question as Digital Identities were not accessible to the masses. The level of interactivity was so limited that you couldn’t even enter your email address to get sent updates from your favorite creators — the functionality hadn’t been invented yet.

What does this mean for users?

In Web1, we were all limited citizens — perhaps even ghosts — who were only allowed to interact with basic text and hyperlinks that site owners have put out. We were spectators who did not feel any sense of ownership over anything seen online, and this is part of the reason using the internet in those days was so transitory. It was purely window shopping, nothing else.

Digital Identity in Web2 (the “Read-Write” phase) from a user’s perspective

Then things started to change. The infrastructure got better, more people started recognizing the value of the internet, and the invention of a new beast — social media — started a complete revolution.

With this heightened interest in the internet, major giants started appearing. You may have heard of some of them: Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter, and Neopets just to name a few. Interactivity was key to getting users on their platforms, as the more we could play games, watch videos, or talk to friends, the more of our time we were spending on these platforms, and the more advertising dollars they got.

This is where Digital Identity really started to form: you needed a form of identification for interactions online to be meaningful. It was a win-win solution: you were able to interact with others online and companies were able to get feedback on what you wanted to do online.

Phase 1: Siloed identities

• Username + password logins

• Email addresses

• Mobile phone numbers

A virtual pets website, Neopets, has used siloed identities since its launch in 1999.

The initial stages were pretty much a free-for-all among digital companies. As they were figuring out how to engage with users, they started creating the very first forms of “digital identity”.

Think of these “digital identities” as membership cards — they were recognized by the card issuers but nowhere else, essentially making them siloed. Siloed identities are still common today. Most websites that enable signups or subscriptions allow you to create a new login which you can then use to interact with the website.

Phase 2: Federalised identities (via the OpenID standard)

• One-tap logins across multiple platforms

• E.g. Sign in with Facebook/Gmail

Spotify allows logins via federalized identities.

Not all internet-native companies are created equal. With the incredible growth of tech giants like Facebook and Google, we soon saw attempts at creating federalized identities. Federalized identities are created via the OpenID standard, which enables you to provide your details to one provider, who is then authorized to share this with other websites you visit. The OpenID standard has been adopted mainly by the bigger tech companies who are aiming to integrate users into a larger ecosystem of apps.

Note: OpenID is an open-sourced standard created in 2005. Since then, there have been over 1 billion OpenID-enabled accounts, with over 50,000 websites accepting them.

At first glance, federalized identities are a win-win-win solution for users, the tech giants, and the platforms that integrate the federalized identities. After all, this system leads to a much quicker signup process for users, tech giants increase the scope of their data collection with minimal work, and the platforms gain access to a wider range of users.

However, if we looked deeper into how it’s set up, we’ll soon notice a few issues with digital identity in Web2, all inherent to the fact that we’re using third-party platforms:

• Censorship may occur at any time

• Our data is being sold without consent

• Data breaches may occur

• We don’t own our identities

This is not meant as a criticism of Web2, it is showing that there can and will always be improvements to be made.

What does this mean for users?

Web2 so far has shown us a glimpse of what is possible with Digital Identity. It was the first time “normal” people from one corner of the world could interact with friends from the opposite corner in split seconds. Social media itself has been a beast of revolution, upending how we interact with friends and even strangers.

While Web2 users are happy with their experience so far, this will only continue for as long as tech giants and the platforms they use act in a benevolent way. In essence, on Web2, We are children, able to make some choices but the moment our parents (i.e. tech companies) get upset, we have no choice but to obey them. This happens most obviously in cases of censorship and data privacy.

This brings us to…

Decentralized Identities (the “Read-Write-Own” phase) from a user’s perspective

Now we’re on the cutting edge of technology. The path forward is always being paved, and for all the good that Web2 has brought us as digital citizens, it’s time to stop renting digital space and become homeowners for ourselves. After all, if the Web1 to Web2 revolution brought such drastic changes, imagine what the Web2 to Web3 revolution will bring.

Web3 differs from Web1 and Web2 because it operates primarily on blockchain technology. Being on-chain provides new advantages such as everyone being able to own part of it, allowing projects to be community-owned (i.e. decentralized).

Decentralized Identities are digital identities that are generated by a completely neutral protocol, generated from pure math. Put simply, imagine if a large corporation like Google or Facebook were issuing identities, except for decentralized identities, the “issuer” is Math. This completely eliminates the possibility of the issuer selling your data or spying on you without consent.

What does this mean for users?

While Decentralized Identities are not yet in mainstream use, it effectively demonstrates how Web2 Digital identities’ main weaknesses can be nullified: take decision-making power away from the identity issuer and they won’t be able to sell or use your data without your consent.

The driving motivation for Decentralized Identities is for users to own their own identities and not rely on centralized third parties for verification. This is a huge step. We are now adults, having graduated from “renting” space from tech giants and able to interact directly with protocols with self-owned identities.

Why we need to understand Decentralized Identities

Decentralized identities are important because of the growth of social protocols. Many such protocols are decentralized and permissionless, so if the decentralized identity is integrated into these social protocols, you’ll 1) own your identity and 2) have an uncensorable platform.

Now, imagine you have an ID/passport/driver’s license. Every time someone else uses it, they need to crack an unbreakable (cryptographic) code. Only you, who can prove your identity, get free access to it. This future is made possible by the cryptographic technology that enables Web3, and may well be a cornerstone of decentralized identities.

Because the decentralized identity space is still evolving, there are competing ways of determining identity:

• Verified Credentials

• Holding a “badge” or a “Verified Credential” in your account could verify that you’re a member of a community

• Soulbound NFTs

• Same as Verified Credentials, except Soulbound NFTs cannot be transferred and are permanently associated with your wallet

• Referral networks (like Proof-of-Humanity)

• Using word-of-mouth to create a community of verified accounts. Proof-of-Humanity does this by requiring existing community members to refer their friends to the network

Where Next.ID fits in this Digital Identity landscape

Now that we’ve covered most of what you need to know about Digital Identity, let’s take a look at where Next.ID fits in. Next.ID is the world’s first Decentralized-Identity-As-A-Service (DIaaS) protocol, with the goal of creating a home for all digital identities, ultimately integrating digital identities from both Web2 and Web3.

With a community-centric approach and the ultimate goal of decentralization, the founding members of Next.ID has laid the groundwork for its success by pioneering 3 pieces of technology: ProofService, KVService, and RelationService.

Together, these 3 technical breakthroughs create the foundation for Next.ID.

• ProofService uses a blockchain-like model to store data and retain data integrity using cryptography, ensuring that only users with the correct private keys can make changes to their identity.

• KVService’s full name is Key Value Service. It’s a framework to store key information, facilitating developers in creating new use cases.

• RelationService aggregates existing IDs, ID queries, and IDs bound to and in parallel to Next.ID, opening up possibilities for integration with external projects and creating more native social use cases

The Next.ID strategy is simple: we want to build a public good that benefits every user of the internet, from Web2 to Web3, and anything that comes after.

We want to build an ecosystem that wins and helps other projects win. Our long-term goal, as you can see from the roadmap below, is to eventually build a framework for normal everyday users to self-host their data, creating a properly-decentralized world with all the liberties it promises.

Next.ID roadmap

If you’re interested in building with us, check out docs.next.id or reach out to us at developer@next.id. Follow us on Twitter: @NextDotID.

Next.ID comprises of 3 main services:

1. ProofService

2. KVService

3. RelationService

The session started with a product demo illustrating the back-end mechanics followed by an in-depth explanation of each individual service. Other developer communities were invited to familiarize themselves with Next.ID’s vision, so as to allow for open-source building and collaborations.

You can watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/sVVXA5gxHzM

Key Takeaways:

• In existing identity systems, users do not fully own their digital identities. Web2 social media companies have control over our online data and privacy. Our accounts and content can easily be censored or deleted by these companies. Next.ID aims to solve this issue by returning ownership of digital identities back to users.

• Next.ID’s ProofService, KVService, and RelationService are in-house developed identity management services that allow users to aggregate identities across Web2 and Web3 via Avatars. Developers are free to brainstorm and leverage Next.ID’s back-end API/protocol to build their front-end applications.

• Next.ID is exploring ways to incentivize community members to get involved in the development of its DAO. We want to find a solution to provide the best user experience without compromising user privacy.

• ProofService is the core DID management service that aggregates all identities across Web2 and Web3.

• KVService allows users to store data off-chain on Arweave, without sacrificing the user’s ownership of the data. Cryptography and public-private key pairs are used to validate the data and only the user gets to modify it.

• RelationService builds a robust connection tree between the network of identities. It contains upstream data collected from third parties which are then combined to build a more comprehensive identity database. Examples of on-chain Web3 protocols include RSS3, CyberConnect, and LensProtocol. Examples of off-chain Web2 parties include Keybase and ProofService.

• Common misconception from Q&A: Next.ID DID aggregation does not happen on the blockchain. Instead, it uses ProofChain which is a model that builds trustless authentication.

For anyone who is interested in future Twitter Spaces & Discord AMAs, please follow Next.ID @nextdotid. We will be hosting more similar events and will continue to invite more industry leaders and emerging Web3 builders to talk with us.

Speaker Info:

• Minority Programmers

• Her DAO

• 0xCorgi

• Developer DAO

• Product Demo: Wei Duan, Community Manager at Next.ID

• AMA Respondents: Yisi Liu & Nyk Ma, Core Engineers at Next.ID

• Host: Hannah Shen, Head of Global Growth at Next.ID

Project Info:

• Minority Programmers is a global network of developers unified to spread STEM education & build socially impactful dApps

• Her DAO is a women-led developer DAO championing innovation, diversity, and women-led ventures

• 0xCorgis is a developer advocate who aims to make code cute and informative

• Developer DAO is a community of people who are interested in participating, learning, and contributing to the future of Web3.

• Next.ID is the world’s first Decentralized-Identity-as-a-Service (DIaaS) protocol

DID Summer is a Twitter Space series by Next.ID where Web3 projects and builders gather and exchange ideas on building cutting-edge decentralized identity infrastructure and applications.

____

Timestamps:

00:00 Welcome and intro

2:08 Product demo introduction

4:20 ProofService step-by-step

11:07 Community Governance

12:41 Quick summary of demo

13:51 Round-table discussion

16:33 Vision and progress for Next.ID

23:50 Her DAO’s thoughts on the Web3 DID space

26:02 0xCorgi’s take on open-source identity management

27:52 What is DIaaS (Decentralized-Identity-as-a-Service)?

33:10 Mission and plans for the respective guest communities

38:10 How can community members participate in Next.ID’s development as a DAO?

44:00 Explanation of ProofService, KVService, RelationService

55:00 Q&A

For anyone who is interested in future Twitter Spaces & Discord AMAs, please follow Next.ID on Twitter at @nextdotid. We will be hosting more events and continue to invite more industry leaders and emerging Web3 builders to share their thoughts.

Next.ID hosted DID Summer Episode 1 on 20 July 2022 with Decentralised Digital Identity (DID) Web3 builders — KNN3, Collab.land, Ceramic, .bit and Unipass. Representing various types of DIDs with different use cases, they set aside some time to discuss the importance and use cases of DIDs.

They shared diverse perspectives on DIDs, such as how ownership of identities can enable greater use cases. Use cases include proving one’s humanity beyond wallet addresses and this could even bring about real-world use cases beyond Web3. These builders also shared their project’s roadmaps and their thoughts on DID’s future outlook.

You can watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/tE1cw6HXJTQ

Key Takeaways:

• In current identity systems, we, as users, do not own our identity. However, this has enabled third parties like Web2 social media companies to remove our content and even our accounts.

• Decentralized Digital Identities (DIDs) are important as they give us ownership over our identities and thus our voice in the world. Ownership enables us to:

1. Own and claim credentials

2. Build our financial and social reputation

3. Build our relationships and connections with others

4. Blend our IRL and digital identities

• DIDs are bringing ownership of individual identities via private wallets and NFTs. More forms of identification may be expected to emerge as projects find more ways to decide what constitutes the user’s DID.

• DIDs enable us to identify ourselves beyond our wallet addresses, proving our identities in more holistic and colourful manners. This includes:

1. Aggregation of our Web2 & Web3 identities

2. Contextualisation of our social connections with others

3. Verifiable credentials that build our social and financial reputation

• DIDs prove our individuality — DIDs use proofs such as verifiable credentials to validate identities. Using DID protocols, we are able to validate IDs, eliminate bots and enable different types of governance.

• As we build the identity infrastructure for dApps, we can expect future use cases such as:

1. Alternative governance and voting models

2. Integration of SBTs and DIDs to create a trustless mechanism in Web3 social

3. Greater coordination of Web3 social activities

For anyone who is interested in future Twitter Spaces, please follow Next.ID @nextdotid. We will be hosting more events of this kind, and continue to invite more industry leaders and emerging Web3 builders to talk with us.

Speaker Info:

• Yisi Liu, Core Maintainer of the Next.ID Community

• Thomas Yu, Co-founder of KNN3

• James Young, CEO of Collab.Land

• Lauren Feld, Head of Growth at Ceramic

• Vicky, Director of Global Market at .bit

• Iris, Head of Business Development and Strategy at Unipass

• Host: Hannah Shen, Head of Global Growth at Next.ID

Project Info:

• KNN3 is a Web3 relationship aggregator on multiple blockchains

• Collab.land leverages the power of identity through cryptocurrency to create a social space unique to a specific network of humans.

• Ceramic is a decentralized data network that brings unlimited data composability to Web3 applications.

• .bit are Web 3.0 identities for you and your community

• Unipass is a universal passport to the metaverse

• Next.ID is the world’s first Decentralized-Identity-as-a-Service (DIaaS) protocol

DID Summer is a Twitter Space series by Next.ID where Web3 projects and builders gather and exchange ideas on building cutting-edge decentralized identity infrastructure and applications.

Trading on OpenSea is pretty much a straightforward affair. Open a tab, browse the collections you want, find sellers with art that speaks to you, place a bid, and voila, you may be the owner of a super-rare punk.

What if this experience could be improved? Swapchat’s new partnership with Next.ID solves exactly this.

What are Swapchat and Next.ID?

Swapchat is a decentralised cross-platform messaging app that aims to increase communication across Web3 communities, reducing the crypto community’s reliance on centralised platforms like Twitter and Discord and addressing the lack of interactive functions on Opensea. Users can send direct messages as well as form community group chats around NFT collections using Swapchat’s Chrome plugin.

Complementing Swapchat is Next.ID, a Universal Identity System. Next.ID is a protocol that enables users to crystallize and solidify their online identities across Web2 and Web3, consolidating and authenticating identities from social media platforms (eg Facebook and Instagram) to blockchain wallets (eg Metamask). Next.ID builds the basis for a comprehensive user-owned digital identity social graph, enabling us to grow our networks beyond isolated accounts.

OpenSea 🤝 Swapchat 🤝Next.ID 🤝 Twitter

When you see what Swapchat has built on OpenSea, your first thought will be “OpenSea should have built this long ago!” By allowing conversations between buyers and sellers, a natural conclusion will be a greater price discovery mechanism via negotiations. Buyers will be able to offer NFTs, tokens, and any combination of both for sellers to consider, and sellers will have a different avenue to better articulate price demands.

Because Swapchat works cross-platform, users can easily get notifications for updates on Opensea from their Twitter interface and vice versa. Plus, if users can also use Swapchat as an initial starting point before moving to trusted third party protocols like Sudoswap for OTC NFT transfers — without extra fees.

How Swapchat x Next.ID can revolutionize Web3 communities

Next.ID’s universal identity system opens new pathways to building a community. For example, users who connect their Twitters to Metamask via Next.ID are able to follow each other and continue their conversations there.

Buyers and sellers of gaming NFTs can discuss strategies and potential combinations that will give them an edge over others, and GameFi projects benefit from greater liquidity and communication among players.

Newly-launched projects can also encourage greater conversations within their communities in a trustless way, using Swapchat as a tool to drive hype and conversations about roadmaps.