Decentralized Identities — What are They?

On the heels of the latest developments in privacy (ex. Facebook’s data scandal), blockchain based identity solutions seem to be all the rage with companies such as Civic and uPort working on interesting solutions.

But in the midst of a frenzy to capture what seems like a juicy niche we seem to be neglecting the philosophical aspect of what an identity even is.

I believe that today’s vision for blockchain-based decentralized identities don’t even scratch the surface of what’s possible. This technology is insanely important — it’s just that we didn’t figure out what it’s for yet. And to me, that’s the exciting part.

Defining Identities

So what is an identity? Is it your social security number? Your name? Your face? Your personality? Your Facebook profile? The truth is, we don’t really know.

Any of the aforementioned things constitute a part, or a representation, of your identity. Beyond that we are hard-pressed to define this term.

But the best way to explore this question is to try and figure out what a decentralized identity on the blockchain is good for, besides helping you retain ownership over your own data.

Use-case for Identities

Blockchain and cryptocurrencies come with an interesting feature: An owner of a private key can sign any message he or she wants, and thereby proving that they are the owner of a certain Bitcoin address.

For example, no Satoshi pretender will ever be recognized until he or she cryptographically proves ownership over Satoshi’s wallets!

In a world where it is becoming technologically feasible to create a fake a video of you saying something that you have never said, a digital and decentralized identity that you use as a proxy can serve as a shield against fraud.

Moreover, if we take the feature of cryptographically siging messages and combine it with a blockchain-based verified identity with a name, we start seeing an interesting solution.

Cryptographically Signing Anything

Today I’m working on a project called Safebit, a consumer platform that aims to solve crypto’s UX problems and the issues of blockchain interoperability. (Read more here and join our Telegram)

As part of this project, we are developing a new blockchain called Sigbit — A peer to peer electronic stamp system and DNS.

Sigbit enables you to own your identity and use it to cryptographically sign any action: Tweets, emails, contracts, anything!

By having this kind of identity you have a much higher degree of control over your public and private actions — you can sign a Tweet with your identity, proving to everyone that you, the owner of your private key, is behind that Tweet. And no one else.

But imagine if we go beyond that.

What is Satoshi Nakamoto?

Satoshi can be considered one of the first decentralized identities — and we can’t even define what Satoshi is exactly!

Is it a person? A group? A company?

I think the most apt designation may be avatar.

Pardon this next comparison, but in my opinion the closest thing to Satoshi is probably Batman or Zorro. Like the two characters described, Satoshi has become a symbol, an idea. If he wanted to, he could transfer his private key (his cape) to someone else, and the world would be non the wiser — Satoshi is whoever owns Satoshi’s private keys! The person behind the mask does not matter anymore.

What does this mean? We don’t know yet. But I do have a feeling that Satoshi’s are increasingly needed in this world.