Author: Spike

Editor: Jerry Crypto

DID: Decentralized Identity❎

DID: Dissociative Identity Disorder✔️

When we Googled DID, the first explanation is Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) which is a medical term rather than the crypto concept(Decentralized Identity) we knew already. Compared to DeFi, GameFi, NFT, and DAO, DID is a highly neglected area that has not received enough attention from investment institutions and technology developers.

In the context of the Decentralised Society (DeSoc) with a richer and more diverse ecosystem, so we believe that DID is a key component of building DeSoc, but also a crucial portal to Web 3. Previously, we had pinned our hopes on the NFT’s unique characteristics to complete the identification in Web 3. In reality, however, some NFT artists and creators are bothered by plagiarism and fraud. For example, Rarible auctioned off the unlicensed artwork of Derek Laufman, the designer of Marvel's Super Hero Adventures. By its nature, it is arguably not Web 3 at all.

Due to DID being the hub of all digital, it is imperative to create a shared, flexible and resilient identity layer. As DIDs are adopted by more users and Dapps, all digital processing permissions are to be in the hands, of the one who is not confined to a single application system, multiple accounts and password records. Only based on DID Web3 empowerment like DeFi, GameFi, NFT and DAO, as well as other promising scenarios, it will blossom into a more exciting narrative.

The full research report is divided into three chapters:

Chapters two: A History of DID Development

The following concepts are essential for the narrative, and it doesn't matter if you disagree with, as they do not affect our understanding at all. The focus of this section is on "a look back at what constitutes our use of the Internet" as a way of exploring the future development of DID.

1. Where it all began: the first appearance of the Web

Web 1.0: the World Wide Web and the browser. First of all, we have to acknowledge the basic fact that it was the concept of Web 2.0 that gave the World Wide Web its "honorary" name.

It was only after the network technology came out of the military laboratories and research institutes that we had the so-called Internet, and at this time, the entrance was the browser and the World Wide Web, which basically constituted the whole concept of the web, and while it was things like RSS and BBS that were the main scenarios behind the use of data. The IDs at this time were mainly email addresses, personal domain names and forum IDs, with very clear components.

2. The historical origins of Internet privacy: the growth of personal data

Web 2.0 and UGC, Blogs, iPhone, 5G, XR

From Blogs to Tik Tok, the right to personal expression went through a continuous phase of decentralisation, from the beginning of the elite to a universal media, from middle age to adolescence, the Internet became an a priori presence in the Z-era, an unquestionable status, an airy and ubiquitous infrastructure like water, electricity and coal.

As we all know, the 2016 US election saw the outbreak of the sale of personal data by Facebook, which was used by Cambridge Analytica to some extent to control the US election. This is possible on the basis of two assumptions: firstly, that people leave a large digital trail of their privacy on the internet; and secondly, that people concentrate on leaving their personal data on certain applications, such as Facebook and Twitter.

What needs to be made clear is that the concept of personal data emerged first, followed by the debate about privacy. The gradual migration of IDs to social tools at this time does not mean the demise of the mailbox, but rather a change in people's habits of use and, more appropriately, the emergence of Facebook as an optional login tool in addition to the mailbox, provided that people use Facebook by default for everyone.

But the downside of this situation is becoming increasingly apparent today, our data is held within apps like Google, Facebook etc. It may seem like we are talking about our privacy, but in fact we are talking about our relationship with these companies.

3. DID under Web 3: a portal

Web 3.0 is a crossroads of concepts, which from the time the concept was introduced in 2004, through the transformation of the traditional Internet and the gradual establishment of a link to the blockchain. This connection was not made in one step, at least through the (public chain) Bitcoin, Ethereum and EOS era, in an attempt to replace the WWW with a public chain. This has effectively failed so far, and the parallel chains of the Polkadot era that followed were an admission that it was not feasible to have one chain for all.

When we talk about blockchains, the various eras point to different things, from the original Bitcoin to the later DeFi and NFT to today's Web 3.0, which does not mean that the latter replaces the former, but more of a gradual overlapping development between them.

Just as we ordinary people now do not have to understand the TCP/IP protocol, the principles of compilation, or the principles of computer composition in order to use a device to access the Internet, we do not know in the incubation phase of building Web 3.0 technologies what will be the final constituent elements and what will eventually be discarded as floating dust. But humanity will eventually progress and grow towards the digital age in the use of Web 3.0, and then we will now be convinced of the importance of DIDs. There will always be a portal, and it won't be a portal.

In Satoshi Nakamoto's vision, it would be better for people to use one address per transaction, which would provide maximum privacy. But the truth is that no one does this every day except hackers and people who forget their Mnemonic Phrases. We are used to using a single address for a long time rather than a single address every time; more importantly, the blockchain has evolved beyond Satoshi Nakamoto's "blockchain".

But in interactability and decentralisation, there must be a finite number. This is similar to social tools, where a true infrastructure creates strong user stickiness, especially in the decentralised world.

Web 3.0 will embrace much of the plays, absorbing concepts such as blockchain, DeFi, NFT and together forming the next generation of the internet, meanwhile DIDs will become the most direct port for interaction. It is necessary, then, to list the paths by which DIDs are likely to become:

(1)L1: Identifiers and Standards

Standards, Identifiers and Namespaces work together to build the public trust layer, ensuring standardisation, portability and interoperability.

This section also defines how DIDs are registered and used to manage them, providing developers and users with rules and environmental standards for accessing the web identity system.

Source: the W3C

The most typical here is the DID standard drafted by the W3C, dating back as far as 2019, where the draft document states that "each DID document may represent cryptographic material, an authentication method, or a service endpoint. These documents provide a set of systems that enable the DID controller to demonstrate control over the DID. And, the service endpoint enables trusted interaction with the DID."

Overall, this was a milestone in the history of DID in that we acknowledged for the first time that DID was feasible and attempted to outline its general direction and framework, but in terms of subsequent developments, none of the existing projects have adopted this standard, so we will not go into the details of it.

(2) L2: Infrastructure

Having recognised the importance of DIDs, we have begun to explore how they should be designed, but one thing is certain: they will become an infrastructure, closer to the underlying concept of an API or SDK.

This is because a DID as infrastructure and proxy framework would allow bi-directional or even multilateral interaction between applications, even between DIDs and DIDs, and interconnecting data and information at a protocol level, as well as allowing applications to interact directly with a registry of verifiable data.

The DID in this concept should at least include communication, storage and key management, and if it goes further, it can be "de-passworded" while retaining login and authentication functions.

Here is a look at what such an infrastructure might look like in the context of the traditional Internet.

Source:FIDO

For example, FIDO, a concept that Apple also officially started supporting at WWDC 2022, we briefly describe the steps for its use:

(1) Using your phone as a roaming authenticator

(2) Sharing Multi-device FIDO credential

In theory, FIDO can also be cut into the future of Web 3.0 networks. This crypto technology with once-authenticated, password-abandoning, multi-device use is ideally suited for the network infrastructure in the future.

(3) L3: Credentials

FIDO is ultimately a product of Web 2.0 and is not necessarily fully adapted to the needs of Web 3.0. We need to manage and update identity credentials, and they need to be interchangeable. This layer aims to address how the DID determines the "proof of control" and "proof of authentication", and how to securely pass data between identity owners.

In fact, there are already attempts at this concept, such as DAS (Decentralized Account Systems), a decentralized account system that does not rely on a specific public chain and supports multi-public chain and multi-protocol interactions.

The idea behind DAS is to swap individual addresses to a system of unique accounts ending in .bit, which are themselves decentralised and can be used directly as account addresses to receive payments, login and of course as access portals to Dapp. This is essentially a secondary innovation based on the DID concept, which is a more underlying protocol than applications such as wallets.

Source: DAS

But this begs the question, is this a DID or not, or what is the difference between DID and wallet? You know, wallets are hard to remember, but Dapp login and interaction within the wallet is very smooth. So this could be used as an idea for reference, but it's hardly mainstream.

(4) L4: Wallet and Dapp

This layer is the most familiar. In addition to the MetaMask mentioned above, there are projects such as Goldfinch (Loans without collateral) that use proprietary and unique entity checks, but this will only use them when the DID technology is mature. In other words, it is the idea of waiting until the DID system is mature enough and the number of users is large enough for it to work. In contrast, other applications are already using existing DID technology, such as TrueFi (powered by the first ever on-chain credit scores ), Gitcoin (blockchain-based incentivization layer for open source software) and Ethsign (decentralised electronic protocols).

Source: CyberConnect

A more viable idea is CyberConnect, which is similar to the WalletConnect development idea for wallets. "What if I can't beat MetaMask, but there are other wallets at the same time?" Simple, bring them together at the protocol level so that Dapp developers only need to set aside development time for MetaMask and WalletConnect.

CyberConnect is exactly the same idea, "I don't really know what kind of social products people will be using and what they will be doing on the web in the future Web 3.0, but in short, they need a protocol like this."

This would turn into a DID + aggregator, forming a social graph of information for a certain address, which all comes from on-chain data ending up as a more front-loaded aggregator while avoiding competition with specific Dapps. For example, we can use the address to retrieve information about a certain person and at the same time view ourselves.

Is that all there is to it?

Of course not, as we gradually dive deeper and drop into the design logic of specific products, we also need a more macro view of the future of DIDs.

(5) LX: DID for DeSoc

This is something that goes beyond a single layer and has an impact on applications on multiple layers, which may be a direction to look forward to in the future. The current reference is the European General Data Protection Regulation(GDPR) which has an impact on all areas of the ecosystem.

In the Web 3.0 space, it is more intuitive that this could be "soul binding", of which DIDs would be a direct example. ThePrimedia will cover this in the next article, so stay tuned for "Chapter 3: Another attempt to find yourself".