Verifiable credentials meet Web3 thanks to Zk | ETHDenver 2023

well thank you everyone again you are the yeah yeah early birds uh we're going to talk about identity so I'll start by saying that don't worry I'm not gonna explain for the fourth or fifth time the self-serving identity what verified conditions are the ID so sorry if you came from an intro we are going to assume that all these concepts are clear and I want to speak about uh how we're bringing these referral credentials to be used on blockchain so I'm quite old probably older than most in this room uh I remember seeing that Meme right the request quite funny uh saying that yeah nobody knows that you are a dog and internet nobody actually knows anything about your work during the internet but now that has moved from being something uh funny to be something a bit scary right especially when you consider how this can be made worse by the use of generative Ai and other tools right we already have the problem with boats with automation uh and and this is is making the identity topic uh going from vitamin right to a painkiller it was it was a nice thing before but now it's becoming something that we really need to unblock some use cases even if you ask one of these AIS right what is the the cure for this fake defect Etc the answer that change TPT will give you is yes you use blockchain so there we go we need uh users to be humans unique compliant well repute and trustworthy so we can open all the other use cases web 3 has been promising these use cases for a long time right think about democracy think about high value transactions portable reputation a single Global identity all these promises require that we have that trust right we see this lack of trust in the user or the inability to uh produce distrust in the user as the main block for many of the use cases in ethereum and in general in blockchain so scalability was the first thing to unblock was the first thing to solve for get the mass adoption but uh now we only have the base layer we have okay we have a work control computer Global computer we need to go for the next uh the next stage and the next stage is uh certainly uh certainly identity so let me do a quick uh super fast summary of what is a status quo of identity in blockchain an identity is nothing more than an identifier and attributes right and when you look at how different companies have been trying to solve the uh self-sovering Identity or decentralized identity Paradigm there are two different approaches there is one that is becoming very popular which is okay just everybody has a key right all of you have a wallet all of you have a key so just use that as identifier and then use nfts to express your attributes but there are some challenges with this approach first of all is privacy right so what is the amount of information that we are willing to put publicly on an nft how much do we want to enrich our addresses with public information that also limits the amount of attributes and the richness of the identities that we can create with the system and that's why we have seen this approach used mostly for public reputation uh I would say positive public reputation or things we want to brag about membership and even proof of personhood and I would say the proof of personhood uh or proof of humanity is the last thing that most people are willing to share openly in an nft if we cross the line to more private scenes like Biometrics proof of uniqueness reputational scores etc etc Highway sees right the line is not so clear and privacy concerns start to appear so when we need to serve we need to use this identity for uh more uh high value scenarios or or scenarios where there there is a higher value of the transaction or there is a higher trust required we need to go for the other approach which is to use decentralized identifiers and verify your credentials they have been around for a long time right this is not news uh most of you probably have already heard about the ID somebody file credentials but this is true that they provide a level of flexibility and privacy that is required to to use this kind of credentials right for a long time the blockchain community has seen kycs kyb's Biometrics all these uh types of data as a toxic uh asset right so we need to find the mechanism that somehow can bring the compliance and the trust that this type of proofs bring to the to the ecosystem without uh living apart their privacy but there is a there is a gap here and there is one thing that verifies credentials aren't good for in the what vehicle system which is on chain verification on chain verifiability right and that is what we're going what we have come to announce here uh with the support of all chain verifications for free fire credentials polygon ID already had on chain verification of credentials we already were able to uh using data from a credential to to Mint a zero knowledge proof or to create a Serial knowledge proof that was presented on chain the news here is that we are supporting now the standards right that is the news polygon idea already have these capabilities but now we are moving towards the standards and that has two implications or two to two outcomes right the first is that if you were using verify your credentials or if you were already creating verify your credentials you can now verify them on chain right on the other uh outcome of this and the reason why we are moving to the standard is because we want to create liquidity of credentials in the ethereum ecosystem and by liquidity of credentials we mean what are the chances that a user has a valid credentials when they want to interact with an application and now I'd like to take as an example uh our old known I would say friends but from web 2 right why is the button logging with Google so prevalent what is the button logging with Twitter with Facebook and the reason is because if you're a app developer you know that the chances that your user already has credential on that system is 99 percent right that probability is that makes the developer to decide yes it's going to be a good experience for 99 or 100 of my users right and that is because these providers have this liquidity of credentials in web 3 we haven't achieved any system that has that liquidity of credential any mechanism that you choose to access control or to gather information from your user you are making a bet on an identity system right that may not have the the liquidity of credentials that the other options do and that's where many times resort to logging with the wallet right or just use passwords so I want to reinforce this idea of liquidity of credentials with really on a mission here right and and the reason what I want to reinforce this is because um I want to make very clear what is our mission here why is polygon doing polygon ID right we are doing this because we want these Liquidators credentials there are two reasons first adoption we think there are many use cases out there real-world use cases that will not be unlocked until the identity layer is solved that's Point number one point number two we have seen many attempts on many actors to solve this identity layer right but uh it's it's difficult because you need to bring together an ecosystem I will talk about that later but for that reason we're making all our Innovation or level developments open source right the first thing where we are registering now a new did method with very Advanced uh features like you can see key rotation prior application uh multiple profiles CK query language so it's in our opinion one of the most advanced did measures out there especially when it comes to privacy right and flexibility we are making that open source as any other component that we are publishing on polygon ID our main goal is adoption both from the developers to solve the identity layer and then from the users that will be unlocking all these use cases and this is I think the most important slide or the most important point and what to make today I was here to talk about a product launch about the product update right there's nice features good technology come to our booth we will explain you all the details right but I think what is important is why us right we are not the only ones trying to solve the identity uh thing on the blockchain many have tried before many are trying right but we we have a different ambition of this we have super strong technology believe us we can we can prove it right and there you will have the repos you can check it for yourself but we think that the identity game is not about technology it's about an ecosystem right and we have the ability to attract people to that ecosystem because we are a trusted infrastructure provider that is well known and has massive adoption in the serum ecosystem so even before having the code released I mean we open the repos this week right before having the repos we already have a lot of Partners working with us right and we have many more that that are not in this list that are also interested and and exploring the code already and running proof of Concepts right and this is the key the key is not how fancy technology is the key is that if as a developer our developer you choose to authenticate and to Value to verify the identity of your users with polygon ID there is a high chance that your users will already have credentials that they can use so uh as we like to say show me the code right so all this is is cool is is good I can I can tell you the stories but you can check for yourself everything is open source you can see this is what we are releasing launching in this release uh if you are if you're a wallet provider there is a wallet SDK you can integrate identity capabilities into your uh wallet if you are a developer you have the verifier SDK you can check verify your credentials you can do passwordless login with the did and if you are an issuer if you're a source of trust if you are delivering kyc or Biometrics or you're an oracle or you have some information that may be used useful for your users you have a self-hosted is your node that uh will will help you to create these credentials right we move away from any SAS solution we don't want to centralize any or host any information right so every issuer is hosting their their own credentials there is always also some beta repos we invite everybody to to test them to check them to uh to give us feedback uh there is one very interesting uh JavaScript SDK that you can use beyond the wallets right you can issue credentials you can verify credentials on browser extensions applications I mean the possibilities are quite quite wide so here's the code we are at the booth uh contact to us if you if you don't have a clear idea of how this identity model may fit in your particular project if you don't understand how to make this into a real use case that is why we like to talk the most right so con and I'll ask us thank you very much [Applause]