Welcome to a new era for decentralised identity

Welcome to a new era for decentralised identity

Co-authored by Alex TweeddaleRoss Power, and Ankur Banerjee

We DID it! 🎉🥳 cheqd has recently launched its mainnet for a token-incentivised SSI network built on the Cosmos blockchain framework. This mainnet comes as a successor to our successful testnet releases and incorporates our tokenomics for mainnetcheqd Governance Framework and core identity functionality.

Recap

Over the past nine months, since cheqd greeted the world in April, we’ve been on quite the journey. It was only four months ago in July that we announced our roadmap to launch an incentivised SSI Network on Cosmos, and since then we quickly open-sourced our code and launched our testnet in August, together with our initial partners EvernymOutlier Ventures and DIDx. The next month, in September, we raised $2.6 million into equity at a $42.6 million valuation.

Alongside these large milestones, we have also made a number of smaller accomplishments. We have created the first of its kind decentralised governance framework for self-sovereign identity (SSI), based on the principle of increasing Entropy. We have transparently released our tokenomic parameters and distribution strategy. And we have made numerous educational blog posts on SSI and DeFi.

This is a big one though.

We are thrilled to announce that we have successfully:

  1. Launched our mainnet alongside over 20 leading SSI vendors, as Node Operators
  2. Launched the $CHEQ token for incentivised SSI payments
  3. Enabled core identity functionality on our mainnet release

Where do we begin?

Two weeks ago, we released our new software version (“v0.3.1”) and we are excited to say that this is our mainnet.

We have released the software now because we are confident that our latest release of testnet (“v0.2.7”) was stable, functional and provided a user experience that we were happy to release to the world. A big thank you to all of the Node Operators on our testnet who have supported us in ensuring we are ready to launch.

Our New Partners

We are incredibly proud of the partnerships we’re building at cheqd, and this is only the beginning! A selection of cheqd’s SSI mainnet launch partners has been featured by 150+ press outlets. Cheq out our graphic featuring our partners below.
Welcome to a new era for decentralised identity

At cheqd, we put our partners first. Our partners directly influence the direction of the network in a framework created for commercial, technical innovation and delivery.

We’ve implemented our decentralised governance framework to support this, a distributed consensus of users and Node Operators on the Network. This means that we do not prescribe to our partners any ways of building on the Network, or how cheqd itself develops.

We have also implemented continuous feedback loops, touchpoints, feature requests, an open-source community with forums for discussion and open dialogue. Through these channels, we will maintain industry best practices, in line with our Principles and Code of Conduct, to ensure that our partners progress in our ecosystem and create new authentic data marketplaces through cheqd’s tools and network utility.

cheqd intends to become the next evolution of SSI networks, bridge the emerging world of Decentralised Finance (DeFi) with SSI, and support our SSI partners with never-seen-before payment rails and commercial models for their enterprise customers. This is the first step to achieving that goal.

Please cheq out our approach to partnerships here and contact [email protected] or [email protected] to join cheqd’s mainnet.

What is new on mainnet?

cheqd was always meant to be designed with decentralised identity at its core. We have spoken a lot about our token in previous blogs, and in this release, we are excited to release our foundational identity functionality.

The most important new features of mainnet are:

  1. Added functionality for decentralised identity, specifically Decentralised Identifiers (DIDs), utilising the new cheqd DID method
  2. Amended the genesis parameters
  3. Integration with Keplr, OmniFlix and Block Explorer

Decentralised Identifiers (DIDs)

While creating cheqd, we wanted to make sure that our network supported the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) technical standards as closely as possible.

For this reason, we decided not to build cheqd on top of Hyperledger Indy (read here to find out why) or another existing identity ledger, which is not directly aligned with the formalised standards. For example, the current Indy Decentralised Identifier (DID) method does not support DID Docs in a way that is compatible with the W3C standards — this creates a fundamental misalignment between solutions built on Indy and the rest of the SSI community.

Transparently, we felt that we could do better; aiming to create a more unified Layer 1 ecosystem, built specifically for the decentralised identity community.

So where did we land?

We wanted to acknowledge the breadth of identity work that is built on Indy, without using it directly. As such, we decided to rework the existing Indy DID method into something DID Core compliant.

With better compliance against the DID Core specification, the goal of the cheqd DID method is to maximise interoperability with compatible third-party software libraries, tools and projects in the SSI ecosystem.

We are proud to showcase the cheqd DID method here, which explains this in more detail.

Following our mainnet launch, vendors are able to anchor DIDs on cheqd, which enables an equivalent function to other identity ledgers — but with a more exciting roadmap! (see below)

Genesis Parameter Adjustment

When we initially launched cheqd’s testnet v1 in July 2021, we were still in the process of finalising the tokenomics that would be deployed on the network. This meant that our cheqd node software used the default parameters from a Cosmos SDK network along with identity transactions implemented on the Hyperledger Indy transaction model.

We have since then published our tokenomics model for the cheqd SSI network and a series of blog posts walking through the cheqd Governance Framework.

Our tokenomics blog post is the best starting point to understand the fundamental values.

While we were testing these parameters out in testnet, we noticed that we were running into a recurring issue. To make a change on the Network, a governance proposal was needed to be made. The voting period for this change was two weeks, and until this period was up, we were not able to make any other changes. This created a time lag between when updates were ready and when we were able to implement these changes.

For this reason, we have chosen to reduce the voting_period and deposit_period to one week (down from two weeks).

Similarly, the period to unbond from a Validator was three weeks. With the voting_period reduced to one week, we thought it would be sensible to reduce the unbonding_period equally. We have now reduced the unbonding_period to two weeks.

These changes are more like tweaks than any breaking changes, but the intention is to make the initial progression and development of cheqd more frictionless in the initial months, while many updates get pushed out.

Integration with Keplr, OmniFlix and Big Dipper

As part of our mainnet update, we wanted the cheqd Network to have core utility right from launch. For this reason, we made sure to integrate cheqd with:

  1. Keplr: A Cosmos-native wallet
  2. OmniFlix: A dashboard for staking, delegation and governance
  3. Big Dipper Block Explorer: A way to monitor price, transactions and validators on the Network

We have already posted instructions on how to get our Keplr wallet set up, you can find these here.

Similarly, for help with staking, delegation and governance, read our instructions here.

Omniflix cheqd DeFi jargon debunked

Finally, we have integrated with a block explorer to make it easy to monitor the price of CHEQ, the Validators on the Network, their voting power and commission, as well as transactions made.

Check out the block explorer here

Welcome to a new era for decentralised identity block explorer

Wrapping it up…

This is still just the beginning for us at cheqd. In the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing a thorough look at our Product Roadmap for 2022 to close out our first (almost) year at cheqd.

We couldn’t be happier to hear the excitement coming from our community and partners alike, and we will continue to include you in every step of the way as we build the authentic data network at scale and help drive SSI to global adoption.

If you would like to learn about our partner programme for self-sovereign identity vendors, please reach out to us at [email protected]. If you’re interested in more regular updates you can follow us on Twitter and join our Telegram group.

Please feel free to ask us any questions on the cheqd Community Slack. We also hugely believe in the value of the community supporting and engaging with each other, so whenever you see someone in need of support, feel free to jump in.

Onwards and upwards,

The cheqd team 🚀

Self-sovereign identity use cases

Self-sovereign identity use cases

Co-authored by Eduardo Hotta and Elina Yumasheva

While self-sovereign identity (SSI) sounds like an unfamiliar concept for some, others are actively leveraging the technology to address industry-specific challenges — take the KYC trial of the Financial Conduct Authority or the IATA Travel Pass.

But before we go any further, let’s define what S­­SI is.

What is self-sovereign identity (SSI)?

Self-sovereign identity (SSI) is an emerging concept for exchanging authentic and trusted data related to people, companies, and things in a much more secure and privacy-preserving way. Essentially, it gives the individual a verified master-copy of their own data, affording control over what information they share and removing the need to store personal data entirely in central databases. Watch SSI explained in 25 seconds here.

It could be key to unlocking access to banking, government benefits or other services, and as McKinsey Global Institute research suggests, it could boost economic growth by 3% in the UK in 2030.

Do we have a problem with digital identity?

Current identity solutions largely incentivise issuing/verifying organisations (the data controller) over the individual/company (data subject). The data subject (i.e. an individual or a company) at best has to directly pay (sometimes prohibitive) fees to acquire documents, and at worst, often have no control over their own data (as often in targeted advertising).

The bottom line is that the current identity model is fundamentally broken as it’s all built and controlled by third-party providers rather than individuals. The result of such a set-up from a user experience is that, on average, an individual has 130 to 200 different accounts tied to the same email address. This makes it in many ways a paradise for threat actors, as they can target organisations’ data silos and can use phishing and social engineering techniques to try and trick individuals into giving away their passwords to a multitude of accounts. Over time, data subjects have lost track of what data is being stored and by who.

Know Your Customers and Finance

When it comes to use cases, SSI has a variety of applications, and, arguably one of the most known within the Banking sector is Know Your Customer (KYC). Most processes that touch finance usually request user identity verification, such as transactions that require payment. SSI enables a reusable KYC concept that offers a much more seamless way of ID verification. When an ID verification is needed more often due to compliance or regulatory pressure, SSI can significantly reduce the friction for users improving a customer experience while providing a compliant service.

In short, current KYC is ‘single-use” while” KYC’ed SSI makes KYC’ recyclable’.

However, friction reduction goes beyond the Business to Consumer (B2C) space and applies to the Business to Business (B2B) use cases. SSI also provides traceable and auditable personally identifiable information (PII). Finally, as it’s also applicable across-industry, SSI ultimately speeds up the onboarding process for new customers and improves security by removing the unnecessary paper trail. This makes it a rather useful solution to enable mobile banking. One of the notable examples is the UK government, which launched a trial for their Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) using an SSI-powered solution for onboarding users.

SSI in Decentralised Finance and Crypto

Moving beyond traditional banking, the Centralised Decentralised Finance (CeDeFi) also sees a robust application for SSI. Since identity verification is equally required in both centralised and decentralised finance, with neither satisfied with the existing KYC and identity approaches, SSI can provide that identity layer that meets both worlds. It creates a bridge between traditional data-heavy interactions and an anonymous DeFi approach, while CeDeFI will provide the financial infrastructure for SSI adoption in a key market.

cheqd’s ultimate vision is to establish the payment rails for identity, initially self-sovereign identity without anyone needing to worry about the underlying technology. This perfectly aligns with the CeDeFi vision of providing a spectrum of financial services without the need to worry about whether they are centralised, decentralised or what technology they are built on. The blending of CeFi and DeFi also prevents the need for multiple, siloed identities, which is the problem SSI is built to solve.

Within the Crypto and DeFi space, SSI enables peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions. One can share a small piece of identity information, i.e. a Telegram handle, to prove who they are without disclosing their identity publicly. This means no more test payments to check wallets. Another option is doing KYC’ed loan pools without storing the data — instead, only keeping ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers.

ssi use cases travel

Travel and SSI

The travel industry probably shows one of the most relatable SSI applications enforced by the pandemic developments. International and domestic travel has always required identity to be shared in the form of passports, visas and other documents. In the age of COVID-19, this has been made even more complex as another layer of health certification has been added. Take the ‘track and trace’ system, for instance; one of the biggest downsides is that a lot of personal information is shared with a vast number of third parties. One of the projects in this space is the Covid Credentials Initiative, which aims to develop ‘privacy-preserving verifiable credentials’ to spread the virus through the use of SSI.

Airlines are actively testing global credentials to verify health passports using SSI and digital identity with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) developing IATA Travel Pass. It stores encrypted data, such as verified test and/or vaccination results on the traveller’s mobile device, meaning it’s fully decentralised as there is no central repository for this information.

SSI use cases NFT-2

NFTs and SSI

In a nutshell, self-sovereign identity helps to prove who created, owned and/ or currently owns Non-fungible Tokens (NFT) across their lifecycle as well as providing ownership of fractions. SSI can solve the provenance issue regardless of the ledger NFTs are hosted on. SSI can enable a fully decentralised content consumption with payment and identity — in other words, consumption of media/content directly from the creator without a distribution channel. This can help creators to receive fair payments for their work and interact with their audiences directly. cheq out our thoughts on how NFT and SSI combined unlock a new gaming experience here.

Another issue that self-sovereign identity can address is identity tied to payments. There is currently no way to verify the identity of the payment receivers in Crypto/ DeFi transfers beyond the wallet address. It’s a problem even for low-volume transfers, but increasingly more so on high-value transfers. While there is always a need for anonymous payments in Crypto, there are occasions when it’s useful to verify who is receiving funds.

Other SSI use cases

While the list can go on, especially as various industries join the bandwagon and pick up the technology, there are a few notable examples. Decentralised storage is getting more traction as SSI can be implemented to manage participants’ data and store distributed files with decentralised access control. Decentralised identity and the technical standards involved (Verifiable Credentials and Decentralised Identifiers) can also be used for:

• E-commerce: Besides increasing transactional security and preventing potential e-commerce fraud, it reduces onboarding and payment friction. A few examples of existing projects include Barclaycard and OpenBazaar.

• Corporate or organisational identity: Making it easier to trust companies one is interacting with, especially over the internet. For instance, Bosch is participating in The IDunion network’s project that develops an internationally deployable SSI application for corporate identity and master data management.

• Product or package identity: Enabling more efficient and effective track and trace for real-world supply chains. The global blockchain supply chain market size is projected to reach circa $9,852 million by 2025, with a growth of more than 80% from 2018 to 2025.

And of course, the most exciting one is the metaverse. As metaverse is a very decentralised concept and is about privacy, control, openness and interoperability, its requirement for identity verification and trusted data elements should also be fully decentralised. The metaverse needs to be designed on open standards – with SSI and verifiable credentials hopefully playing a pivotal role here. Explore the symbiosis of metaverse and self-sovereign identity and how they fit within Web 3.0.

Conclusion

The beauty of this technology is that it addresses issues that are universal and applicable across industries. With more and more companies leveraging SSI, the list of use cases will grow fast, making SSI a reality soon. Take a look at the most comprehensive list of self-sovereign identity use cases here.

Marketing in a privacy-preserving way

marketing in a privacy preserving way

This is the first blog post of a series of three.

“Marketing in a privacy-preserving way” used in the same sentence, I bet, sounds like an oxymoron for a majority of marketers. Marketing is well known to surpass any personal boundaries whatsoever in service of communicating the greatness of that product or service that you’re unaware of yet but should totally get; otherwise, your life will be miserable / you won’t fix that problem of yours (perhaps you didn’t know the issue existed) / <add your variation here>.

What prompted us to look into the subject?

Exploring the possibilities of marketing that respects one’s personal privacy has been on our radar for an apparent reason. Giving individuals and organisations back their privacy and control of their data is our mission and the very essence of what unites our team. We’ll explore what we’re doing at cheqd to enable privacy-preserving marketing in a separate post — we would love to share our learnings in this space and hear your thoughts.

Now, what struck us was an organisation working in digital identity that has been shamelessly offering data on their customers to anyone interested in purchasing it.

We were shocked.

Obviously, marketing practices should be ethical across industries, but hearing that from an organisation claiming to address the privacy and data problems makes it double unethical (if such a thing exists).

Living by your mission

And this is a typical example of an organisation having an absolute mismatch between its mission and its actions. I pay particular attention to this as I have an unusual background. I studied environmental science and worked in corporate sustainability for the past ten years, communicating the value of products and services with a purpose (I’m also developing as an artist, but that’s another story).

So ethics of marketing or broader communications practices have always been part of my considerations. But I’m not in any way claiming that it was perfect because, as for the majority of marketers, our holy grail was following the latest best practice (whatever that was in that particular time), which I did too.

Being surrounded by like-minded individuals at cheqd, I finally feel that we can do things differently. The question I want to put out there is whether ethical marketing will always be disadvantageous compared to traditional marketing? Is it going to be limited in its reach and effectiveness and/or be more expensive?

Marketing monopoly

Speaking of the price, there’s a backlash on the social media giants that, simply put, sell your data to advertisers (take Cambridge Analytica or The Social Dilemma). Society rightfully disapproves of these practices. However, this is arguably one of the “most straightforward” and widely used ways to acquire new customers from the marketing perspective (hello, targeted advertising).

I’m not going to argue against or in favour here; my point is of a different nature. This becomes a somewhat monopolistic business — a marketer pretty much ends up with Google/ YouTube, Facebook/ Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn suite. Even if you don’t run pay per click (PPC) campaigns or promote your posts, you’d still most likely rely on collaboration with influencers within those systems. If not the only advertising avenue for some companies, this handful of tech giants, at least, is the major one. And this is concerning.

If you’re to ditch this tech suite for the reasons above, what are you left with?

So, I take you back to my original question — can one truly have ethical marketing — marketing that respects an individual’s personal boundaries? And would it be effective?

In an attempt to answer this question, we’ll explore the legislative developments in the space in our next blog.

In the meantime, do let us know what you think and make sure to join our Telegram community here. We’re also on LinkedIn and Twitter.

How to make digital identity more inclusive and accessible

How to make digital identity more inclusive and accessible-1

The last few months have been fruitful, and we’ve been to a number of events, presenting or participating and learning. As you know, giving back to our community is core to everything we do (hint: we love being invited to events — drop us an email to [email protected]).

Today, we’d like to focus on the Diffusion July 2021 event organised by Outlier Ventures. We discussed making digital identity more inclusive and accessible together with Alex Preukschat, author of Self-Sovereign Identity book, SSI Meetups, Aron van Ammers, CTO & Co-Founder, Outlier Ventures and Evin McMullen, Co-Founder, Serto and Ankur Banerjee, CTO, cheqd. We find this topic of paramount importance, and the tech sector certainly has a long way to go, so we’re grateful to be having this conversation.

Let’s start with a definition of inclusivity and accessibility in the context of digital identity. There are a number of layers of accessibility that could be looked at, including:

1) on a user-level — does it require additional skills? I.e. is it localised? Is it going to work with the hardware you have?

2) on a personal level — is the concept even understood? Can you explain what digital identity means to a friend?

3) underlying tech itself — does it require smartphones only? Could it be widely used across the world?

4) on an operational level — how compatible is it with your existing operational model? Does it require restructuring to use this new tool?

Examples of digital identity use cases

It’s hard to talk about identity without pairing it to a use case. People don’t get up in the morning thinking about digital or self-sovereign identity (SSI), they think they need to fly to X, open a bank account etc., and for that, they need to prove their identity. Usually, you’d think about digital I.D. as a means to achieve the secondary goal.

There are a few examples of digital identity use cases:

  1. Airlines started testing global credentials to verify health passports using SSI and digital identity.
  2. NHS in England rolled out a programme to make it easier for doctors to transfer their credentials across when onboarding within a hospital.
  3. The E.U. green certificate and International Travel Association are doing something similar. Both explore the ways to issue unique digital credentials that individuals can carry on their phones to prove their identity.

Issues related to digital identity accessible and inclusive

The usability aspects don’t get spoken about often within the SSI world partly because this is a very new field, and it’s usually a very technical conversation. Some have been considered in detail as part of the SSI working groups across companies regarding the COVID-19 credentials.

Accessibility and inclusivity are two different terms, though closely interlinked.

On an accessibility level, take a typical example of not having an active internet connection. By default, you have to be connected to the internet as your credentials are on a blockchain — how can you present your credential without an internet connection? We often think this could happen if you’re on border control in a remote place, but often you can be in your office in the city of London with no network coverage.

Another example is not having a smartphone. Put aside a digital divide between the people who own and don’t own one could still affect everybody. Imagine your battery dies, and you can’t charge it? Voila, consider, you don’t have a smartphone anymore.

On an inclusivity front, some of the issues to consider are: how expensive are these systems to use? How easy are these systems to use?

Right now, digital identity is being adopted to its best by early adopters. Even with traditional software, usability and UX have always been a big challenge, putting aside the need to explain how to use this new service. You’ve got to consider various demographics, behaviour preferences, cultural aspects and languages, digital literacy, at last! How easy are these experiences to understand to a broad group of people?

Another aspect to consider is a tricky one — how can you prove that these credentials belong to you? Uber teaches us a good lesson. An Uber driver got approval to conduct commercial activity. However, a different person showed up on a shift. Uber lost its licence after that incident. The point to consider is not about having the right certification but ensuring that it belongs to the rightful owner.

This brings us to the biometric identification issue. Touch ID wouldn’t know if you’re the person you’re claiming to be — all it knows is a fingerprint saved on a device. It could be yours or your family members. Many problems are associated with how “good” biometric algorithms could be for people of colour. Think about how SSI credentials could be linked to biometric identity? It would be quite a powerful mix.

Finally, you can’t have a decentralised web without a decentralised identity. We’re starting to see examples of having decentralised assets in an app but with a centralised identity. This creates inequality risks as individuals should be able to participate not only based on their wallets (wealth they have) but also on their achievements.

Watch how to make digital identity more accessible and inclusive panel discussion:

How to make digital identity accessible and inclusive

There is always a tendency to quickly bring a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to the market and think about accessibility and inclusivity later. But that is wrong — accessibility and inclusivity should be a core part of your product, so think of them early on.

Often owning a smartphone is accessed from a digital divide perspective. So developers tend to assume if they target a particular demographic with a certain amount of wealth, they would own one by default. That assumption is fundamentally wrong. Even those who have the luxury of owning a smartphone can be in a situation with no devices available at hand.

Similarly, when we think about digital literacy, we tend to assume this applies to someone illiterate. However, this applies to most demographics.

An excellent example of how an internet connection issue is resolved is a national Health Service (NHS) Vaccination app. It doesn’t only issue a vaccinated person a Q.R. code, but also you can download a PDF certificate, which you can use with no internet connection.

Finally, to make it accessible and inclusive, at some point, we have to stop using the term SSI, and the language must become easier, so a 5-year old can understand.

The bottom line is to make digital identity accessible 1) it should be fully decentralised and 2) the use of digital identity should be as easy as showing a scanned PDF, and 3) it should be available to all.

cheq out the second part, where we discuss the key takeaways from The Internet Identity Workshop. We explore how to make SSI relevant to all and why we need to move away from SSI to authentic. Finally, we delve into how SSI should be adopted globally.

In the meantime, join our rapidly growing Twitter community here to stay updated with our latest news as we head towards launch.

P.S. We’re also on Telegram or LinkedIn; make sure to cheq in!

The time is ripe for digital identity and SSI: Necker Ventures

The time is ripe for digital identity and SSI Necker Ventures

We’ve recently spoken with our friends and investors at Necker Ventures Juan Lugo and Makda Kassahun, co-managing partners — a rising angel firm in the blockchain industry. They have a diverse portfolio of investments spanning crypto, agriculture, gaming, and other sectors. To date, Necker Ventures has an average growth rate per company of 100x and $100M assets under management. They are only getting started, and we are proud to have them support our efforts towards making self-sovereign identity (SSI) a reality.

What’s your story and tell us more about your fund

Juan: At Necker, we banded together as individuals from all across the globe, and when we had a little bit of success with Bitcoin, we put our heads together and dove headfirst into all the different opportunities within the industry. Within Necker Ventures, we have folks from all walks of life. My background is in data security, my colleagues have engineering and capital management backgrounds, so we each brought our unique expertise to the table and followed what was out there.

Why did Necker Ventures invest in cheqd?

Juan: In my opinion, individuals didn’t understand how valuable their data was until recently. We saw this in the early millennium with the emergence of social media giants and how they capitalise on users’ data. The problem surfaces when we realise that they profit from individuals’ data by targeting specific demographic groups. The tech giants walk a thin line between morality and profitability. As we go along, the speed of digitalisation will increase (Facebook turning itself into a metaverse is just another proof), and COVID-19 was certainly its catalyst. Individuals will be more conscious about where their data is going, who stores it, and how they themselves can use it, i.e. to make a profit. That’s exactly what drew me to the cheqd’s solution.

What we collectively liked at cheqd is giving individuals back the ownership of their data through enabling digital identity. In our opinion, cheqd is far ahead of the curve, creating a self-sovereign identity (SSI) ecosystem and developing a product and service that’s going to come at a perfect time.

Makda: To expand on Juan’s point, there are other reasons to invest in the startup, such as inefficiency, that make a business case for cheqd even stronger. As an example, I used to work at health care consulting supporting the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US on verifying personally identifiable information (PII). The bureaucracy was ridiculous — often, it would take months for simple identification processes to be completed as everything had to be approved by a solicitor. Having those painful experiences, I found cheqd’s solution fascinating and urgently needed. The startup is creating this permissionless system cutting out all the bureaucracy while improving data privacy and security.

What are your most anticipated features in cheqd?

Makda: I’m excited about the core product itself and that it serves both individuals and organisations. I also think that having payment rails and a token is essential for the adoption of SSI. So having those two components coming together in a single product is a brilliant idea.

What’re your final thoughts on the current development of the SSI industry?

Juan: The likes of data leaks and hacks serve as a good vector exposing the security gaps, which, I believe, will be a catalyst for the mass adoption of digital identity and SSI. cheqd’s a very collaborative approach to building a trusted/ authentic data economy is game-changing. We’ll see their impacts on the macro level in 5–10 years.

We saw many positive developments from a wider crypto regulatory perspective — take El Salvador, Tanzania, Argentina, and Mexico. Chinese crypto ban seems to be an attempt to manipulate market assumptions. I think those that have been around long enough seeing the Chinese ban know that they’re going to unban it. They’re just trying to play the long game making sure they capitalise on crypto as much as possible before the mass adoption.

The overall trend is positive on all levels — individuals’ appreciation and desire to own their own data, regulatory developments both in data privacy and crypto, and technological developments that can support those demands ensure the need for SSI. And while some may see self-sovereign identity as a niche concept, we’re confident it will hit mass adoption reasonably soon.

For more on cheqd, make sure to join our rapidly growing Telegram community to stay updated with our latest news. We’re also on Twitter or LinkedIn, make sure to cheq in!

Why self-sovereign identity needs a token: an expanded version

Why SSI needs a token expanded version-1

Co-authored by Fraser Edwards and Javed Khattak

Every so often, we are asked why Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) needs a token. We’ve already looked into why SSI matters and how it could address digital identity issues across sectors — from finance to travel — here.

Briefly, SSI is a new paradigm for exchanging authentic and trusted data related to people, companies, and things in a much more secure and privacy-preserving way. It gives the subject a verified master copy of their own data, affording control over what information they share and removing the need to store personal data solely in central databases.

SSI has made fantastic progress in the last couple of years, as shown by Northern Block’s growing map of SSI implementations. Still, we have seen many projects fail due to not being able to commercialise the technology, which we are solving. More than this, though, because SSI combines historically siloed datasets by making the user the ecosystem’s centre, new opportunities and business models will become possible.

Essentially, our core hypothesis is that SSI needs commercial models that accelerate its adoption. In this equation, the token represents an enabler of those commercial models.

Payment rails

Usually, the question of “why does SSI need a token” stems from a belief that there are existing, viable payment rails. However, as it was already pointed out in 2018, traditional rails don’t work when issuers and receivers of credentials are unlikely to have a direct contractual relationship since the user is at the centre.

Let’s use our example of working with two law firms (obviously anonymously):

  • cheqd can pay via both USD and USD Coin (USDC) and holds accounts in country A and country B.
  • Firm A takes payment in USD. Their bank is based in country B, but they use an intermediary bank in country C.
  • Firm B takes payment in USDC.

Fiat

To pay Firm A, we had a period of a week checking whether we could send directly from our bank account in country A where we hold the bulk of our funds to Firm A’s account in country B. Paying directly from our account in country A is our preferred option since we get good exchange rates. Unfortunately, we couldn’t send this payment via USD and hence had to begin checking losses from exchange rates and fees to make sure we got the amount right and minimise our losses. Eventually, we landed on sending the payment in multiple steps, from our account in country A to our account in country B, which required USD to EUR conversion due to the network used for the overseas transfer requiring EUR for the transfer. This was then converted back into USD due to Firm A’s invoice being in USD and then to the Firm’s account in Country B.

paying firm A

Token

Since cheqd already holds USDC balances, we paid in USDC directly (noting both being in different countries).

paying firm B

New rails

So, where does it leave us? Even where companies have contractual relationships, settling payments is still a huge headache. Expecting payments across an SSI ecosystem to be seamless and scalable using existing payment rails is laughable. Like other industries and technologies from finance to distributed storage like IPFS and Filecoin, SSI needs to embrace tokens to be truly successful.

The business model of SSI

Given that SSI is targeting the world as a market, the potential for adoption and growth is colossal. We genuinely see token holders as being able to help get companies to adopt the paradigm and give data back to individuals whilst creating entirely new revenue streams. This will create a virtuous flywheel for self-sovereign identity growth, where:

  • More issuing organisations are incentivised to give “back” trusted data to identity subjects. This will be data that belonged to or originated from identity subjects in the first place, but with the stamp of authority that the issuing organisation brings.
  • With more SSI credentials in circulation, more organisations will accept SSI credentials as it is an easier, more efficient, and more secure way of getting trusted data with the consent of the identity subject.
  • Growth in usage will attract more product companies (like cheqd) who build self-sovereign identity software across the stack, enrich features and functionality, and integrate SSI into their apps and services.
  • As SSI credentials become more common, the genesis data needed to verify identity will become cheaper, lowering the cost structure for creating trusted data.
  • Lower cost structures for creating trusted data will result in lower prices over time — than current, sometimes prohibitively expensive methods — for consuming verified identity data.
  • Lower prices to consume trusted data for individuals and companies will provide a commercial driver for adoption.

Marketing benefits

Less considered is the marketing benefit a token could have for SSI. Whilst companies are beginning to wake up to the possibilities, there is very little awareness amongst the general public. SSI has a tremendous community of passionate believers, but it has not cracked the public consciousness yet or broken materially out of the core supporters who have typically worked in the identity space previously.

A token provides a massive opportunity to broaden the audience. As a recent applicant said in an interview with us, “My Dad can’t switch on his computer but comes downstairs telling me about bitcoin market movements“.

Building public awareness will be key to having them drive adoption. Once they have experienced SSI in any area of their lives, they will demand it from any organisation they interact with. The parallels with neo-banks and the incumbent banks are strong here. Most neo-banks restructured their Know Your Customer (KYC) processes, moving from users filling in endless forms to be checked by an analyst to scan identity documents, leverage credit agency databases, and take quick selfies. This allowed them to provide KYC journeys in the order of minutes rather than days. That journey is now pervasive across banking and from car rental to coworking spaces, amongst others.

SSI will be the same; once someone experiences SSI, they will demand it in all their interactions.

As important, a token will provide a mechanism to be rewarded as the technology is adopted. There won’t just be rewards for user experience and reclaiming privacy but also monetary rewards for engaging with, supporting the ecosystem and encouraging adoption.

Key takeaways

A token is undoubtedly needed to enable SSI to grow truly. Existing payment rails are not fit for purpose, especially on a global scale. It will also help SSI break into the public consciousness and further drive adoption.

We would love to know your thoughts as always, either as comments on the article or via any of our other channels below, take your pick! Make sure to join our rapidly growing Telegram community to stay updated with our latest news as we head towards launch.

P.S. We’re also on Twitter or LinkedIn, make sure to “cheq” in!

Why Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) needs a token

Why Self-Sovereign Identity needs a token

Co-authored by Fraser Edwards and Javed Khattak

Every so often, we are asked why Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) needs a token. Originally we expected the explanation of “why” to be a long piece but a recent experience provided the material for a much shorter, practical blog.

Usually the question of “why does SSI need a token”, stems from people’s belief that there are existing, viable payment rails. As Sovrin outlined in their whitepaper back in 2018, traditional rails don’t work when issuers and receivers of credentials are unlikely to have a direct contractual relationship since the user is at the center with SSI.

Since then, the crypto world has moved on massively with respect to tokens but especially in the area of stablecoins.

Stablecoins: Take your pick

Which brings us neatly onto two contrasting examples we have experienced at cheqd recently.

Example

We work with multiple law firms for their different areas of expertise, but for this, I’ll be focusing on just two of them (obviously anonymously):

  • cheqd can pay via both USD and USD Coin (USDC) and holds accounts in country A and country B.
  • Firm A takes payment in USD. Their bank is based in country B but they use an intermediary bank in country C.
  • Firm B takes payment in USDC.

Firm A

To pay Firm A, we had a period of a week checking whether we could send directly from our bank account in country A where we hold the bulk of our funds to Firm A’s account in country B. Paying directly from our account in country A is our preferred option since we get good exchange rates.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t send this payment via USD and hence had to begin checking losses from exchange rates and fees to make sure we got the amount right and minimise our losses. Eventually we landed on sending the payment in multiple-steps, from our account in country A to our account in country B which required USD to EUR conversion due to the network used for the overseas transfer requiring EUR for the transfer. This was then converted back into USD due to Firm A’s invoice being in USD, and only then on to the Firm’s account in Country B.

firm a

A hop, skip and a jump all to make one simple payment

Firm B

Since cheqd already holds USDC balances, we paid in USDC directly (noting both being in different countries).
firm b

Barely worth a diagram

So what?

Even where companies have contractual relationships, settling payments is still a huge headache. Whilst this example has been slightly extreme, we’re sure it won’t be the last time we experience it. The difference between the two experiences can be seen purely from the number of lines written. Multiplying these by hours and days then shows the opportunity lost elsewhere in the business.

From this example alone, expecting payments across an SSI ecosystem to be seamless and scalable using existing payment rails is laughable. As other industries and technologies from finance to distributed storage like IPFS and Filecoin, SSI needs to embrace tokens to be truly successful.

The marketing benefits

Less considered is the marketing benefit a token could have for SSI. Whilst companies are beginning to wake up to the possibilities, there is very little awareness amongst the general public. SSI has a tremendous community of passionate believers but it has not cracked the public consciousness yet or broken materially out of the core supporters who have typically worked in the identity space previously.

A token provides a massive opportunity to broaden the audience. As a recent applicant said in an interview with us:

My Dad can’t switch on his computer but comes downstairs telling me about bitcoin market movements

time for plan

Wouldn’t it be wonderful for discussions on SSI to be everywhere?

Building public awareness will be key to having them drive adoption, and once they have experienced SSI in any area of their lives they will demand it of any organisation they interact with. The parallels with neo-banks and the incumbent banks are strong here. Most neobanks restructured their Know Your Customer (KYC) processes, moving from users filling in endless forms to be checked by an analyst to scanning identity documents, leveraging credit agency databases and taking quick selfies. This allowed them to provide KYC journeys in the order of minutes rather than days. That journey is now pervasive not just across banking but also car rental to coworking spaces amongst others.

SSI will be the same, once someone experiences SSI, they will demand it of all their interactions.

As important, a token will provide a mechanism to being rewarded as the technology is adopted. There won’t just be rewards in terms of user experience and reclaiming privacy but also monetary rewards for supporting the ecosystem and encouraging adoption.

Key takeaways

A token is sorely needed to enable SSI to truly grow. Existing payment rails are not fit for purpose, especially at global scale. It will also help SSI break into the public consciousness and further drive adoption.

Thankfully, we at cheqd are building exactly this!

We would love to know your thoughts as always either as comments on the article or via any of our other channels below, take your pick! Make sure to join our rapidly growing Telegram community here to stay updated with our latest news as we head towards launch.

P.S. We’re also on Twitter or LinkedIn, make sure to “cheq” in!

Self-sovereign identity semantics: An economic extension to the Trust over IP stack

heqd-Trust_over_IP

Disclaimer: This blog does not cover cheqd’s strategic direction but does build some important foundations for the blogs and announcements to come.

As we began creating the tokenomic model and product roadmap for cheqd, we quickly hit a disconnect between the identity and public blockchain communities. In short, each community uses different semantics. Nowhere is this more evident than in the meaning of “Layer 2” which has wildly different meanings between the two communities.

This isn’t surprising given these communities have historically been segregated, purely by happenstance than desire. In this short blog, we want to establish groundwork to help us bridge the identity & public blockchain communities, as well as preparing for the many future blogs we will be writing detailing out our vision and progress.

Firstly, a quick overview of the layering model used in each community.

Identity

The SSI community largely follows the Trust Over IP stack / layering model, shown below, which extends the Technology / Infrastructure model from the Sovrin Foundation. This constrains the platform to “Layer 1” with layers 2–4 covering protocols and frameworks which exist above the base utility, which can be viewed as wherever the DIDs reside.

heqd-Trust_over_IP

The dual ‘Trust over IP Stack’

Public blockchain

In contrast, the public blockchain community uses the following layering (example here from Coinscribble) :
  • Layer 1: Base network, i.e. Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.
  • Layer 2: Overlay network, i.e. Lightning, Raiden or Plasma
  • Off-ledger solutions: Custodianship, custody wallets, centralized exchanges

Bridging

In the absence of a more comprehensive framework in the public blockchain community, the ToIP stack requires amendments in two areas.

The first is that Layer 1 itself should be broken out into multiple layers to account for the innovations mentioned above, giving us:

  • 1.1: Base network, i.e. Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.
  • 1.2: Overlay network, i.e. Lightning, Raiden or Plasma

We recognize that expecting the public-blockchain community to adopt this terminology would be presumptuous but at least hope this will help clean up conversations within the identity community.

More significantly, an “Economy” or “payment“ stack needs adding to the existing “Governance“ and “Technology“ stacks [Full credit to Andy Tobin at Evernym here]. This new stack augments the existing stacks with:

  • Layer 1: Tokens to provide the medium of exchange
  • Layer 2: Payment protocols to provide the mechanism of exchange
  • Layer 3: Payment orchestration plug-ins to implement commercial constructs, such as subscription, transactional or flat fee models for ecosystems

All to create:

  • Layer 4: Economies
1_f9YNkmRG60yOGf7EQpwRNg

Overlaying the ‘Trust over IP stack’ with a payment stack

Notes:
  • Economies within the “Economy“ stack, are simply Ecosystems with commercial structures / relationships whether unilateral, bi-lateral or multi-lateral.
  • Whilst the ToIP stack has a Governance Authority authoring Governance Frameworks, within Economies, the Governance Authority may be a range of structures from a single entity, through consortia to Decentralized Autonomous Organizations.
Adding an extra stack naturally introduces additional complexity. However, this can be addressed by simply introducing grid references, e.g. 4G referring to “Ecosystem Governance Frameworks” and similarly 1T referring to “Public Utilities: DIDs“. When necessary, this can be extended to 1T2 to account for second order networks within Layer 1, as per the diagram below.
1_LsIoy4gHP5agwS1N3sWEQQ

Layer 1 can be further split to account for overlay networks

Open for comments

This may seem minor but we have seen enough conversations derailed by people and teams talking cross-purposes already to know this is necessary and hope this will help both ourselves and others to avoid any confusion in the future. And selfishly, it will also remove the need for us to clarify what we mean by “Layer 2” in any future blogs.

We would like to thank the Trust over IP foundation for their excellent framework. Whilst we have experienced clashes in terminology, this challenge is a lot easier to handle than making our own framework from scratch. We look forward to contributing back to the Trust Over IP community in the coming months.

We also recognize that this is only an initial outline and are sure there will be many in the communities who can refine and extend this proposed addition.

As identity ecosystems recognise the need for incentives to achieve adoption and growth, these cross-community conversations will only become more and more frequent, with cheqd leading the way.

The business models of identity

How cheqd is approaching its tokenomics for secure and trusted data ecosystems

Co-authored by Fraser Edwards and Ankur Banerjee

Identity is a construct of its subject (person, company, virtual thing) and surroundings (birth, country borders, online games). Identity, therefore, varies in how it manifests (passports, self-declared data or an outfit, real or virtual) but also how it is commercialised (or not).

Across the world, identity has been commercialised in too many ways to count. These range from transparent and simple relationships like paying for a passport to complex and opaque models like targeted advertising.

Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) will replicate some of these models, destroy others and create entirely new ones too. Creating entirely new models is what we at cheqd are truly excited about.

In this blog post, we will explain some of the commercial models prevalent in digital identity, and how cheqd is building new models for the world of SSI.

First, let’s look at breaking down the current landscape…

How many parties are involved?

The full gamut of commercial models are first easiest to break down by the number of parties involved and the flow of information (abstracting some of the complexities in the background):

  • Uni-lateral, e.g. an International Certificate of Vaccination issued to a patient by their doctor. The details included in the certificate are generated by the doctor.
  • Bi-lateral, e.g. a Passport Office taking information from applicants to verify them before issuing them with a passport. In this scenario, it is likely that some of the information provided by the applicant is already known to the Passport Office, and there are details generated by the Passport Office.
  • Multi-lateral, e.g. BankID in Sweden where Know Your Customer (KYC), verification, and authentication are mutualised between banks (and now others).

Note here that the data subject, the individual or company whom the data is about, is always involved at some level in the exchanges above.

We know there are many other possible models, please do let us know in comments any particular others that should be called out.

Who pays whom in identity flows?

While the number of parties involved in an exchange is an important aspect, commercial models for digital identity can also be categorised based on the pricing construct applied between the parties involved in digital identity exchange.

Paid for by the individual/company (or the “identity subject”)

Free

Free, as in beer, to the individual. This is a credential that is given to an individual or company without any money changing hands.

An example of this would be a tax registration number or Social Security Number, which an individual or a company can get without paying anything.

Freemium

Most interactions are free, but some are paid.

An example of this would be a university degree, where the original degree is provided for no additional cost (beyond tuition fees), but additional copies of the degree need to be paid for.

TRANSACTIONAL

The issuer is paid per issuance or verification.

An example of this would be a passport application, where the applicant pays a one-time fee to the passport office to acquire the latest valid document.

Data mining

The interactions an individual/company has with an organisation is recorded, with the metadata and behaviour used to create weak identity profiles. The interactions appear free to the individual or company, but their identity profile is monetised by selling inferences to other companies.

business models of identity data mining cheqd blog

An example of this is programmatic targeted advertising, which are the intrusive ads we often come across online controlled by large ad networks. Some of the largest ones are run by Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple.

With targeted advertising, “You’re not the customer, you’re the product.”

Paid by verifying organisation(s), free for individual/company

DIRECT RELATIONSHIP WITH ONE ORGANISATION

An individual or company provides identity attributes to an organisation that needs to verify them. The organisation in turn bears the costs of the checks or pays someone else to do it. An example is the usual Know Your Customer (KYC) process for an individual/company to open a bank account. While the individual/company doesn’t pay for any identity verification checks, the bank (verifying organisation, in this case) might pay third parties to carry out checks on its behalf. These third parties are personal identity verification providers such as FinClusiveOnfidoAlloyHireRight etc or corporate identity verification providers such as Dun & Bradstreet. These identity providers in turn often get data from their own sources, such as government records. This model can be further extended based on what pricing basis is the verifying organisation is charged at by the third parties:

  • Pay-as-you-go: Each interaction is charged on a per-check basis (manual or per-API call)
  • Tiered subscriptions: Verifying organisations pay fees in blocks based on usage
  • All-you-can-eat: Verifying organisations pay a single fee regardless of how many ID verification checks they carry out.

MUTUALISED COSTS ACROSS MULTIPLE ORGANISATIONS

The cost of carrying out identity verification is split across the benefiting organisations, either equally or in proportion to use. This is often an extension of the direct model above. An example of this would be a consortium like BankID in Sweden, where the cost of KYC is spread across different organisations. The individual/company also does not pay in this scenario. Another example of this is how credit bureaus such as Experian,Equifax, TransUnion pool together information from financial institutions, but then re-sell the transformed data to other companies.

The missing individual

In each of the models above, there are organisations doing work to check identity attributes. The outcome of this is they add the weight of their authority, which is valuable to an individual/company. Each of the models above has a set of advantages and trade-offs, whether it be in cost, efficiency, privacy, or security. There is tremendous value in this variety of models by aligning incentives for those involved.

Current identity solutions largely put the incentives of issuing/verifying organisations over the individual/company. The identity subject (i.e., individual or company) at best has to directly pay (sometimes prohibitive) fees to acquire documents, and at worst often have no real control over their own data (as often in targeted advertising.)

Many further axes could be applied to the models above. One, in particular, we want to highlight is that the costs associated with acquiring and verifying identity depend on geographical as well as industry context.

Costs that are considered affordable in one country can be extortionate in others. Even within a country, affordability and access to verified identity may be prohibitive for disadvantaged demographics. The unfortunate consequence is exclusion due to a lack of verified identity that impacts large parts of society.

The virtuous flywheel for the trusted digital identity

Self-sovereign identity is a powerful transformational force that changes the balance of power in the favour of identity subjects (individuals/companies). Any commercial models for SSI needs to reward the identity subjects for participation, increase inclusion through easier access, and disincentive undesirable data-sharing behaviours.

On the other hand, the time and resource cost an issuing/verifying organisation incurs must not be ignored for a viable and sustainable self-sovereign identity ecosystem.

For instance, government-issued credentials should be made free / as cheap as possible to acquire as they are funded through taxes and/or one-off fees. This is crucial as government-issued credentials are often the genesis of trusted data in many industry contexts.

However, in other scenarios where an issuing/verifying organisation is not a publicly-funded organisation, we do see an unmet need for compensating organisations that carry out the work of verifying digital identity. These organisations are the root of trust that make SSI credentials held by an identity subject more trustworthy and have greater utility.

cheqd’s vision on the virtuous flywheel of self-sovereign identity growth

cheqd’s vision on the virtuous flywheel of self-sovereign identity growth

We believe this will create a virtuous flywheel for self-sovereign identity growth, where:

  • More issuing organisations are incentivised to give “back” trusted data to identity subjects. Data that belonged to or originated from identity subjects in the first place, but with the stamp of authority that the issuing organisation brings.
  • With more SSI credentials in circulation, more organisations will accept SSI credentials as it is an easier, more efficient, and more secure way of getting trusted data with the consent of the identity subject.
  • Growth in usage will attract more product companies (like cheqd) who build self-sovereign identity software, enrich features and functionality, and integrate SSI into their apps and services.
  • As SSI credentials become more common, the genesis data needed to verify identity will become cheaper, lowering the cost structure for creating trusted data.
  • Lower cost structures for creating trusted data will result in lower prices over time — than current, sometimes prohibitively expensive methods — for consuming verified identity data.
  • Lower prices to consume trusted data will give individuals and companies a richer ecosystem of organisations and services that accept SSI, leading to a better user experience that is more private and secure than the current relationship with how their data is used.

(N.B. We acknowledge we are using an analogy from Amazon here. While we do not necessarily agree with Amazon’s corporate stance on some issues, we do believe this is a useful analogy to explain how cheqd’s commercial model for self-sovereign identity will increase SSI adoption and growth. In the diagram, we use SSI as a catch-all to include verifiable credentials.)

Our approach to building a viable self-sovereign identity token network

cheqd is already building towards launching a standards-compliant, incentivised SSI network in 2021. The cheqd network will have a token that facilitates the virtuous flywheel. We went into some depth on why SSI models such as the Trust Over IP stack need an extension with an economic model in our previous blog post.

We are frequently asked for a simple description of our tokenomics model for the cheqd SSI network, but this ignores the complexity of how something deeply personal as identity is exchanged between different parties today. Hopefully, our explanation of the commercial models for digital identity will give a flavour for how diverse the interactions are.

All of these factors create a hugely complex marketplace to create a tokenomics model.

We believe at cheqd that a one-size-fits-all commercial model for digital identity will not accommodate the richness of current and future SSI use cases. We are approaching this problem by building a base layer that supports a variety of different tokenomics plug-ins, which can be customised based on the context of the ecosystem it is serving.

The analogy we like to use for cheqd’s approach with customisable tokenomics is trade rules between countries:

  • Bi-lateral or multi-lateral trade agreements: Specific agreements between countries for trade, setting out requirements, tariffs and the like.
    In the context of self-sovereign identity: Ecosystems (geographical, industry-based) should be able to define what economic policies they want to adopt, such as price points for credentials (including free and freemium), governance rules,
  • World Trade Organisation Rules: Where no bi-lateral or multi-lateral trade agreements exist, there are international baseline rules to fall back on.
    In the context of self-sovereign identity: When SSI credentials hop across between different ecosystems, there are baseline economic policies they can fall back to, thus making them portable across different ecosystems.
1_LsIoy4gHP5agwS1N3sWEQQ

cheqd’s suggested expansion of the Trust Over IP Stack with an economic layer

Using the numbering for Layers from our previous blog on the Trust Over IP stack, in the cheqd SSI network our vision is to translate this into:

  • Layer 1.1: A base layer of tokenomics so that any individual or organisation can interact with any other, regardless of industry or country. (“World Trade Organisation rules”)
  • Layer 1.2: Customisable tokenomics plugins such as: “verifier pays holder“, “verifier pays issuer“ or subscription models so that each ecosystem can define its incentives to suit itself and its users the best. (“Bi-lateral or multi-lateral rules”)
1_uvK_U3Wy_p7cdh0j26f5eA

Examples of commercial models in self-sovereign identity

We believe this will jumpstart a global, collaborative, vision for SSI whilst accounting for the complexity and nuance we have outlined above in terms of commercial models. We see the tokenomics plug-ins specifically dovetailing with the Trust over IP metamodel for governance frameworks to facilitate the easy creation of multiple ecosystems (such as Trinsic Ecosystems).

In future blog posts, we plan on explaining our vision for how governance would work on the cheqd SSI network, as well as expanding on our ideas about the virtuous flywheel of SSI growth with a deep dive on the new commercial models that can exist in this space.

Tell us what you think

cheqd welcomes comments and debates on our approach. We acknowledge that this is a new concept in the SSI world, and would love to know your thoughts or feedback as comments on the article. You can also reach out to us on Telegram, Twitter, and LinkedIn for discussions and updates.