Recently on the blog we talked about why decentralized identifiers (DIDs) are a practical solution to real problems. In that post we discussed some high-level concepts behind how and why DIDs could solve many of the identity and data problems we face today, but today let’s dive deep on a specific problem set DIDs could solve: parental controls and minors’ digital security.

It’s an inescapable reality for parents today that their kids will be online. There’s no avoiding the reality that minors are going to consume a diverse array of content and interact with others on the internet, but parents do want to have a say in what’s put in front of their children. Digital safety is already incorporated by some services - such as Netflix - and platforms - like iOS - but universal parental controls and safety monitoring don’t presently exist. That could change, however, via DIDs and a concept known as DID controllers.

Whether or not you know the term, you know the experience of using a Progressive Web App (PWA): it’s the slick experience that enables you to install a web experience to your native device and enjoy the speed of use of a website with the tight system integration of a native app. They allow for experiences like recreating Starbucks’ native app in web, or for creating a highly 2G-optmized experience like what Uber created for some of their customers. PWAs take advantage of native features such as on-device storage, push notifications, and even windowing without requiring the overhead of a native app and the ability to install them without going through an app store.

In the same way that HTML5 and PWAs changed the way users expected to consume their apps through the minor addition of manifest, an even larger shift has arrived in the form of Decentralized Web Apps (DWAs), which combine PWAs with Web5. While PWAs redefined the relationship between the client and server by enabling richer on-device experiences through native integrations, DWAs are going to completely redefine data storage for apps resulting in a seismic shift in user privacy, ease-of-use, and data portability.

The concept of Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) was first proposed in 2015 by Drummond Reed and then became an official W3C standard in July of 2022.

Adoption has grown quite a bit in the last few years. Here are a few ways they are being used today.

You may know what a decentralized identifier (DID) is or even how to generate one, but you may be wondering: what’s the point of yet ANOTHER way to identify myself? To get a better sense of the why behind decentralized identifiers, we’ll discuss the real problems society faces today when it comes to identity, and why DIDs are an enormous practical solution to a pervasive set of problems.

The United States’ potential ban of TikTok is the latest and loudest warning sign of our increasing need for a decentralized internet. Consumers are quickly wondering where they’ll go for their short form video content if TikTok is taken away. Creators are faced with the reality that their income could immediately dry up if the most viral social media platform to date disappears. Lastly, businesses could potentially watch one of their most powerful distribution channels go up in flames overnight.

Web Assembly​

Web Assembly is a popular format for running binary applications in web browsers (with wide support).

This can have a few advantages but the interesting thing for us is that this can allow sharing of implementations of functionality: credential issuance, DID resolving, cryptographic functions, etc which you may not want to necessarily re-implement in JavaScript or TypeScript.

The SSI-SDK is an implementation of a lot of standards for self-sovereign identity, so it is a great candidate to expose via WASM to web apps.

Block recently partnered with the Human Rights Foundation to present Currency of Freedom, a series of fireside chats with humanitarians, activists, and leaders who shared their stories of relying on bitcoin for critical financial access.

Web 5 puts users in control of their own data. Right now your bank balance, credit card transaction history and the identity information on your utility bills are in dozens of databases owned by dozens of companies with dozens of terms of service you probably haven’t read.

The Verifiable Credential Selector (VCS) is an open source widget that makes it easy for you to gain possession of your data from Financial Technology (FinTech) apps. VCS uses Decentralized Identifiers and Verifiable Credentials so once you have control of your data, you can selectively share only what’s required - instantly rather than waiting minutes.

As stewards of an open source ecosystem, we welcome innovation from the community. To encourage new ideas from folks around the world, today we launch the TBD Open Source Incubation Program.

Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) is an umbrella term well-detailed by Christopher Allen, and inspired by many in the Identity community before him, in his 2016 blog post: The Path to Self-Sovereign Identity, which identifies Ten Principles of Self-Sovereign Identity: