10 posts tagged with "Verifiable Credentials"

The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) has introduced a new rule banning fake online reviews. This rule, which penalizes businesses and individuals involved in the sale or purchase of fake reviews, represents a much needed step in promoting trust online. But while enforcement is crucial, there's still a challenge of identifying which reviews are legitimate. This is where Verifiable Credentials (VCs) can provide a solution.

At the recent California DMV Hackathon, the Block team, represented by members from Square and TBD, won the Best Privacy & Security Design award for building a prototype of an instant age verification system. This solution utilizes mobile drivers’ licenses (mDLs) to provide secure, privacy-centric transactions for age-restricted purchases with Square’s Point of Sale (POS) system.

In this post, we’ll explore the core technical components behind our solution, which centered on using TruAge technology to enable seamless, secure age verification.

tbDEX is an open messaging protocol that enables liquidity seekers to connect with liquidity providers. This means that as a liquidity provider, your business can be the backend supplier in several payment applications.

Performing KYC on repeat customers every time they attempt to transact with you from a different payment app would be a pain. To avoid this, you will use the Web5 SDK to issue a Known Customer Credential (KCC) to a customer, Alice, who you have already completed KYC on. You will store the JWT representing the KCC in Alice’s Decentralized Web Node so that she can present it to your business from any payment app.

At TBD, we are committed to building a decentralized future where users have greater control over their data and organizations can interact in a more open, trustworthy, and secure way. Open standards are the foundation of this vision, enabling the seamless collaboration and interoperability across systems.

Everything we do at TBD is enabled and strengthened by open standards. Our most notable projects, Web5 and tbDEX, are deeply rooted in these open standards. The frameworks for decentralized identifiers (DIDs), verifiable credentials (VCs), and the protocols that facilitate their sharing form the backbone of our work.

"Verifiable Credentials seems niche. Only a small group of technologists would be interested in this," a conference attendee declared after I enthusiastically described my company's work in the Global Payments and Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) ecosystem.

This comment gave me pause. Less than a year ago, I first encountered Verifiable Credentials (VCs) - a W3C standard for digital credentials that state specific facts about individuals, organizations, or entities. My initial reaction was similar to the conference attendee’s response. However, after interviewing SSI builders on a weekly livestream, my perspective changed dramatically.

While VCs are relatively new and primarily explored by SSI enthusiasts, their benefits extend far beyond this group. Many of the services and products you use today already rely on them – even if you don't realize it.

From healthcare to content creation, finance to travel, VCs are changing how we share and verify information. Here's a look at seven real-world applications of VCs that may surprise you:

The Future of Personal AI​

For many years, artificial intelligence primarily piqued the interest of academic researchers and enthusiasts within niche technological sectors such as robotics. Although respected, AI presented little practical application for the average person. That changed in June 2020 with the debut of a Large Language Model (LLM) called GPT-3. GPT-3 inspired organizations and individuals to use AI to accelerate their workflows, from coding and blogging to planning itineraries. Today, the potential of AI is so immense that Simon Westh Henriksen, the CTO of Kin, believes personal AI will be one of the most valuable digital assets we own in the future.

"Our current credit system says, 'Saddle yourself, so we can give you more to saddle.'" Eric Lapin, President of FormFree, stated during a recent TBD live stream. His comment sheds light on a fundamental paradox of the U.S. credit system: it often requires you to accumulate debt as a prerequisite for obtaining loans, leading to more debt. This systemic issue is underscored by recent data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which reveals that 1 in 5 applicants for mortgages, car loans, or other types of loans were rejected — the highest rate in five years. This trend disproportionately impacts Black and Latino applicants. Guided by their slogan, 'Democratizing lending for all people without bias,' FormFree developed a platform built with Web5 and AI to address these issues.

It was Friday night in New Orleans, and I was ready to kick off the weekend in true local style with a drink. I ordered my favorite wine on a food delivery app, but before the sale could be finalized, the wine store needed to verify my age. Seamlessly, they connected to my digital LA Wallet, and without sharing any extra details, my wallet confirmed I was 21+. Within 30 minutes, I was sipping my wine, in awe of the blend of tradition and cutting-edge technology - technology that I'm fortunate to work on, and also enjoy the convenience of.

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.

When you hear the term 'credential', what comes to mind? Is it a driver's license, passport, birth certificate, college degree, state ID? The common thread of these forms of credentials is that they are physical items, verified by recognized centralized bodies like a government agency or accredited university.

So how do credentials translate into the digital world where within a few clicks someone can make a fictitious identity? Introducing... verifiable credentials (VCs), a digitally signed electronic credential that follows an open standard that lets you create, own, and manage your credentials across a variety of platforms.