Soon, we'll all be interacting with the metaverse and Web 3 as often as we do with the current version of the Internet. But unlike Web 2, this next-generation Web will feel a bit more lifelike.
Web 3 offers the ability to incorporate a "self-managed identity layer," which will also be our primary passport into the Metaverse. Self-managed identity will solve many of the Internet's current problems and may even make us rethink the way we represent - and prove - who we are.
JP Bedoya is the chief product officer at Civil. This article is part of "Metaverse Week."
Sovereign identity means that you, as an individual, own the data you produce or put online. It is "sovereign" because you can choose to share certain elements of that data only to the point necessary to achieve a desired goal, and no more.
Because the Web 3 connects so many different areas of our digital and physical lives, it requires precise control over how we are represented in these different areas.
The endpoint is essentially where you access goods and services or join digital communities. A sovereign identity is composed of several elements that serve as a foundation.
Private, but accessible and scalableCompanies are
primarilyinterested in users. Everything they do, from initial design to marketing, is in service of a variation of one main question: can this help us attract more users? Can it help us attract them in a frictionless way? Is there an easier way to "win" them? So when companies develop their "Web 3 strategies," they need to think about customers in the metaverse.
A company's approach to identity will say a lot about its relationship with users. If the process is cumbersome, invasive, and repetitive, it will turn off many potential customers. The onboarding process needs to be user-friendly and, most importantly, as fast as possible.
If users are forced to enter information multiple times or upload multiple identification documents, then wait 48 hours or longer for those documents to be approved, and then go through even more steps to complete the process, it becomes too much.
Forcing people to drop out of the acquisition funnel is a business risk. Crypto companies are aware of the need for customer knowledge requirements - if only to turn away bad actors at the door. Of course, some will slip through, and that's the cost of doing business.
A Web 3 developer's goal in providing identity solutions is to provide the highest level of trust without hindering user acquisition. Compatible, reusable, and cross-chain identity solutions are a must in this regard.
A one-click ID verification process will benefit all Web 3.
levels of identityBut who
are we in the metaverse?
Well, who do we want to be? Identity doesn't have to be an existential crisis. For example, on LinkedIn you present yourself as a professional, on Twitter you may be less formal, and on Discord you're probably an anonymous sword who is completely different from the person you see in the mirror.
With self-managed identity solutions in the metaverse, we can customize our identity externally. We can choose how we are portrayed.
On social media platforms today, companies often know who the person behind the avatar is. We provide verifiable information when we create an account, but we have no control over how that data is used. These Web 2 platforms continue to store, control, and use the data.
However, if Web 3 identity standards are applied to the metaverse - perhaps using non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that can be anonymous - our identities will be reducible to the verifiable information in a blockchain. We will decide what exact data a counterparty actually needs to verify or what we want to share.
The token identity is also always already validated, eliminating the need to create logins, passwords, and backup solutions for websites with a firewall.
These identity layers can be dynamically applied across all platforms at any time. This is exactly the way a networked metaverse should be designed.
NFTs as Building Blocks of Social IdentityOurcrypto wallets
become representatives of us on the web 3, and the NFTs in those wallets are a real, if not legal, digital identity. We are what we do on the blockchain. NFTs show what communities we care about, what our goals are, what our values are - and they can do this in dynamic, ever-changing ways without even using words. (A profile picture is worth 1,000 words).
NFTs are an aesthetic language appropriate for today's Internet dwellers, who are so focused on high-resolution images and video content. Are NFTs the final step toward a representative identity on the Web, or just a way station on a longer journey? What lies beyond JPEGs?
We humans are tribal, we want to belong and integrate into like-minded communities that focus on the things we care about. And as we have since the dawn of humanity, we give in to our innate urge to form tribes, develop communication standards, and protect each other.
NFT communities address this primal (or, if you're a member of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, primitive or ape-like) desire to belong. When communities form without the constraints of physical space, things naturally get weird. Our identities become more fluid.
From the bird's eye view of this primitive but technological industry, the horizon of the metaverse seems endless, and so does our ability to recreate ourselves. And so we must work to preserve the individual's freedom to self-identify by building these technical capabilities into the DNA of Web 3.
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Rather than allowing players to port weapons or powers between games, non-fungible tokens will serve as building blocks for new games and virtual worlds
. The Metaverse Will Make Gamers of Us All Essentially,the "Metaverse" is a game - but one with real-world consequences and possibilities
. What can you do in the Metaverse in 2022? Thefuturepossibilities of the Metaverse are probably limitless, but is there anything you can do in the Metaverse right now?