Decentralized identity allows individuals to manage their identity-related information. With decentralized identity solutions, you can create identifiers and claim and hold your attestations without relying on central authorities, like service providers or governments. Decentralized identifiers are issued, held, and controlled by individuals.
Decentralized identifiers are stored on distributed ledgers (blockchains) or peer-to-peer networks. This makes DIDs globally unique, resolvable with high availability, and cryptographically verifiable. A decentralized identifier can be associated with different entities, including people, organizations, or government institutions.
There are two fundamental premises in decentralized identity that make it different from our Web2 digital identities:
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The user owns their identity instead of the organization
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The identity is portable and interoperable, able to be used wherever and whenever the user wants
