Reputational Identity — 2022 Progress Update

Introduction: Decentralized Identity

There are 7.7 billion people. Each one of us is unique. We have different tastes, hobbies, and aspirations. Our identity is who we are, a set of traits that define us. We place an extraordinary amount of importance on this. Our digital identity — how we represent ourselves and behave online — often differs from our physical identity. And often, it is even more important.

Today, our digital identities are owned and access-controlled by large centralized entities — Google, Apple, Meta, Twitter, YouTube, etc. Through our online behavior, they know what we like to see and what we have done in the past. All of this is siloed; when I move from Twitter to Instagram, nothing carries over.

There are two fundamental premises in decentralized identity that make it different from our Web2 digital identities: