Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world with over $11 trillion under management, said something prescient in his recent 2025 Chairman’s Letter to Investors:

“One day, I expect tokenized funds will become as familiar to investors as ETFs — provided we crack one critical problem: identity verification.”

Identity. Not market access. Not market volatility. And not regulation.

For dramatic effect, let me restate that: The CEO of the largest asset manager in the world believes that digital identity is the unlock for the tokenized asset market!

Building identity infrastructure for the next wave of tokenization isn’t exactly the type of headline that grabs your attention. But it’s the one that decides whether the next version of the internet works for everyone or not at all.

Tokenization Is Real — And It’s Growing Fast

Tokenization can make the financial system for efficient and accessible. It can enable fractional ownership, increase liquidity, improve transparency, and facilitate trading on exchanges without intermediaries.

According to Boston Consulting Group, the tokenized asset market is set to hit $5 trillion by 2030. That’s not just speculation. It includes real estate, artwork, stocks, bonds, even music rights and other intellectual property — all being digitized and traded on-chain.

These aren’t assets made for the crypto world. These are assets from the real world being rebuilt on top of it. And they come with one clear need — identity that’s just as secure as the old system, but built for a faster, more open one.

What the Old System Got Right

Apple Pay works. Credit cards work. Every day, billions of transactions pass through these systems with identity checks running in the background. Invisible but constant.

The NYSE handles trades worth trillions with layered compliance and verification standards. The rails are old but proven. Every actor is known. Every move is logged.

But these systems weren’t built for the next wave.

They weren’t made for digital tokens, decentralized ownership, and digital identity. So, as assets move on-chain, a digital verification system must be built to accommodate tokenized digital assets.

The next billion blockchain users aren’t likely to be crypto natives where anonymous or pseudonymous identity will suffice. They’ll be involved in transactions where verified, real-world identity is required.

India Showed It’s Possible

More than 90% of Indians can verify their identity and complete digital transactions through a smartphone. No credit history needed. No social security number. Just secure credentials and a device.

It’s proof that identity infrastructure can scale fast if it’s designed the right way. Italso proves that privacy doesn’t have to be sacrificed for accessibility.

Why Consumers Should Care

Tokenized assets might sound like Wall Street mumbo jumbo, but they’re not, and the benefits will show up in everyday life for consumers.

Bank transfers shouldn’t take days — they should be instant — and fees should be close to zero.

Buying a house shouldn’t involve five intermediaries just to prove you are who you say you are. Tokenized property, combined with verified digital identity, can simplify that process down to minutes, not weeks.

Credit cards cost merchants more than 2% on every sale. That cost gets passed on to consumers. With tokenized payments and real-time identity checks, that overhead drops sharply.

Loan approvals. Ownership transfers. Stock trading. All of them get faster, less costly, and more secure if the right digital identity system is in place.

The Big Picture — Solving Identity at Scale

Tokenization will transform global finance. But this transformation depends on solving the identity puzzle. Without a secure, decentralized identity layer, tokenized assets are just another complicated tech project.

Companies like Dentity are building toward this version of the future. Quietly, without noise. A privacy-first digital identity layer that removes central control without losing trust. This isn’t just important for consumers; it’s critical for the future of finance, where transactions will need to be secure, efficient and scalable.

The Future of Finance Starts with Identity

If tokenized assets are to live up to their potential, they need a digital identity layer that works — one that’s secure, private and scalable. It’s time to move beyond the limitations of traditional identity systems and embrace a decentralized future where people, not institutions, control their own identity.

A privacy-first, decentralized identity approach is designed to make this happen, helping pave the way for a tokenized economy that works for everyone.

But identity verification is the key. Get that right and the future of finance is wide open.

-User verification

-Authenticity within their platform

-New revenue streams (since both online ID verification programs require users to pay a recurring fee)

However, these emerging programs aren’t the only way to ensure a more authentic and secure online social media presence. A free online identity verification service like Dentity provides authentication across multiple online platforms including social media, marketplaces, and more.

Opting for a more secure online presence is just one reason to explore these ID verification programs. Today we’ll help by comparing the two popular ID verification services — Twitter Blue and Meta Verified — then show you how using Dentity helps you better protect your privacy and provides control of your online identity.

Why are Social Media Platforms Opting for ID Verification?

There are many reasons why social media platforms have started offering more in-depth ID verification for their users.

User Safety

For years, experts have insisted that ID verification online helps keep social media users safer. Fraud is rampant across social media, with scams involving user impersonation becoming increasingly popular.

It takes almost no work for a malicious user to impersonate another person (either real or fake). Then, they can use that profile to perpetrate romance scams, cryptocurrency scams, and almost any other illegal or dangerous act imaginable.

Platform Authenticity

Increasing user security isn’t the only reason why social media platforms are opting for ID verification. Platform authenticity has become critical since advertiser dollars make up such a large percentage of a social media company’s revenue stream. After Elon Musk’s failed rollout of the initial version of Twitter Blue, advertising spend on the platform dropped by 71%.

Revenue

In addition to protecting users and ensuring increased platform authenticity, ID verification has the potential to become a new and lucrative revenue stream for social media companies.

However, in order for Twitter to replace its advertising revenue, it would need more than 60 million subscribers to its Twitter Blue program, making it difficult to achieve without aggressive marketing.

Comparing Online ID Verification in 2023

With more than 137 million people joining social media last year alone, using some form of user verification is essential. However, each social media platform is approaching it in its own way.

Here’s how their programs stack up.

Twitter Blue

After a rocky launch of Twitter Blue, platform officials announced that they were restarting the program in December 2022. Advertised as a “premium subscription service”, Twitter Blue offers users a variety of enhanced platform features for an annual fee of $114.99 for iOS users.

To use Twitter Blue, users must sign up, pay the fee, then be verified via a confirmed phone number. After that, a blue checkmark is applied to their account as a sign that they have been verified. No government-issued ID is required to get a blue check mark on Twitter.

Any changes to the user’s name, handle, or profile photo will result in the temporary loss of the blue checkmark until the phone number has been reconfirmed.

Meta Verified

Meta Verified was rolled out as a subscription service starting in February 2023. The service costs $179.99 annually on iOS and offers users the chance to submit a government-issued photo ID to Meta in exchange for a blue verification badge on Facebook and Instagram.

While this service does offer the benefit of allowing users to prove that they are who they say they are, its cost is not insignificant. This means that many people will simply choose not to enroll.

Additionally, some cybersecurity experts are worried that cybercriminals will still be able to impersonate users, adding more credibility to these authenticated accounts that may make an unsuspecting victim more likely to trust them and put themselves at risk.

Dentity

Fortunately, ID verification is now available online in a format that can be used across social media, virtual marketplaces, dating apps, and more.

While you will have to pay nearly $295 annually to be verified on both Twitter and Meta, Dentity is an entirely free online identity verification service designed to keep people safe online.

Through our secure process, users can easily prove their identity using an ID, then share their unique online ID verification with anyone who requests it. This means that it’s easy to prove that you are who you say you are when you’re meeting someone for a first date, buying something online, or even just getting to know a new friend digitally.

Once your identity is verified, the information stays in your digital wallet — no more sharing your ID with a company only to find it vulnerable following a hack or data breach.

The explosive growth of the Internet has put us closer and closer to strangers who are outside of our natural circle of trust. We ride in cars with drivers we don’t know, sleep in the beds of people we’ve never met before, date people we meet online, and have strangers come to our home to walk our dog or buy our used car.

That’s why we created Dentity. We give you a way to build trusted connections by allowing you to easily prove and share your identity information with other people, companies, or “things.” With Dentity, you can share your personal identity information anytime, anywhere, and request that others do the same.

It’s the safest and most secure way to share your personal identity information. Because Dentity is a peer-to-peer network, a website, username, or password doesn’t sit between you and your trusted connections. That means you can establish an infinite number of connections without sharing your personal information each time. It’s trust on steroids!

Building Trust Online

Consumers, and their reliance on one another, are powering the sharing economy and the peer-to-peer Internet. The problem is that the Internet wasn’t built with an identity layer. This has created ad-hoc and inconsistent trust models across the sites we use in our daily lives — some have them, some do not. Because of this, the “trust equity” that we build on one site isn’t portable to the next.

Trust needs to be universal and portable .

Moreover, we can no longer assume a person is “real” because they have a social media account, email address, or they’ve posted something for sale on the Internet. In 2020, over 37% of all Internet users were in fact bots.

Facebook deleted over 1.3 billion fake accounts in the first quarter of 2021 alone, yet according to a recent governmental report, they still left 95% of reported fake accounts active. It’s estimated that around 20% of the profiles on dating apps like Tinder are fake.

Creating a Safer Internet

Anonymity is the biggest threat to online trust and safety. Bad things happen on the Internet under the veil of anonymity. Everyday someone is getting catfished, scammed, or even worse, on social networks, peer-to-peer marketplaces, or dating apps. None of these sites require identity proofing to create an account, and as a result, they can become a haven for bad actors, predators, and criminal activity.

2020 was a record-breaking year for online child exploitation, with more than 21.7 million reports according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Technology, in particular the Internet, has enabled sex trafficking and sexual exploitation to become the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world.

The Dentity Solution

Dentity is designed to solve these issues — building trust online and making the Internet a safer place. We allow you to prove your identity and share your personal information in a safe and secure way. We use patent pending A.I. technology to power visual ID verification for every identity claim.

Verify your personal identity information using a government-issued IDAllow you to securely share your personal information with others that request itConfirm your identity without disclosing important personal informationRequest others verify their identity or share their personal information

Where Can I Use My Dentity?

You can use your Dentity anywhere online or in your daily life when trust or verified identity matters, like….

Buying or selling something online on Craigslist or FacebookUsing peer-to-peer apps like Tinder, Airbnb, or EtsySigning in online to over 50,000 websitesGetting valuable perks from brandsGetting access to venues using your Apple Wallet Dentity pass

Get Started

Getting started is easy. Visit www.dentity.com to create a free account or get requested by a current Dentity user.

When the Internet was developed in the 1960s and 1970s by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), it was designed to solve the problem of connecting machines to share information across multiple networks. DARPA’s solution — which is still in place today — was to exchange packets of data using the TCP/IP protocol. This enabled a “network of networks” to develop, and the rest is history. Today, there are almost 5 billion active users on the Internet.

There is, however, one flaw with the TCP/IP protocol: it allows us to know the address of the machine we are connecting to but not the person, organization, or thing responsible for that machine — their identity is unknown to us. Fundamentally, the Internet was built without a way of knowing who and what we are connecting to.

Because the Internet lacks a native identity layer, everyone offering an Internet service has had to cobble together their own workaround. This has created a patchwork of ad hoc identity solutions that are inconsistent (and inconvenient to say the least). Consider the fact that the average business user on the Internet today has 191 passwords — the true definition of insanity!

The Rising Toll of an Internet Without Identity

As our use of the Internet broadens, so does our exposure to these workarounds. We are engaging in online transactions which have a progressively greater real-world value, and our digital interactions are bringing us closer and closer to strangers who are outside of our immediate circle of trust. The table stakes are rising at the same time that the fault lines of an identity-less Internet are widening.

This fact hasn’t been lost on criminals. They have become increasingly sophisticated, professional, and international. Consider the following:

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 2020 was a record-breaking year for online child exploitation with more than 21.7 million reports. According to one observer, “Technology, in particular the Internet, has enabled sex trafficking and sexual exploitation to become the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world.”

Facebook data breaches were responsible for a whopping 849 million leaked records in 2020. In 2021, you can add another 533 million records to that number. The personal information (including name, bio, birthdate, location, relationship status, email, and account details) of over one billion Facebook users is now readily available on the dark web. It’s no wonder that 67% of US adults don’t trust social media companies with their personal information.

Bad actors benefit from and exploit anonymity on the Internet. If it were measured as a country, then cybercrime — which is predicted to inflict damages totaling $6 trillion globally in 2021 — would be the world’s third-largest economy after the U.S. and China.

If we leave the current situation unchecked, we are headed towards a crisis. The consequences of an identity-less Internet could create a crisis of confidence and credibility among the public, limiting the development of new business models and slowing the pace of digital growth.

The Path Forward: Three Principles of an Internet Identity System

History suggests a few key principles which could guide an identity system for the Internet, including:

Individuals, as consumers, must be in control of what information they share, with whom they share it, and the purpose and uses of such information . Any technical identity system must be designed to put the user in control, protect them against deception, and verify the identity of any party who requests their information.

A single digital identity solution isn’t realistic . The Internet is experienced by billions of people, on millions of sites, run by thousands of enterprises. An identity solution that works for one business, employer, or government may not work for another. For example, we may need a government-issued ID to drive a motor vehicle or get through airport security, but we certainly don’t need one to buy a latte using the Starbucks mobile app or open a social media account. There simply isn’t any single approach, technology, or provider that can contemplate every situation. Context is everything and any identity system must be flexible enough to account for this. Ultimately, consumers will decide who wins and what systems gets widely adopted.

An identity system must be easy to use and consistent across contexts . As we interact with multiple providers who may use different technologies, the user experience has to be familiar and easy to use. We have a number of digital identity profiles, and any system needs to allow users to easily manage these and match them to a given context. For example, we may have one identity profile for web browsing, one for account creation, one for collaborating with others online, one issued by our employer, one issued by our credit card company, one issued by our state government, and one issued by our national government. Allowing consumers to easily curate and manage these profiles will allow them to view their different identity profiles as part of a larger identity system that still respects the need for unique context.

Dentity Verified Identity

We’ve built the Dentity Verified Identity program to address these requirements. Dentity allows anyone to verify their identity using our service, create a public profile page, and post it on all platforms. It’s easily shared among peers, and it isn’t dependent on any one website or platform. Users have complete control of what information is shared, with whom, and in what context, and they can create multiple profiles that map to their digital lives.

About Dentity

Dentity is on a mission to make the internet a safer place by giving the power of identity back to consumers. By using open identity protocols, including blockchain, Dentity enables trusted peer-to-peer interactions and serves as a self-service platform for credential issuers and verifiers.

Used by thousands of consumers and large national organizations, the Dentity web app features a decentralized mobile wallet that holds a variety of shareable ID cards and credentials that cannot be accessed, transferred, intercepted, or altered by anyone but the owner.

Dentity is based in Santa Monica, CA. For more information, please visit www.dentity.com or email hello@dentity.com.

What is peer-to-peer verified identity and why does it matter? Let’s start by defining what verified identity means and then review why it’s important in the peer-to-peer Internet.

What is Verified Identity?

Verified identity is what results from “identity proofing,” the process of verifying a user’s identity — confirming that they are who they say they are. This may sound like ordinary authentication based on username and password, but identity proofing typically comes into play before users get their credentials to even access an application or receive a service.

It’s typically used by businesses to prevent fraud or to increase trust on their platform, businesses which have a KYC (Know Your Customer) requirement, or government entities which require a verified identity to access services. There are several ways to verify an individual’s identity claim, including biometrics and extracting data from a passport, driver’s license, or government ID card.

Peer-to-Peer vs. Enterprise Verified Identity

To date, identity proofing has mostly been used by institutions — mainly businesses and governments. Billions of identities are proofed each month by a broad range of service providers who seek to mitigate online fraud and counter identity theft. These services are used by the enterprise to gate consumers’ access to their applications — they’re almost entirely business to consumer.

In fact, there isn’t a platform specifically designed for the peer-to-peer market that affords consumers access the same advanced identity verification tools and technology. Consumers are largely left to their own devices, reliant on the platform they are using to ensure their safety.

Yet there are powerful reasons why such a platform should exist and how it would benefit consumers. A few of these are noted below.

Increase Online Safety: Remove Stranger Danger

Bad things happen on the Internet under the guise of anonymity. I’m going to spare you the daily dose of death and dismemberment that comes across my desk but suffice it to say that everyday someone is getting catfished, scammed, or even worse, on platforms like Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, or Tinder. None of these sites require identity verification, and as a result, they can become a haven for bad actors with malevolent intent.

Having said that, it’s understandable that businesses seek to optimize their economic objectives. Facebook, for example, has 2.8 billion users, which drives their advertising business. Yet according to Statista, they deleted 1.3 billion fake accounts in the first quarter of 2021 alone. Many of these were bots trying to impersonate a real person.

A stand-alone identity verification platform that can be easily used by consumers across all sites could help solve this problem. It would increase online safety, effectively remove catfishing, and guard against fraud in buyer-seller transactions.

We’ve come to rely on a range of federated logins — login with Facebook, login with Google, or login with your Apple ID. While this has made it easy to access sites, it’s done nothing to increase online safety and propagate the idea that identity matters. A simple solution here is a platform that allows for federated login using verified identity.

Accelerate the Growth of the P2P Internet and Sharing Economy

A trust shift is underway. As a society, trust is shifting away from institutions like businesses and governments and is being distributed horizontally to our fellow human beings. The growth of the sharing economy is a textbook example of this. Consider the fact that Uber is the world’s largest taxi company and owns no vehicles, Facebook is the world’s most popular media company and creates no content, and Airbnb is the world’s largest accommodation provider and owns no real estate. Consumers, and their reliance on one another, is powering the sharing economy and collaborative consumption. Its estimated that by 2025, this will be a $350 billion market!

As trust gets distributed horizontally and we have more interactions with people we don’t know, building trust online becomes more important than ever before. In this context, establishing verified identity is the sine qua non — the essential condition — for establishing trust among peers.

As verified identity takes hold (over anonymity), the peer-to-peer Internet will flourish and it will open the door for a range of new online interactions, business models, and collaborative consumption.

As a side note, if you’re interested in sustainability, then more efficiently using resources is likely top of mind. If this is the case and you believe that collaborative consumption models are part of the solution to sustainability, then you should immediately see the importance of verified identity, which is an important requirement for sharing resources among our fellow humans.

Deepen Human Connections

Human connections are diminished when identity is a question mark. Am I dealing with a real person, or is the person on the other side of this network connection a bot, deep fake, or huckster with a fake account?

There’s no way that the human connections and the trust required to power the next wave of Internet innovation — which I would argue is going to come from the connections we make among our fellow peers — can be driven by anything less than the secure knowledge that you’re dealing with a verified person.

Facebook crunched their social graph and determined that we’re all now separated by 3.57 degrees of separation. The paradox is that we’re more connected yet feel more isolated.

Verified identity is part of the solution. If we lift the veil of anonymity, likely our “connections” will act more humane. Idris Elba, the talented British actor, writer, producer, and rapper was eloquent on this exact point, noting:

“If cowards are being supported by a veil of privacy and secrecy, then social media is not a safe place. If cowards want to spout racial rhetoric, then say it with you name, not your username.”

Let’s address the market need for a verified buyer or seller program, what the current state of play is with trust in peer-to-peer marketplaces, and review how Dentity is trying to solve the trust gap with its Verified program.

Trust Gap in the Sharing Economy

It should come as no surprise to you that the sharing economy is exploding. Platforms like Airbnb, Uber, TaskRabbit, and Rover are all examples of companies that create value by enabling direct interactions between two or more customers. They provide an infrastructure which facilitate transactions, and part of that is providing a way to build trust between the parties.

Each company approaches the issue of building trust on their platform in different ways. Some use ratings and reviews, some use background checks, and some tie their trust to an account profile. Generally speaking, these models have inconsistent trust models. Some do better than others, and none share exactly the same approach. They’re also plagued by a lack of portability: a user’s trust equity on one site isn’t easily transferred to another site. In essence, trust becomes a walled garden, specific and exclusive to each site.

Trust Gap in Peer-to-Peer Marketplaces

Peer-to-peer marketplaces like Craigslist face an even more daunting challenge. Without a trust model of any sort, scammers are rampant, and the marketplace can be akin to the Wild West. Everyone is tasked with looking out for their own self-interest and their own safety.

Even Facebook Marketplace and dating apps like Tinder face real trust issues. Having a Facebook account doesn’t require verified identity, as noted by the fact that Facebook deleted 1.3 billion fake accounts in the first quarter of 2021 alone. Tinder, which has been accused by some of being a hotbed of predatory behavior and violence against woman, does not required a verified identity to create a dating profile. Catfishers with malevolent intent notoriously use dating platforms.

Requirements to Solve the Trust Gap

It’s estimated that by 2025, the sharing economy will be a $350 billion market. This means the stakes are real, and the challenge great. In our opinion, any verified program which seems to solve the trust gap has a few essential requirements:

Any program must be based on verified identity. Seller reviews and platform specific solutions are great, but trust is highly situational. I may trust you to fix my car, but not to babysit my daughter. The only thing that is persistent across every platform is your verified identity.

Any program must be highly portable. You should own it, be able to bring it with you everywhere you are online, and control what information is shared. In our view, the way to achieve this is by creating a new trust model that is OTT (Over the Top). Rather than relying on the way trust is traditionally delivered — which is tied to the platform — our approach is to put you in control. It’s platform agnostic, you own it, and you can take it with you wherever you go.

Any program must be easy to use by both “buyers” and “sellers.” These terms are specifically put in quotation marks because it’s not always the case that goods are being bought or sold. In some cases, you might be inviting a service provider into your home, while in other cases, you may indeed be involved in a commerce transaction. The myriad of interactions that occur in the sharing economy and peer-to-peer Internet aren’t suited for a one-sided solution where a website grants you access to their trust while you’re using their platform.

The Dentity Verified Program

We’ve built the Dentity Verified program to address these requirements. The program allows anyone to verify their identity using our service, create a public profile page, and post it on all platforms. It’s viral in that its easily shared among peers, and it’s universal in that it isn’t dependent on any one website or platform.

It has some of the following features and benefits:

• A public verified identity profile page
• Easy to use Verify Me process
• Verified Icons, badges, and links that are easily displayed on your selling sites
• An easy way to verify identity and build trust

An independent company is required to solve this trust gap since no platform allows for the portability of their trust system to another site. The Dentity program is portable and universal, and the best part is that users own and control their personal data. They only share it with those that they choose — not big tech, big social, or big government.

The Internet can be a violent place. People that seek to do us harm prowl for victims, creating a daily dose of headlines that range from death and dismemberment to financial scams and sensational catfishing stories.

According to The Washington Post, Craigslist alone is responsible for documented murders in triple digits, and another study estimates that each year, as many as 100 murders, 16,000 abductions, and thousands of sexual assaults occur as a result of online dating.

The September 2022 conviction of a Colorado man who killed a couple who responded to an online car advertisement is but a recent example of this scourge. According to the District Attorney who prosecuted the case, “The defendant assumed a fake identity to lure this innocent couple into his snare, pretending to be someone he wasn’t and to sell a car he didn’t own…He callously ended two innocent lives for a few thousand dollars.”

A common thread in many online crimes is fake identity — predators and criminals using false or assumed identities to commit crimes. In these cases, verifying the identity of the person you meet or transact with online can be a lifesaver. Fortunately, there’s a free ID verification service available to all consumers. It’s easy to use and offers enterprise-level identity verification. It’s a public service designed to increase Internet safety.

Free Identity Verification

Dentity offers a no-cost way to verify the identity of people on dating apps like Tinder, selling websites like Craigslist and OfferUp, and social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. It takes less than a minute to create an account. Online criminals hide behind fake identity, so free ID verification can deter many online crimes.

Free Name, Age, and Gender Verification

Dentity allows consumers to verify the name, age, and gender of the people they meet online. Dating apps are notorious for financial scams and catfishers — verifying ID reduces the threat caused by fake profiles and allows consumers to verify basic information like name, age, and gender.

Free to Verify ID, Free to Invite Friends

Dentity is always free. Consumers can create an account in less than a minute and, once their identity is verified, they can invite an unlimited number of friends to join the service.

As more of our lives turn digital, the threat posed by bad actors which seek to do us harm is only increasing. Dentity offers a free identity verification service to consumers to protect them against criminals on sites like Craigslist and OfferUp, Tinder, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

For the first time, ENS users can now securely link their onchain identity with their real-world identity. They can define the scope of the information they wish to share, and maintain complete control over what Personally Identified Information (PII) is publicly available, while preventing the need for any PII onchain. Dentity leverages self-sovereign identity standards and protocols, including W3C Verifiable Credentials, Decentralised Identifiers (DIDs), and OpenID Connect (OIDC) for Verifiable Presentations to allow for a seamless and interoperable integration with ENS.

Adding these verifications to your ENS profile is easy! Follow the steps below to get started.

1. Visit https://ens.domains/ to login, or create your ENS name. You will need to connect your wallet using our variety of integrated wallet partners.

2. Once you are logged in, visit the “Verifications” tab shown in your ENS manager. This will navigate you to Dentity to complete your verifications. You can also pre-fill your txt records in your ENS manager for what you plan on verifying in Dentity (all socials available besides GitHub)

3. Sign Up or Sign In to Dentity using your registered phone number. Users must attach a phone number to their account before connecting their account for perks such as Sign In With Ethereum.

4. Choose the verifications you would like to complete. Dentity offers a variety of credentials to verify such as Identity Verification (Proof of Personhood), X, Telegram, Discord, and Email. We will be adding more verification methods in the near future!

5. Once you complete the verifications you would like to show on your ENS profile, navigate to the “Share to ENS” button. Once you confirm the credentials you would like to share to your ENS profile, you will be redirected to ENS to complete your transaction.

6. ENS will display a transaction pop up, open your wallet to complete this transaction.

7. Done! You will now see a green Proof of Personhood badge (if you completed the identity verification) next to your name. You can also display your social verifications by navigating to “Edit profile” and adding your txt records to your ENS profile (these will cross-reference with the items verified on Dentity). If everything matches, you will see a blue check mark next to your verifications.

For more information on the partnership and the official press release: https://decrypt.co/245677/ens-labs-partners-with-dentity-to-advance-real-world-credentials-for-web3.

Links 🔗

Discord: https://discord.gg/dentity

Website: http://dentity.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dentityme/

Telegram: https://t.me/dentityme

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dentityme

Twitter (X): https://x.com/dentityme

Instagram: https://instagram.com/dentityme

Sorry, little Johnny isn’t getting those sneakers he wants for Christmas this year. Automated shopping bots have siphoned up the supply of Yeezy’s and now they’re selling for $600 on eBay. The same thing is happening to just about anything on the Internet that has limited supply — from concert tickets to Covid vaccine reservations to PlayStations.

What’s happening in the shoe reseller market is but one, admittedly small, sign that the Internet is breaking — or is broken.

Identity theft is at an all-time high, hate speech continues to fester unchecked on social networks, and reports of online child grooming have reached a record high. Romance scams on dating apps and fake buyers on places like Craigslist are on the rise, while civil discourse and Internet safety are on the decline. Bots and bad people — metaphorically, the guy in the hoodie at his keyboard — seem to be taking over the Internet. Depending on who you are, he may be feeding you political disinformation, stealing your personal information, or catfishing you on a dating app. He’s operating under a concealed name and is almost always up to no good.

The Call to End Anonymity on the Internet

Should we un-mask him?

Some have called for eliminating anonymity as a panacea for all the ills that plague the Internet. Legislation is being discussed in Congress which would require providers of social media services to verify the identity of their users and mandates that social media companies report fake IDs to the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice.

Bad idea, and likely unconstitutional. Plus, consumers react negatively towards the idea of giving social media giants more of their personal information. It’s not practical in form or substance.

The Marketplace for Identity and Changing Consumer Preferences

Any solution to the anonymity conundrum needs to address the reality of today’s Internet, the changing demographics of Internet users, and the increasing awareness of consumers about the use and misuse of their personal information.

Underlying the Internet is an economy of data. Internet giants have made billions off our personal information, benefiting from an environment in which constant disclosure and collection is a requirement to use the “free” apps that we frequent every day. This isn’t changing anytime soon, but the power dynamics between Big Tech and consumers get re-stacked with each disclosure that another hundred million accounts have been hacked. Consumers don’t want to turn over more of their personal information to the social media giants. Time is ripe for a new solution and a new paradigm that doesn’t involve consumers handing over an ever-increasing amount of their personal information.

The demographics and preferences of Internet users are changing. More than half of Americans are now Millennials or younger. They are migrating away from places like Facebook (which has a “real name” policy) towards apps and services where pseudonymity is the norm. From Instagram to SnapChat, these apps have different assumptions about what personal information their users want to share with the public. Even Bytedance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, doesn’t ask users for their real name when they sign up.

Consumers are having an awakening about their role in the marketplace of identity. In a recent survey, 89% of consumers stated that they care about data privacy and want more control of their personal information, and 70% said they’re willing to spend time and money to protect their data. This augers in favor of a solution that gives consumers more control of their identity information and puts them at the center of decisions about how their personal information is collected, stored, and used.

Creating a New Digital Identity Framework

So, what’s the path forward?

Below are three principals which should be considered as we create a new identity framework for the Internet:

Consumers should have the choice to remain anonymous or pseudonymous on the Internet. It protects their First Amendment rights and ensures the free exchange of ideas. Each digital interaction or transaction is unique. In some cases, sharing personal information is entirely appropriate and warranted, while in other cases, it might create personal embarrassment or exposure with family, friends, or work colleagues. Consumers should decide for themselves what personal information — if any — should be disclosed online. They alone should have to power to decide when disclosing personally identifiable information is warranted.

Consumers should be given a way to protect their privacy and control their digital identity. Today, the average business user of the Internet has 191 passwords. Total insanity, I know, but it’s really a result of the way the Internet was created by DARPA in the 1960s and 1970s. Is there any wonder why there are four billion identities for sale on the dark web? More of our personal information is available in more places than ever before. Any solution has to address this problem. Consumers should be given a way to own their identity information so they can control how it’s used. They need a “digital identity wallet” that puts them at the center of a new distributed identity model on the Internet.

Each digital persona should be tied to a verifiable identity. Let’s deal with the reality of the Internet today — Facebook deletes a billion fake accounts a quarter! It’s a mess out there and we are largely suffering from what happens when account creation is divorced from identity. Said differently, we’ve come to accept the fact that you don’t need to be a real person to create an account on many of the Internet’s largest platforms. It’s created a massive trust gap for consumers that needs to be solved for the Internet to prosper. Absent taking away #1 above, we have a responsibility to address digital personas that aren’t tethered to anything in the real world. Trust requires Identity verification, but take note — the decision to share personal information is best left between peers in a network. They’re in the best position to decide what information to share, with whom, and when. If consumers owned a “digital identity wallet” tied to a verified identity, they could choose to remain anonymous, or pseudonymous, while providing the assurance that there’s a real person behind that guy with the hoodie at his keyboard.

At Dentity, we’re on a mission to put consumers at the center of a new identity model by following the above principals. It’s early days, and we acknowledge that there isn’t one solution that will work for every business and every consumer, but thus far, consumers are telling us that we’re on the right track. Come join us!

Decentralized identity is transforming how we perform digital transactions, bringing a seamless, secure approach to the digital world’s intricacies. This exploration into decentralized identity will not only highlight its benefits but also its role in fostering digital asset adoption and streamlining online interactions, setting the stage for a more transparent, efficient digital ecosystem.

Core Concepts in Decentralized Identity

The Shift to Decentralized Identity

Decentralized identity moves away from traditional, centralized ID systems towards one where personal data control rests with the individual. Identities are distributed across a network rather than held within a single database, utilizing blockchain technology for a secure, unchangeable record of identity details, cutting the risk of data breaches and identity theft and putting users in charge of their credentials.

Importance of Decentralized Identity

Decentralized identity is vital in digital asset transactions, easing the verification processes. This lessens the reliance on intermediaries, cutting costs, and speeding up transactions. Businesses gain a risk-reduced identity verification method, while users gain autonomy and trust, crucial for a fair digital economy promoting participation without sacrificing privacy or security.

Integrating Decentralized Identity with Digital Assets

Decentralized Identity in Asset Transactions

Decentralized identity is paramount in digitizing asset exchanges. It anchors each transaction to a verified digital ID using blockchain, reducing fraud, and streamlining transfers. For market players, this translates to trust and easier market entry due to less stringent checks. It also aids regulatory compliance with unalterable transaction and identity verification logs.

Boosting Digital Asset Adoption

Decentralized identity can accelerate digital asset adoption by enabling secure and straightforward identity management, boosting individual and institutional engagement. This can enhance market liquidity and lead to broader, more inclusive digital asset services, like automated smart contracts triggered by identity verification, spurring growth and innovation.

Implementing Decentralized Identity

Steps for Adoption

Implementing decentralized identity necessitates selecting a suitable blockchain platform and creating a privacy-centered, fraud-resistant identity verification framework involving digital wallets and keys. Integrating this into transactional systems means API updates and promoting secure decentralized identity management among users. Continuous system maintenance is also key.

Tackling Implementation Challenges

Interoperability, user adoption, and regulatory compliance pose challenges in adopting decentralized identity. Achieving a unified system requires collaboration with industry partners, open standards, and active engagement in blockchain governance, paving the way for a user-friendly decentralized identity experience.

Dentity Accelerating Digital Assets Adoption

Dentity accelerates digital asset adoption by providing secure and streamlined decentralized identity solutions, reducing reliance on intermediaries, enhancing market liquidity and innovation, implementing a privacy-centered framework, and addressing implementation challenges.

Through its commitment to advancing decentralized identity technology, Dentity plays a crucial role in shaping the future of digital asset exchanges.

Learn more about Dentity here and see if it is right for you.