The Polygon Network, a decentralized app (dApp) layer for Ethereum, has announced that “Polygon ID”, one of the first identity platforms powered by zero-knowledge (ZK) cryptography — privacy, and blockchain scaling technology, will be “ready before the year ends.”
The blockchain-enabled ID for decentralized and self-sovereign models has Zero-knowledge native protocols for user privacy. It is scalable and supports private on-chain verification to enhance decentralized apps and decentralized finance, and is “open to existing standards and ecosystem development.”
Polygon ID “leverages the Iden3 protocol and Circom ZK toolkit”. Moving forward, both of the projects will be supported by Polygon while “keeping the original spirit of community initiatives to provide open-source protocols and tools to the broader ecosystem of developers.”
Mihailo Bjelic, Polygon’s co-founder, stated:
“Polygon ID is private by default, offers on-chain verification and permissionless attestation. There is nothing in the digital identity space now that ticks all these boxes It is also a great showcase for how zero-knowledge proofs can help us create a better world.”
Polygon ID is expected to be used by organizations and businesses, “for identity and trust management purposes, such as KYC (Know Your Customer) and digital wallets, where users can authenticate themselves to blockchain-based applications, without providing passwords or data to every such application individually.”
Polygon ID will also “allow for the construction of new forms of reputations like a decentralized credit score for financial primitives and social payments in DeFi; decentralized Sybil score, voting power/delegation, and domain-expertise reputation for DAOs to enable new decision-making and governance models; player reputation profile for Web3 games; private and censorship-resistant P2P communication and interactions for social applications.”
According to the company’s stated timeline, “the proof-of-concept (PoC) has been developed and the complete Polygon ID platform is scheduled to be ready in the third quarter of 2022.”
At Polygon, they believe that “putting people firmly in control of their digital identities is at the core of Web3’s promise to empower users over networks.”
They have been working behind the scenes “to fulfill this promise and today are proud to introduce Polygon ID, the self-sovereign, decentralized and private identity for the next iteration of the Internet.”
As noted in an update shared with CI:
“What makes this new identity platform unique is that it is one of the first to be powered by zero-knowledge (ZK) cryptography — a privacy, and blockchain scaling technology. Polygon has made ZK a centerpiece of its strategic vision and has committed $1 billion to related projects. Polygon ID is the latest product in this rapidly growing portfolio.”
Polygon ID has the following properties:
- Blockchain-based ID for decentralized and self-sovereign models
- Zero-knowledge native protocols for ultimate user privacy
- Scalable and private on-chain verification to boost decentralized apps and decentralized finance
- Open to existing standards and ecosystem development
- Polygon ID “leverages the Iden3 protocol and Circom ZK toolkit.”
Polygon ID is “a complete platform that can be used to construct a variety of identity and trust services.”
The team is creating “an open and enterprise-ready ecosystem for trust markets and trust management to build new attestation and access services with an incentive layer.”
As noted in the update, KYC typically “involves users providing third parties with a litany of personally-identifying information such as passports, government-issued IDs, and often biometric data. This represents “a significant infringement on user privacy.”
Moreover, depending on how this information is stored, KYC “presents a serious data risk.”
Polygon ID offers “a decentralized way for users to KYC.” By leveraging ZK Proofs, users can effectively create a digital identity that “can confirm their access rights but doesn’t need to divulge their personal information to any third party.”
Polygon ID allows for “advanced, on-chain verification, enabling complex interaction with smart contracts, all without putting user privacy or their data’s security into question.”
This is considered to be “a major step forward over traditional forms of digital identification, as it improves safety for everyone, removes redundancy and middlemen, and is a more logical choice for the evolving world of web3 services.”
