Web 3.0 is a term used to describe a blockchain-based internet. One key appeal of Web 3.0 is that it is decentralized. Rather than users accessing the web through services controlled by centralized tech giants like Google, Apple, or Facebook, Web 3.0 allows effectively anyone to claim, build and control pieces of the internet.
In spite of the fact that Web2 has brought the world astounding free services, many people have grown weary of the “walled gardens” huge tech companies have created – and want to have more control over their individual data and content.
Moreover, in recent years, the issue of individual data management and control has become a major concern for individual users of the internet. Web2 has largely involved big tech companies harvesting, selling, and using personal data to create tailored advertisements and promotional campaigns.
With the advent of data manipulation in the current state of the internet, the world is moving fast towards Web 3.0 – and the emergence of public blockchains are increasingly permitting users to take back control of their data without the involvement of third parties. One of the significant sub-domains of Web 3.0 is the “Metaverse.”
What exactly is the Metaverse? In simple terms, the Metaverse is a digital space that merges physical reality into virtual spaces with virtual, augmented physical reality.
Think of the Metaverse as a representation of the digital world that can be accessed through smartphones, albeit in a 3D representation. In this 3D digital space, identity will play an imperative role in shaping the user experience.
Having greater control over personal identity is in key demand among Metaverse users. Managing your own identity – from Avatars to Credentials attached to a wallet address that is not stored on a centralized server is crucial – is part of what makes the Metaverse decentralized.
Since Web 3.0 is focused on creating a decentralized Internet, Metaverse embedded on public blockchains can provide data privacy and ownership to user data. This is in stark contrast to centralized servers where an organization is in full control of all individual data, providing the power to manipulate the user experience – and presenting a strong vulnerability to data and identity theft.
In the Metaverse, empowering users with custody over their identity is of vital importance. Digital identity is unique, it is hard to verify it since they do not reflect the demographics closely enough. Replication of one's digital identity is frequent due to significant security flaws in the current identity system, resulting in devastating personal data breaches.
One powerful way to address this problem is to attach digital identities to the blockchain so that no one other than the owner can alter identity information. This can give rise to a more personalized and identity-secure browsing experience.
In practice, this can be achieved by establishing digital identities as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on public blockchains. NFTs are digital assets with programmed scarcity, and as such is an ideal tool to represent ownership of unique virtual assets and digital identity in Web 3.0 and the Metaverse.
In the proposed NFT-powered metaverse, users can own things like avatars, digital apparel, and other items and migrate them across platforms via a non-custodial crypto wallet like SelfKey.
SelfKey with its blockchain-based self-sovereign identity ecosystem empowers individuals and companies with full ownership of their digital identities.
Once launched, Living Avatar NFTs can help users verify their identities on Web 3.0 and the Metaverse, by assigning credentials that are locked on the blockchain. These Credentials are assigned different attributes, based on which the individuality of a person is verified and checked.
Having digital identity stored as an NFT can help mitigate numerous fraud threats presented by fake ID creation, bot accounts, and more.
In addition, having a creator economy built in the decentralized Metaverse presents a need for digital ID authentication on the blockchain, in order to eliminate copyright infringement and intellectual property theft.
Numerous can be solved by having digital identity stored as an NFT – from providing rights to identity to securing the data-driven metrics attached to that identity in a given protocol.
SelfKey enables POI Platform participants to display attributes of their identity on the custom-minted NFT, thus making them unique and hard to replicate.
In addition, users will have complete control over what data the NFT reveals, ensuring maximum privacy and control over their personal data. In these ways, Living Avatar NFTs can evolve into a significant tool and key component of Web 3.0 and the Metaverse, which would in turn position SelfKey as one of the leading digital identity providers of Web 3.0 and the Metaverse.
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