The present state of digital id administration in Web3 presents challenges as a result of its fragmented nature. This fragmentation results in operational inefficiencies and limits the potential for particular person customers and companies. To deal with these points, builders are working in the direction of growing an open and user-focused infrastructure.
At Consensus Hong Kong, BeInCrypto spoke with Moca Community’s challenge lead Kenneth Shek, about scaling a digital identity-based ecosystem to create a unified setting that empowers customers to handle their information.
The Fragmentation Problem
In Web2 and Web3, consumer digital identities are scattered throughout varied platforms, resulting in inefficiencies and misplaced alternatives for customers and companies. Whereas companies wrestle to establish and goal beneficial customers precisely, customers are usually not absolutely acknowledged for his or her gathered worth throughout completely different platforms.
“Utilizing a Web2 sense, you could have a Marriott account, a British Airways account, you could have all these accounts. Even if you happen to’re utilizing the identical e mail login, you might be handled as a unique consumer and you want to have a password supervisor remembering 100 logins, and there’s nothing you can reuse from one app to a different app,” Shek defined.
Equally, on the subject of promoting in Web2, firms use platforms like Meta to categorize customers and ship tailor-made commercials, in accordance with a report by South Korean Web3 agency Tiger Analysis. Nevertheless, this course of is constrained by the restricted consumer information out there inside every platform.
Consequently, the precision and effectiveness of those focused advertisements diminish. Customers, who usually have interaction with quite a few on-line companies, expertise fragmented digital profiles, leading to commercials confined to the context of single platforms.
Web3 initiatives expertise related points within the deployment of airdrops.
Web3’s Id Verification Drawback
Web3 initiatives typically make use of airdrops to distribute rewards to lively ecosystem members. Nevertheless, implementing these airdrops is difficult by the dispersion of consumer actions throughout each Web2 and Web3 platforms.
“There’s nobody single layer that connects all the pieces,” Shek informed BeInCrypto.
The reliance on information derived from a single blockchain can hinder the correct identification of reliable contributors. Moreover, the inherent anonymity and decentralized construction of Web3 allow customers to enter and exit networks with relative ease.
A notable illustration of those difficulties is the Starknet airdrop, which focused roughly 1.3 million pockets addresses. The airdrop encountered difficulties distinguishing genuine contributors as a result of limitations in out there information. This resulted in a major decline in community exercise.
Platform-Centric Management Points
Tiger Analysis attributes digital id fragmentation to a number of components. These embrace platform-centric management, technical incompatibilities between platforms, and information restrictions imposed by massive know-how firms like Alibaba, Tencent, and the FAANG group.
This systemic situation additionally generates sensible inconveniences and introduces imbalances in worth distribution. Customers should set up distinct accounts on every platform and repeatedly reconstruct their exercise and profile information.
Platforms leverage this example to build up and retain the worth of consumer information. Corporations like Google and Meta generate substantial annual income by promoting fashions that rely on consumer information. Moreover, platforms similar to Reddit generate important quarterly income by commercializing consumer information.
Conversely, the customers, because the originators of this information, are usually excluded from direct participation within the ensuing financial advantages.
“The possession ought to be going again to the consumer. There’s already many court docket circumstances the place firms, together with banks or Google, are suing the customers for taking their information and monetizing on their very own, and each time the case and the conclusion is that the consumer has a proper to personal their very own information and monetize it,” mentioned Shek.
Moca Community, Animoca Manufacturers’ flagship challenge, is growing a digital id ecosystem. This challenge goals to unify consumer information and empower customers to handle their very own info.
The Case for an Open Web
Although Moca Community is mostly outlined as an NFT-focused challenge, its dedication to creating an open web infrastructure has been in full pressure for a very long time.
“Since three years in the past, we have now been speaking about the way to develop the community impact and the worth by pulling all the pieces collectively. Think about the complete Animoca portfolio, all of the companions we work with, the enterprises with massive consumer bases are going to undertake this. Every thing will stream to 1 one other and with crypto as the inducement layer, it’s going to be thriving past the large tech firms,” Shek informed BeInCrypto.
The community’s Moca 3.0 challenge proposes a system the place a single, unified account manages a consumer’s digital property, id info, and repute throughout varied on-line platforms.
The design prioritizes a user-centered strategy. Programs are constructed to accommodate particular person customers quite than forcing them to adapt to present limitations. Moca 3.0’s AIR Equipment would function the community’s common account system.
“The AIR Equipment stands for Account, Id, and Status, and it’s the SDK that our companions could be integrating, constructing that community collectively,” Shek defined.
AIR Equipment integrates accounts and identities, utilizing an ID because the user-service interface. The system simplifies Web3 pockets creation and on-chain exercise by abstracting blockchain complexities. It additionally enhances consumer expertise by options similar to gasoline protection and cross-chain transactions.
In the meantime, Moca has additionally built-in a construction that ensures customers management their information.
Empowering Customers with Information Possession
The Moca Community’s credential system, complementing its unified account system, facilitates consumer information administration and worth creation. Customers acquire information management through safe, decentralized storage and handle entry for credential dealing with, addressing centralized platform limits.
“What we need to convey is possession and interoperability of consumer digital id and their very own information that they’ll tokenize they usually can convey it wherever in order to make the entire web programmable. Proper now it’s not programmable as a result of each time you go to a brand new recreation otherwise you go to a brand new app, you’re being handled as a brand new consumer each time. However what if you happen to do one thing in a single app after which there’s a historical past about you and then you definately go to a different app, that app is making a programmable consumer expertise primarily based in your consumer id,” Shek mentioned.
In the meantime, information safety throughout the system employs tamper-proof know-how and zero-knowledge proofs. Cross-chain messaging protocols allow customers to switch credentials between methods, facilitating safe interplay with good contracts throughout varied blockchains.
Future improvement plans embrace integrating know-how that verifies and makes use of Web2 information on-chain. The combination of Web2 and Web3 information goals to create a extra complete digital id system designed to bridge the hole between these environments and foster a user-centric ecosystem.
“2025 is unquestionably going to be very thrilling. We’re constructing an infrastructure that we haven’t seen within the area proper now. We’re centered on the issues that matter and that may really make an affect on adoption,” Shek concluded.
Disclaimer
In compliance with the Belief Challenge pointers, this opinion article presents the creator’s perspective and will not essentially mirror the views of BeInCrypto. BeInCrypto stays dedicated to clear reporting and upholding the best requirements of journalism. Readers are suggested to confirm info independently and seek the advice of with an expert earlier than making choices primarily based on this content material. Please observe that our Phrases and Situations, Privateness Coverage, and Disclaimers have been up to date.