The more I read the criticism of soulbound tokens, the more I am convinced that this is just the right extension to the SSI that will enable decentralized reputation for people, organizations and things. Let’s explore how SSI & SBT work together. I want to dig into some of arguments…

How can we solve professional credentialing for web3? — Earlier this week, 20+ experts from various backgrounds, with many of them being founders of identity/reputation applications and protocols, but also experts from standards bodies and educational movements, came together to exchange on the future of work and learning. During a two-hour workshop, we have exchanged the vision of where…

It’s not the technology that wins, it’s the business models. But business models emerge and scale with the technology. …

Why decentralized credentials require decentralized institutions — Decentralization in itself is not the end goal for web3. Quite the opposite: the positive economic effect of reducing the cost of coordination, improving product quality and simplifying access to services is achieved through many technologies. Namely, blockchain, distributed consensus, p2p networks and many more. As we discussed earlier, decentralized…

In this post I’m showing a need for persistent decentralized reputation protocol. I’m outlining the learnings we got the last few years building digital identity and SSI products, describing the necessary principles of pseudonymous reputation, discussing potential use cases and how to make those a reality. In a networked world…

Crypto is a tool. Transhumanism is the goal. Balaji S Crypto (SSI, blockchains, torrents, TOR, L2 networks among other things) never was or will be a solution to the one specific vertical like finance, gaming or travel. Conversely, crypto is the solution for coordination problem in multi-party non-cooperative games. …

How reduction in transaction costs influence evolution in digital business models — Internet innovations start with the vision but they get universal adoption once there’s a sustainable business model. Google, Facebook and Twitter are are able to serve billions of users due to invention of online advertisement. Uber and Airbnb grew because of the ability to create two-sided markets. To build scalable…

“All crypto is economics” [E. Hughes, 1993] Crypto products are always political. Reason: social systems, public organizations and trust mechanisms are bound by the level of their enforceability. Social contracts evolved to what they are today due to technology that was available at hand. The single purpose of crypto technology…

What are some limitations and opportunities for making profitable business in self-sovereign identity? — This is second part of the 2-part series covering self-sovereign identity technology and business models around it. First part is available here. This article is an overview of the business models for products that are enabled by the decentralized identity and verifiable credentials. …