NFTs are the 0 to 1 Breakthrough for 100% Verifiable IDs on Blockchain

A breakthrough invention is a discovery that is very important.  NFTs are one such discovery. NFTs are considered to be breakthrough invention as they are phenomenal in creating unique identity and are therefore hailed to be the future of digital identity.

Ryan Selkis expressed, “One of my highest conviction crypto theses is that NFTs are the future of digital identity. This is such an incredibly big 0 to 1 breakthrough in crypto, it’s hard to overstate the future impact.”

I say this as someone who is aggressively investing in NFT infrastructure, but less in individual projects.

All of the following will be NFT’d in the future: Birth certificates, diplomas, passports, driver’s licenses, real estate deeds, permits, etc.

So, what happens when there is a name change?  I can see the idea, but how would it work when you move, legal name changes. Any information that changes they have to throw away the old token, and create another one with the updated correct information. What goes on with the old one?

NFTs can be decentralized identifiers? So, I am an NFT.  NFTs are the best for sharing rights to real assets, like your identity. Imagine combining live biometrics (proof of unique, human) with a wallet, and sharing an NFT to prove it; share KYC status via a zk proof/NFT too.

Since you own your biometrics + wallet, they are the anchor – not relying on 3rd party credentials, which don’t necessarily prove you’re you.

Thus, NFTs as the best vehicle to build identity in Web3. They can help gauge one’s personality based on holdings. It can also help establish professional identity. Thus, it can allowing work to be recognized and validated with its identity.

If this works out, NFTs will solve phishing/scam problems on social media by providing 100% verifiable IDs. Perhaps in the not-too-distant future, NFTs will provide a solution to distrust of the US voting system, when everyone uses their 100% verifiable NFT as voter ID.  ID identifies you. NFTs/blockchain can authenticate you without disclosing your identity. How cool is that?

So, what do we need from NFT, specifically for the purpose of identity, that DIDs + Verifiable Credentials don’t already deliver better/faster/cheaper?  The first question is whether there is value ‘creation’ there. Then the second, conditional, question is whether there is value ‘capture’.

The answer is no to both. This answer is coming from a guy with an NFT as his profile pic. If ya can’t beat em, join em. But long term I don’t know if this pans out.

NFTs are the big deal.  It has a plethora of use cases. People always wanted to have control over their own identity and now tokenizing peoples identity through an NFT gives secure access and control to the user.

Thus, NFT infrastructure has parallels to the EV charging landscape, which relies on high pockets of utilization.  It is low margin, but capital intensive, which is a necessity that is volume driven.

The most interesting NFTs might not be transferable.  They are Certificates of Authenticity. So, whether it is material ownership, or personal proof of identity, the facts about NFT and identity are 100% correct

NFTs are not an exhaustive identity solution, but we can build an identity solution on decentralized networks that echo some similarities with NFTs. We’ll need to establish community standards to get the, starting with an EIP.