Polygon Labs has officially launched its rebranded Polygon ID service, now known as Privado ID. This new, independent service offers a self-sovereign identity control solution that extends beyond the Polygon network, making it protocol-agnostic.
Privado ID serves various purposes, such as verifying humanity and uniqueness to prevent Sybil attacks, facilitating airdrops and incentives, enabling trading on decentralized exchanges, and aiding in compliance procedures like proof of age or Know Your Customer. Additionally, it can be utilized in traditional finance for transferring securities, intellectual property, land titles, and other tokenized assets.
Users have direct control over their identities and the information they release. For instance, they can prove their age without revealing their address or nationality. Identity files can be recovered using seed phrases since identities are stored locally in users’ wallets. Identity issuers can be either on-chain or off-chain, such as government entities.
Polygon initiated the development of its identity solution in March 2022 and officially launched it a year later. The solution incorporates cryptographic-based zero-knowledge (ZK) technology, which prevents the storage or transmission of information by third parties and verifies the authenticity of digital content. This reduces the risk of accepting AI-generated misinformation and has potential applications in the metaverse, gaming, and non-fungible tokens.
Privado ID has conducted proof-of-concept trials with multinational banks and financial institutions like Deutsche Bank and Consensys to assess interoperability, compliance, and permissioned transactions. It has also integrated with the attestation registry of the Linea zkEVM blockchain developed by Consensys.
Antoni Martin, co-founder and COO of Privado ID, stated that the service aims to lower the cost of trust and risk mitigation. The service plans to support non-EVM blockchains in the future.
Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon Labs, will now serve as a growth advisor for Privado ID, focusing on the development of new ZK solutions. Additionally, he was recently appointed as Polygon’s chief business officer.
Zero-knowledge proofs have demonstrated potential applications beyond the realm of cryptocurrency, ranging from voting to finance.