An Identity Layer for the Web Would Identify Us Everywhere

Now, it was being used to justify the development of a whole new web with a built-in, blockchain-based identity layer.

While anonymity certainly complicates mitigation and enforcement efforts in responding to these issues, I am unconvinced that a blockchain-based identity layer for the web is the answer.

At one point, identity was just one of many potential use cases for blockchain.

Still, as we reached the height of the ICO boom in 2017, the number of blockchain-based identity companies and projects proliferated, leading many to ask whether identity was blockchain's "Killer app." Why the shift? Although identity did not require blockchain, it was becoming clear that blockchain needed identity.

In a post-ICO world, these projects have shifted to a new ambition - an identity layer for the web.

An identity layer "For the web" was one thing when there was a separation between the online and offline worlds.

In other words, adding identity to the web isn't just adding it to the web anymore.

With the digital subsuming our reality, it would become an identity layer for our lives.

It's something we don't think about in the digital identity community very often, even as we worry about the censorship and privacy of transactions.

Given the ethos of the decentralized identity community, I doubt that anyone building this layer wants to end up in a situation of ubiquitous and persistent identification.