Roundtable Discussion: How Does Identity Become the Core of Web3?

Source: IOSG Ventures

Introduction:

As the first principle of existence in the Web3 world, what dimensions can "identity" express? What possibilities does the new infrastructure bring to Web3 identity? How does Web3 identity integrate with the gaming or music industry? What are the potential paths for building a public Web3 identity?

On December 19, 2021, at the eighth Friends of IOSG event, we invited Dwight Torculas (CEO of Mint Songs), Harry Zhang (co-founder of Project Galaxy), Leo Chen (VP of Engineering at Harmony), Kaspar Tiri (co-founder of Ready Player Me), and Kevin Primicerio (co-founder and CEO of Pianity) to share their views on the topic "How Identities are core to Web3?" Let's revisit the exciting moments of their viewpoints!

Read the full text:

Moderator - Dwight Torculas (Mint Songs)

Identity is not a new concept for the internet. Since Web 1.0, everyone has had their own identity online. Now, as we evolve further, we finally have our identities. Before we start this conversation, I would like everyone to introduce themselves in turn.

Harry Zhang (Project Galaxy)

I’m Harry. I’m a co-founder of Project Galaxy. At Galaxy, we are building infrastructure to support an open and collaborative credential data network. Essentially, we are constructing the infrastructure to aggregate identity information layers in Web3.

Leo Chen (Harmony Protocol)

I’m Leo, the VP of Engineering at Harmony Protocol. Harmony is a layer one protocol that provides compatibility with EVM and faster finality.

Kaspar Tiri (Ready Player Me)

Hello everyone. I’m Kaspar, co-founder of Wolf3D. We built Ready Player Me. Ready Player Me is a cross-platform avatar system for the metaverse. It is used by over 900 companies across gaming, social virtual worlds, and more. Our goal is to become a platform that acts as the identity layer for anything related to the virtual world.

Kevin Primicerio (Pianity)

I’m Kevin, the CEO and co-founder of Pianity. Pianity is a marketplace, a music and NFT marketplace that allows musicians to release limited editions of their music to fans.

Moderator - Dwight Torculas (Mint Songs)

I’m Dwight, the CEO and co-founder of Mint Songs. We help music artists build their fully owned Web3 communities without any intermediaries. I’m excited to gather with everyone; this is an interesting gathering. Our team includes people responsible for infrastructure, music and NFTs, as well as cross-platform gaming.

This will be an interesting conversation. I want to start with Harry and Leo. How do identity and Web3 influence the way you build infrastructure? How has NFT evolved to this day? How do you form product roadmaps to adapt to the rapidly evolving identity and Web3?

Harry Zhang (Project Galaxy)

Alright, I’ll go first. When we talk about identity, we are not just referring to your identity identifier; we mean any information that indicates who you are. In the Web2 era, we use this type of data every day.

For example, your educational background, driving license, etc. And network giants like Google or Facebook have this data; they acquire this data, and it helps them know which ads to show you. In Web2, the efficiency of the identity layer is low because we don’t have an information aggregation layer applicable to all applications, as each application requires permission.

This information is siloed across all applications, whether on Facebook, Instagram, or credit agencies, or any other such services. I believe this will change in Web3 because everything in Web3 is permissionless. We finally have a way to build infrastructure that empowers and aggregates identity information layers.

I think this will be a huge improvement because we finally have a way for applications to query your identity from an aggregated data layer. This will greatly enhance the innovation and upgrade efficiency of applications.

Leo Chen (Harmony Protocol)

Regarding identity in Web3, I think we are still in a relatively early stage. Why? Think about it; in Web2, identity is easy to obtain and use. But in Web3, that’s not the case. So, now, for identity and Web3, most people see it as a wallet.

Your wallet address is one of your key identities in the Web3 world, but wallets are easy to use, and everyone can access them, yet most people would say they don’t understand. Many people don’t know how to interpret it. They have to create private keys, which makes it harder to use and popularize.

Therefore, from an infrastructure perspective, Harmony is building infrastructure, and we want to provide identity to make it easier to use while lowering the barriers for ordinary people to enter the Web3 world. And the infrastructure layer, I think, is something we must continue to build. We are still in the early stages of providing identity to everyone.

For native crypto users, it’s easy because you are already in the crypto space. But to achieve mass adoption, it really requires a collective effort to make it simple and accessible.

Moderator - Dwight Torculas (Mint Songs)

Exactly, I completely agree with your point. We are currently looking up from the foot of the mountain. In a few years, all of us chatting here today will be more involved in products related to Web3 identity.

I think Harry made a great point. The data is there, the transparency is there, it’s on the blockchain, but there’s no aggregation layer to help us tell: who is Harry in Web3? Where are all his touchpoints? Where can we find this information in one place? I think that’s very important. And from Kaspar and Kevin's perspective, it’s crucial to help the next million to billion people enter Web3 and start building their identities here.

Their viewpoints are all interesting. Kevin is responsible for music, and Kaspar is responsible for gaming avatars. I’d love for you to discuss how you view identity in relation to your collaborations in the gaming and music industries. Can you share your thoughts?

Kaspar Tiri (Ready Player Me)

Yes, when considering this question, I think about how you present yourself? What kind of things can make others recognize you, especially in spaces like virtual worlds and gaming metaverses? Some believe that in these 3D environments, we should represent over 3 billion players with 3D avatars, and the number of players continues to grow.

Many people are accustomed to using avatars to represent themselves online. What we see is, in a sense, they are also forming a bridge from Web2 to Web3 because the avatars themselves have many NFTs, and some NFT assets are characters with ownership, providing end users with ownership through what they own.

To date, over eight or nine hundred companies are using NFTs. This is a truly cross-domain application, including gaming, music, virtual concerts, social applications, dating applications, and business environments. We see applications across different fields.

Now, quite a few users are accustomed to using childhood characters as their identities in games. We can build on this to make their experiences more consistent. Now, regarding the internet, we think about giving users true ownership of their identities because the current situation is that if you want to use your identity across games, you have to start from scratch.

They will go to Roblox because their identity is there. If you go to some other games or experiences, you need to start over. This is really unreasonable. Just like there’s no visual in Web2. What makes you look like you, a cross-experience profile makes sense. That’s your identity identifier.

We build our online characters based on certain specific things and elements, and these online characters need to be recognized across different experiences, whenever. That’s what we are really trying to do at Ready Player Me, which is to create a consistent identity for everyone that they can use across different experiences and have true ownership of the identity they play in the online world.

Kevin Primicerio (Pianity)

I think a wallet address is like a base-level identity because it’s essentially empty. It’s like a blank page. As long as you want, you can have multiple blank pages. What’s really interesting is what you write on these pages. Now, people talk about CryptoPunks and how people display their avatars, like a Bored Ape artwork or something else.

But to me, this is very similar to real life, where you buy an expensive car to drive, but that’s not your true identity, right? It’s just what you’re showing off. It indicates you have enough wealth to buy that car, but it’s not really you. It’s just something you use to show off.

When you meet someone for the first time, when you date or do something else, usually the first question you ask is what kind of music you like, what movies you watch, what TV shows you enjoy, etc. This is like a person’s true identity. True identity is not something you can buy; it’s what you genuinely like.

So the idea is that on this blank page, which is your wallet, only you can add things that align with what you like, what you do, and what you watch, so you are truly creating your identity. This is not a Facebook page; on a Facebook page, we see likes, shares, and photos because we can like everything, so it’s all likes, shares, and photos. But we don’t really care.

However, when you buy things, like something you liked in the past, when you buy a CD or a series like Mungai’s, it can be displayed in your bedroom or your apartment, representing what you truly like and what you genuinely do. To me, that’s what NFTs are now; they are a way to showcase what you truly care about and what you focus on.

Moderator - Dwight Torculas (Mint Songs)

I love this point. By the way, I think what we see in physical space will reflect in the internet, whether in videos, face-to-face interactions, or Amazon and going to retail stores. NFTs are just another form of scarce physical products that express how you identify yourself.

If I walk into someone’s house and see the books and DVDs on your shelf, and the paintings on your wall, those are things you identify with in physical space. More and more people want these to appear in their digital space so that they can gain identity recognition in the digital realm.

I want to pose a question to everyone: in Web3, ownership is extremely important, and ownership is mediated by blockchain economics. So, what is the economic impact of having only 10,000 NFTs like Bored Ape Club or Punks? How does this affect identity? How does blockchain economics enter the identity realm, and how does it influence how people collect and achieve identity recognition online?

Harry Zhang (Project Galaxy)

For Apes and Punks, they only have about 10,000 NFTs. I don’t think this is a really good way to let mainstream users come in and gain these identity standards. These are more like very exclusive clubs that show you are a veteran in the crypto space. It shows who you are, but it doesn’t suit mainstream users.

For blockchain economics, having this economic form that allows everyone to build these systems together is really important, isn’t it? We finally have infrastructure that allows you to own your identity on-chain, choose to grant access to the applications you want, and you should be able to benefit from this information.

So now, in Web2, this identity information allows giants like Facebook or Google to profit. But in Web3, as long as you want, you have the opportunity to make money from your identity. This is one of the main values of blockchain economics. We need infrastructure that aligns with this economic form to encourage people to join and provide this identity information.

It also encourages people to join as users; they can pay those who own the data, and they can also pay those who come in to manage this data. I think how Web3 supports such infrastructure is very significant for blockchain economics.

Kaspar Tiri (Ready Player Me)

The way we think about it is that online identity is an extension of real identity. Most people, like us, assume you have multiple identities online. You have your crypto identity. You have your social circle, family roles. This is a different version of yourself.

For example, on applications, in Web2, Kaspar’s identity on Instagram is different from Kaspar on LinkedIn or Twitter. The Kaspar on LinkedIn and Twitter is more like a Metaverse entrepreneur, while on Instagram, he is a different person.

These are different identities formed over the years. When it comes to NFTs, as I mentioned earlier, we see characters as vessels for NFTs. We believe that limited supply and extreme scarcity of NFTs on Punks, Apes, or Kongz is a good thing. Therefore, what we are doing in this space is transforming identity into characters, bringing real utility to these communities and people, and these characters can be used across thousands of applications.

So you can truly use any identity you have through NFTs, like the one released by deadmau5. Now you can use the deadmau5 NFT you purchased in some new spaces or different applications with hyperlinks or other links.

When you build your identity in a new world, you can display all your collectibles in it, which can serve as a way to show off that you are a member of the Punk club, a veteran. You will gain immediate respect. There are similar things online now; when you interact with others, you can see some people have cryptocurrencies and have written articles, which is an instant certification indicating they may have been here for a long time and might know something.

So you should talk to them. It’s like following others on Twitter or Instagram. These NFTs give you something akin to social credibility that you can use in any way you want.

Leo Chen (Harmony Protocol)

From the perspective of acceptance, you can see why I think we are still in the early stages. There are many Punks and Apes NFTs, but I think the actual owners are less than 10,000, and the same goes for Punks. So we are still in the early stages. But think about it; every time a new identity or a new phenomenon emerges, there’s always a group of pioneers.

While they are more like a showcase to the world, indicating this is something new. They are like when phones first came out; how many people owned phones back then? But slowly, everyone had phones. So when people start using NFTs as identities, no one will care, but when KOLs and celebrities start showcasing the NFTs they own, people will realize this is interesting and might be useful.

That’s why I think it’s still early. But we are at a critical stage where we need pioneers to demonstrate that this is a trend that can really work. Of course, I think, as of now, there hasn’t been a way for everyone to have NFT identities. We still don’t know the answer.

I think there might be different ways to create characters. I think it might be something like Apple, iPhone, where you can create a character based on your real image, making it easier for everyone to obtain and serve as an identity. But using these NFTs as identities might just be showcasing your face, which may not apply to everyone.

Kevin Primicerio (Pianity)

For me, I’m not sure. CryptoPunks or whatever is to establish your identity. For most people, or at least for most people I see, it’s for showing off, so I’m not very sure about that. I think, for example, if you go to an event, you need to buy a ticket, which might be stored in a wallet or require entry into a specific space.

Then, you need to use your wallet; it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to pay, it could be a free event, but there will be a history in your wallet, like recording what events you attended.

I think this is more related to your identity; anything expensive is something you can purchase. I agree with what you said earlier, but in terms of identity, I think most of our applications are for the crypto community, rather than about how to make wallets truly useful for people. We don’t even know what Ethereum really is.

I hope that in the coming years, most people will have a wallet and an online identity without needing to fully understand them, because maybe they will never see their private key or public key, just using email and password to log into Web3. But they can still build their identity, which is still decentralized.

Moderator - Dwight Torculas (Mint Songs)

You hit the nail on the head. Everyone, we are still in a very early stage. There are many options for expressing identity, right? Just like I can represent my identity with my favorite songs on Pianity, or my favorite games, and my outfits in other games on Wolf3D and Ready Player Me.

There are a lot of other data points I can aggregate to display my identity. And that’s Harmony. And Harry’s project. I think over time, all of this will come together. I think Kevin is right. We won’t think about what a wallet is. It will become part of us, just like email is our way of identifying and interacting in Web2.

So this will evolve, and we are at its starting stage, which is super exciting. However, let me temper that excitement for a moment. My last question is, do you think there are existential issues regarding identity and Web3, especially online identity? We can be anonymous on the internet, and we can quickly use pseudonyms. So what do you think the potential existential crisis might be? How do we combat this issue, and how do we navigate through it?

Kevin Primicerio (Pianity)

For me, I think the issue is that identity on Web3 is permanent. So, as you said, you can build your identity online, but it’s permanent; you can’t change it. If you want, you can erase it and start over with a new wallet.

As you mentioned, you can’t have another identity on this social network and then have a different identity outside of it unless you build these identities from different wallets. But if your identity comes from the same wallet, you are shaping the same identity. Perhaps, if one day you make a mistake or regret it, you can’t completely erase it.

You can’t erase this identity like you would erase your social media account. I believe many of you have friends who have deleted all their photos on Facebook or Instagram in hopes of starting over. But here, you have to create a whole new account. So I think this might be one of the limitations. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but it might be one of the main differences from Web2.

Leo Chen (Harmony Protocol)

As an infrastructure builder, I’m actually more excited about identity in Web3 than in Web2 because we have more primitive technologies and more tools to protect anonymity and use identities. Think about zero-knowledge proofs. This is one of the key technological innovations and cryptographic techniques; through zero-knowledge proofs, you can prove your identity without having to disclose your real data and identity.

Therefore, I believe these tools and the primitive technologies on-chain are still evolving and are still in development. But in the coming years, these tools and surrounding applications will be developed so that we can have a better version of identity in both Web3 and Web2.

In Web2, these are controlled by centralized companies. You cannot control data leaks. But in Web3, you have ownership, and there is infrastructure providing all these tools and primitive technologies, allowing you to control what kind of information you want to share and how to share it. That’s why I feel very optimistic.

Harry Zhang (Project Galaxy)

I agree with Leo’s point. We do need a private blockchain layer so that we can empower both sides, which concerns all our private data. Right now, we can’t make everything public, like your health information, or all the data on all your applications should be private.

You should have the right to grant access to other applications if you wish. You should also have the right to choose to keep it private. We do need a private layer of blockchain to provide everyone with a comprehensive and scalable identity layer for use. Right now, I think everyone is still focusing on public data, like all your transaction data on-chain or all your public data on Twitter and GitHub.

But in the future, to allow every application to adopt the identity layer, I think a permissionless private blockchain is very important.

Kaspar Tiri (Ready Player Me)

It’s still too early. I can’t think of a topic that truly qualifies as an existential crisis. I think Kevin made a great point about starting over with different identities. I have some personal experiences: I’ve been collecting a certain type of thing, and then that collection doesn’t match with a specific wallet, which doesn’t align with what I want to do, so I have to start over and transfer.

Fortunately, it’s not difficult to do. But I think, based on all the topics we’re discussing today, identity can have many different meanings. Identity can be those things that make you who you are, or it can be how others perceive you.

I think we will see some very interesting things happen, where more and more people choose to make their online characters their primary identity, how they will cope with the identity they’ve built online not truly corresponding to their real-world identity, and how they will manage it.

Many people create their true online characters, but their real-world identity does not match the characters they’ve built, nor does it align with how others perceive them. So this will be a very interesting shift. This is not a new thing; it has appeared in Web2, but Web3 is more likely to realize it, so what will happen next will be a very interesting question.

Moderator - Dwight Torculas (Mint Songs)

Yes, I completely agree with your point. Our physical identity and our digital identity will continue to merge until the two meet in the middle, which is who we truly are. We have our identities on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Now, Web3 allows us to have an additional identity and to own our things as if we were at home, which is like our home on the internet. The things around us represent our identity. To summarize, I really enjoyed talking with you.

Harry, I love the project you’re doing at Galaxy, dealing with broader data sets, Kaspar building identity layers in gaming, and Kevin’s work in music. I believe the way identity is recognized in Web3 will reflect how you achieve identity recognition in physical space; it is complex and subtle, and it won’t be a simple thing that represents my identity.

It will be a composite of everything we do in the Web3 space, coalescing into some form of identity. Thank you all for participating in this discussion. I really enjoyed the viewpoints you shared and our exchanges, and I look forward to staying in touch.