Centralized data networks have been the standard that didn’t live up to the promise of fidelity.
This lack thereof has led to the cybersecurity quagmire the world finds itself in.
Decentralized solutions give digital identity a new lease of life per security.
There’s only one problem: very few people know how these solutions work.
Chris Were, CEO at Verida Network, a boutique decentralized data firm explains.
Chris Were, CEO at Verida Network
E-Crypto News:
What advantages do decentralized data networks offer per digital identity?
Decentralized data networks play an important role alongside digital identity which is often anchored on-chain. The immutable nature of the blockchain provides benefits for the cryptographic & public proof of assets, yet creates privacy issues when used for storage of personal user data. The development of adjacent data storage networks that work alongside blockchain can ensure privacy over user data which the blockchain specifically cannot provide.
Historically, most web3 developers have chosen to use either blockchain storage or IPFS and sometimes resort to traditional centralized database (eg MongoDB, Postgres) for some types of data. Verida provides a decentralized replacement for those traditional databases, and a better option for some of the things developers are currently using blockchain storage or IPFS for.
E-Crypto News:
What is Verida?
Verida is a pioneering decentralised data network and self-custody wallet that empowers users with control over their digital identity and data. The Verida Wallet is a self-custody web3 mobile wallet enabling users to manage their identity, sign into apps, manage their personal data, their credentials, receive messages and manage crypto. The wallet connects users to the self-sovereign Verida Network, the most secure, encrypted decentralized storage solution for web3. This ensures all user data and credentials are secured by a user’s private key.
E-Crypto News:
What makes Verida different?
Verida provides secure database storage and encryption for private user data. No user data or personally identifiable information (PII) is stored on-chain.
User data is stored in isolated application contexts, where the data from one application can not be accessed by another application without the explicit consent of a user. This ensures users can selectively disclose their personal data to different applications on an as-needs basis, providing enhanced privacy and data security.
Historically, most web3 developers have chosen to use either blockchain storage or IPFS and sometimes resort to traditional centralized database (eg MongoDB, Postgres) for some types of data. IPFS, and many other decentralized storage solutions, store unstructured blobs of data such as images, videos or PDFs.
Other structured and database decentralised storage solutions do exist, but they typically reside on-top of IPFS and public data and not suitable for private, encrypted data.
E-Crypto News:
How can Verida’s technology prevent identity theft?
Verida’s mission is to bring control over data back to users with the first truly self-sovereign private database storage network.
Verida is building the home for all of your personal data; think financial documents, health care records, or even your home address. Using the Verida Network, you can store all your private data in a secure, decentralised way to prevent anyone using that data without your knowledge.
This gives back control and ownership of data back to users. Data resides with the user and not with centralised organisations maintaining honeypots of user data that is regularly targetted by malicious actors.
Related: How Cybersecurity is Set to Change in the Metaverse
E-Crypto News:
What are the technologies that underpin Verida’s ecosystem?
The Verida self-sovereign database solution is designed for storing private user data, incorporates access controls with flexible encryption and permissioned data synchronization. It is designed to be region aware and meet GDPR requirements. The storage node provides a middleware authentication layer that connects traditional database technology with decentralized identities.
Decentralized Identities are a W3C standard and core to user identities using the Verida Network. The Verida network enables user’s to maintain private keys/seed phrases to control their decentralized identity.
The user’s public keys are used to find and communicate with them. Users control their private keys, enabling them to:
-
Encrypt and access their private data
-
Control where their data is stored
-
Sign their data and messages to third parties
-
Pay for third-party data storage
-
Sign into decentralized applications
E-Crypto News:
What are Verifiable Credentials on Verida’s platform?
-
Self-sovereignty is a key objective of Web3. “Not your keys, not your crypto” is a common mantra. Verifiable Credentials (a W3C standard) are a way to bring this self-sovereignty to your identity and build digital attestations about oneself in order to access products and services.
-
These attestations take the form of Verifiable Credentials (VCs) which involve a credential:Issuer, Holder and Verifier.
-
Verifiable Credentials are are W3C standard that is supported within the Verida network with the @verida/verifiable-credential npm package. Verida has a demonstration implementation of verifiable credentials. We expect to support other credential libraries and protocols in the future.
-
Verifiable Credentials can be issued by an account on the Verida Network. The credentials can be privately or publicly stored by a Verida Account on the Verida Network. They can be verified by anyone, using the Verida Verifiable Credentials library
E-Crypto News:
Please can you tell us about your partnership with Gatekeeper?
By leveraging Verida’s self-sovereign storage network and GateKeeper’s identity stack, users can securely store their Polygon ID verifiable credentials and zero-knowledge proofs in the Verida Wallet. This ensures the privacy and security of users’ personal information, as they have full control over their data and can selectively disclose it when needed.
E-Crypto News:
What is the difference between your Acacia testnet and your mainnet?
Acacia Testnet is free for everyone to use – designed for stress testing the network. Acacia Testnet reached 30,000 users this month.
Myrtle Mainnet – will be launching soon for mainnet use and applications
E-Crypto News:
How does the Verida blockchain interact with decentralized applications (D’Apps)?
The Verida Wallet supports WalletConnect (v2) to connect crypto wallets with dApps. It enables seamless integration and communication between applications and supported blockchains.
Verida Connect facilitates the connection between the application and the Verida Network, offering powerful storage capabilities. By integrating WalletConnect, Verida Connect enables a unified authentication flow for users, streamlining the process.
When users authorize a connection to your application in the Verida Wallet, they will also be prompted to establish a WalletConnect connection simultaneously.
E-Crypto News:
What are incentivised testnets?
Verida Missions, our incentivized testnet, rewards community members for trying our technology and participated in specific campaigns that drive adoption.
It provides an opportunity for users to experience the functionalities of the Verida network, offer valuable feedback, and earn rewards for their active participation and testing on the Acacia testnet network.
Users can complete activities in the Verida Missions app to earn XP, which will be redeemable for VDA storage credits on Verida mainnet.
E-Crypto News:
Are there any of these testnet types within the Verida ecosystem?
Apart from the Acacia Testnet, Verida has a private “devnet” network for internal testing purposes.
E-Crypto News:
What is the Verida Mobile Wallet app?
The Verida Wallet is a self-custody web3 mobile wallet. It’s more than just a crypto wallet, it’s a gateway to a new world of decentralized identity. Users can manage their identity, sign into apps, manage their personal data, their credentials, receive messages, and manage crypto. The wallet connects users to the self-sovereign Verida Network, the most secure, encrypted decentralized storage solution for web3. This ensures all user data and credentials are secured by a user’s private key. Verida Wallet is available on Android and iOS.The Verida Wallet won a prestigious Red Dot Design Award in 2022.
E-Crypto News:
Can you tell us about the companies and projects that have adopted Verida’s solution?
We have partnered with projects are who aligned with us both on values and technology. These partnerships have enabled us to new attract users to the Verida Network and also helped grow the user base of our partners, creating a valuable win-win. This process has given cross-community exposure to users, educating them on what true private data ownership feels like.
An example, being our work with Polygon ID, which brings private data storage of zero knowledge credentials to web3 users. We’ve integrated Polygon ID zk issuers and verifiers in the Verida incentivized testnet, enabling their users to store ZK credentials on the Verida Network, and then generate proofs for verifications with other dapps.
-
Polygon ID, GateKeeper, Gamer31, FinClusive, Cheqd
E-Crypto News:
How does your bug-reporting process work?
Users can raise bugs and issues with the team directly in Verida Discord.
Bug Report Form https://forms.gle/g9UsJW7iRYfsRaUS7
E-Crypto News:
How do nodes work within Verida’s network?
Verida storage nodes are open-source and can be self-hosted. Users can choose what node to store their data on, meaning that the legal and policy issues around data sovereignty are easily addressed. Data can be replicated to multiple non-related nodes for better availability and performance.
Application developers can provide their own default storage nodes for their users
End users can have increased privacy and control by hosting storage nodes for their own personal data
Enterprise users can provide highly secure, private storage for all employees or users
E-Crypto News:
How Verida’s consensus mechanism work?
User data is replicated across multiple storage nodes on the Verida Network. By default the Verida Wallet selects three storage nodes to store user data; providing three replicas of all the data. The network architecture allows users to select an unlimited number of storage nodes to store their data (and which nodes).
This ensures that if one of the storage nodes becomes unavailable, there are two other nodes that still have copies of the data and the user can continue uninterrupted.
The built-in replication and recovery of the network ensures that when a node comes back online, it will automatically “catch up” with data it missed and then come back online.
E-Crypto News:
How can companies and projects deploy and integrate Verida?
The Verida protocol is open source and provides toolkits to accelerate developer onboarding. The developer’s toolkit includes:
-
Client SDK providing encrypted storage, identity, messaging, and schemas capabilities. It’s an easy-to-use library that abstracts the complexities behind these capabilities, thereby allowing developers to build self-sovereign applications.
-
Verida Connect SDK, a decentralized single sign on client library and server API that enables seamless QR code authentication.
-
Verifiable Credentials Developer SDK containing all the necessary capabilities to issue, verify and share Verifiable Credentials on the Verida Network
-
Developers can try out the Verida APIs directly in their browser using the Verida interactive tutorial, with no download necessary. This tutorial takes a developer through all the capabilities of the Verida Network and empowers them to build decentralized DApps using Verida. More in Developer Portal.
E-Crypto News:
Do you guys have any plans for the end of the year?
-
Launch of Mrytle Mainnet
-
Verida’s VDA Token launch
-
Actively working on extending support for EVM on Mainnet and storage node activation.
