Public Keys as Primary Keys
Wallets were a hot topic in 2021. Mike Demarais and Rainbow made themselves known, the name “wallet” was questioned, and it doesn’t take a cryptography expert to see that M*tamask isn’t a great way to interact with web3.
Wallets & Enriched Experiences
This weekend I watched an awesome video about enriching digital experiences by linking items through metadata.
I’ve also been thinking about zkp, combining on and off-chain data, and Twitter as a protocol. Naturally, all of these concepts coalesce around identity in the meta-verse.
I have a hard time getting to when does this become a genuine social interaction — I can’t tweet in web3… my friends are in Web 2.
That’s when everything becomes real, right? When you can tweet it…
Data sharing and composable protocols enable builders to design a variety of purpose driven UIs and experiences.
When I started working with on-chain data, my understanding and appreciation of transparency changed. When working in private databases, linking records between different sets could be impossible without a proper foreign key. It was much easier to work in a space that felt like a vacuum from a data perspective. Immutable ledgers, public addresses, and public functions create an almost clean room environment for data analysis.
A lot of things in web3 feel like they’re on a spectrum. Can our data ownership live on that spectrum (even if only for a time)? What if the way to bring web2 friends to web3 is actually just linking their data and enabling alternative UIs?
What if we could link our public keys to our off-chain accounts? What if off-chain accounts trended towards protocol implementations and didn’t require proprietary clients?
On and Off-Chain Data
The on-chain data analytics space is full of competitive high-powered teams that are all dealing with similar issues. Metadata is one of the more interesting problems in that set — especially related to the concept of identity in a new digital reality.
On-chain data is generally alright to work with (from an analyst perspective). It’s ingested, decoded with ABIs, and structured into sets for end users that make it easier to work with. If any issues occur during the ELT, you can replay the chain — shout out immutability.
Off-chain data is a different game. There is a plethora of data that exists in many places and is difficult to link together in a meaningful way.
When we deal with NFT metadata, we are at least pulling conventionally structured data and empowered due to the structure and foreign keys to link it with on-chain data. We can see if the Moonbird that just sold has a crown due to our ability to link sales data that exists on-chain with image metadata that exists off-chain.
There are great APIs for NFT metadata — it’s a problem that we can call solved. Metadata for an NFT is much easier to manage and understand than metadata for a human identity.
Another type of metadata that we deal with is address labeling — is this a person or a contract? Is this a Coinbase Deposit Wallet? Who and what is this thing that is interacting on-chain is a problem I’m seeing different teams try to solve in different ways. Etherscan is a god-tier labeling team.
Public Keys as Primary Keys
In SQL we rely on foreign keys to link records that exist in different tables. We also rely on primary keys to ensure the uniqueness of a record.
In crypto we use private keys to access our assets and public keys to display our assets.
As on and off-chain data are further linked, we need good foreign keys. There is no better primary key for a human’s on-chain behavior than their public key. If a web3 citizen’s public key was linked to their off-chain (web2) activity, their web3 identity and experience could be highly enriched.
Zero-Knowledge Proofs & Identity
You probably don’t want everyone to be able to link your tweets about your new sneakers with the current state of your Anchor loan — but maybe that’s me projecting.
As citizens become more informed about data sharing and privacy, they seek ways to manage their information. The tools for identity metadata management in web3 are being built.
Sismo issues badges (non-transferable NFTs) to your public Ethereum profiles (ENS names). They are Zero-Knowledge (ZK) attestations of facts imported from your other accounts (Ethereum accounts as well as twitter or github). You can aggregate your reputation, with confidentiality, to your public profile.
Citizens will be able to use a primary identity and bring accolades or aspects of their on-chain activities from other wallets to the primary account. There are a variety of reasons that users may do this:
- to access a token gated space without indicating which token they own
- to prove experience with specific on-chain protocols
- to prove a balance or financial position without showing the full position
- to prove their activism in on-chain decision making
Zero-knowledge attestations enabled by Sismo allow a variety of on-chain identities to come together through a primary node.
Twitter as a Protocol & Primary Key Implementation
Twitter is comically central to crypto right now. If people are working on Discord, they’re playing on Twitter.
Major personalities in the crypto space are highly active on Twitter. Linking their public wallets to them isn’t difficult, they have verified NFTs as their profile picture. Their tweets and on-chain activity could be even further linked with greater open data sharing.
A user could opt to associate their public key with their Twitter account. Twitter could make it easier for developers and builders to access the link between the account and the on-chain identity.
Identity metadata exists on a spectrum of off and on-chain. Builder access to off-chain aspects are sorely lacking right now.
Metaverse vs. Meta-Verse
I’ve accepted that the “metaverse” definition is past saving. You can’t say it without people thinking about VR and talking about Facebook.
That’s never what meta-verse has meant to me. The meta-verse is an ecosystem enriched with metadata. It’s a way to layer and provide information flows in novel ways and to link behaviors that occur in different digital and physical spaces.
The video that got my brain running is 15 years old and it references the meta-verse.
Citizens currently share information about themselves, corporations extract value from that information. I went to school in the “data is the new oil” era and we’ve seen that the most important problem to work on for the past 5–10 years has been better user tracking to increase conversion on retargeting.
Corporations will continue to play a role in the progression of the meta-verse just as they have up to this point. Citizens will continue to become more informed about information and operations security. Corporations should strive to educate users about their data sharing and citizens should be mindful when increasing their data sharing.
Social media’s continued evolution will be guided and dictated by the underlying infrastructure, its stewards, and the users.
Let’s build something epic.
