Decentralized identity startup cheqd has announced the launch of a new platform called Creds for Web3 users to issue, hold and share digital credentials and build portable reputations.
The new tool was announced at the Nebular Summit in Paris, where attendees at the event were issued with the first Creds as part of a technology showcase. Creds give users a secure and private way to prove their identity in Web3 environments. What’s more, they’re fully portable and reusable, allowing users to slowly build up a strong reputation without ever revealing their true identity.
Cheqd explains that there are many challenges around the issue of Web3 security, with crypto scams wiping out millions of dollars in user’s funds, creating massive distrust in online communities.
According to cheqd, the best way to combat Web3 scams is to increase the trust and reputation of users, which is exactly what it’s aiming to do with Creds. It provides a way for individuals to confirm their personhood and ownership of assets such as wallets and user handles across multiple platforms. So a moderator on a Discord server could prove their status and role, without revealing their identity. A scammer would not be able to prove this. In this way, not only will Creds help to prevent scams, but they can also prevent impersonation-based attacks and the spread of fake news by malicious individuals.
Cheqd’s idea with Creds is that users can build a verifiable reputation across multiple platforms and communities, with full control over which credentials they decide to share with which groups.
Of course, a decentralized identity does more than simply improve security and prevent fraud. One of the most promising aspects of Creds is its ability to enable new kinds of gamified engagement for communities. By creating a reputation layer, projects can explore new gamification mechanics such as incentivized quests or “learn-to-earn” courses, where users are rewarded for learning and participating in forums and community activities.
Cheqd’s Head of Marketing & Community Eduardo Hotta said Web3 organizations are very interested in becoming more community-focused. “As an example, it's preferable to have a smaller number of real active community members, or superfans, than to have a group with thousands of bots,” he said. With Creds, projects can prove they have viable, active and engaged communities and encourage people to build reputations within them.
Cheqd notes that similar decentralized identity projects in the past have made use of NFTs and SoulBound Tokens with varying levels of success. Creds differ from previous initiatives because these tokens are completely private, revocable and portable, able to be used with multiple platforms and ecosystems. With Creds, all personally identifiable information is stored off-chain, privately and securely. This data is verified by decentralized identifiers on-chain and cryptographically signed to ensure trust.
Creds are set to become a key aspect of cheqd’s mission to build a trusted data economy based on lending markets, preference data markets and others that put users at the center. Cheqd supports these markets with a cutting-edge payment network that prioritizes individual’s privacy.
"Creds offers a privacy-preserving alternative to the surveillance enabling tech of SBTs and NFTs where you have little control over your privacy, as activities and other information are written on the ledger making it public and immutable,” said cheqd co-founder and Chief Executive Fraser Edwards. “Creds are collectable, portable, secure and verifiable; it has all the best things that the NFT and SBT have with the addition of everything else they are missing."
At Nebular Summit, all attendees were issued with Creds, enabling them to verifiably prove their attendance at the event without revealing their identities or any other information about themselves.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
