The division of Polygon Labs that deals with digital identity on blockchain, Polygon ID, is about to change its name.
The official announcement will be made today during a Space on X, but for example the official X profile of Polygon ID has already changed the username.
The new name will be Privado ID, and it will be in all respects a spin-off.
Summary
From Polygon ID to Privado ID: digital identity on blockchain
Polygon ID so far has been the division of Polygon Labs that deals with digital identity and reputation solutions.
Polygon Labs is the company behind the crypto project Polygon, and lately, it has been working on blockchain-based solutions that go beyond the simple layer-2 on Ethereum from which they started.
Polygon Labs has decided to spin off Polygon ID with a spin-off from which a new company, called Privado ID, is born. The spin-off was necessary to ensure neutrality to the digital identity platform on blockchain, and to allow the new company to establish strategic partnerships also with other onchain and institutional organizations, including some multinational banking and financial services companies.
Privado ID is now in all respects a software development company that creates tools and infrastructures for a decentralized and privacy-focused identity framework.
The objective is to enable reliable and secure relationships between organizations, apps, and users, all onchain and based on the Iden3 protocol.
The team of Privado ID includes the co-founders David Schwartz, current CEO, and Antoni Martin, COO. It also includes two non-executive co-founders, Jordi Baylina, co-founder of Polygon, and Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon Labs.
It should be remembered that Polygon is also working on a cross-chain solution that allows an asset to be easily transferred from one chain to another.
The purpose of the initiative
The purpose of Privado ID is to address the need for a secure digital ID, for example, to combat online theft and fraud and to counter increasingly sophisticated threats such as deepfake and disinformation based on artificial intelligence.
The idea is obviously also to go well beyond the Polygon network and blockchain, and to reach those sectors that are still distant from the crypto world.
Furthermore, Privado ID also aims to leverage decentralization and direct interaction between individuals to reduce costs, complexities, and counterparty risks in a sector where such risks are still very high today.
To reduce these risks Privado ID wants to grant the same people control over their data, also giving them a way to use it to receive benefits or information.
According to their vision, this approach simplifies the process of proving identity and uniqueness, but also the verification of compliance, the distribution of incentives, the management of ecosystem development, and the interaction with tokenized assets.
The new company is already looking to create strategic partnerships with both onchain organizations and institutional entities. In particular, it aims to collaborate with multinational banking and financial services companies to establish the technical foundations for interoperable and compliant identities.
The proof-of-concept
Several proof-of-concept (PoC) have already been initiated, which for example are exploring the use of Privado ID’s verifiable credentials (VC) as a checkpoint for access to authorized financial transactions.
These verifiable credentials can be used to ensure that only eligible participants can interact, for example, with DeFi smart contracts, such as liquidity pools, thus expanding the scope of institutional access compliant with decentralized finance.
Privado ID is also integrating with the Verax attestation registry, on the Linea zkEVM Chain developed by Consensys, with the goal, for example, of making it more difficult or expensive to create and maintain false identities.
The identity tools of Privado ID can also establish the authenticity and source of digital content, thus mitigating the risks generated by generative artificial intelligence. Additionally, they allow people to prove their age, qualifications, and other data without revealing sensitive personal information.
The co-founder of Privado ID, Antoni Martin, stated:
“The identity infrastructure of Privado ID empowers ordinary people and reduces the cost of trust across all sectors. We believe that the technology of Privado ID, with its emphasis on privacy, user control, and interoperability, will be revolutionary in the way individuals, agents, and organizations find and interact with each other in connected spaces, reducing the cost of trust and mitigating the risks of identity theft, fraud, and misinformation. Our commitment to remaining protocol-independent aligns perfectly with the idea that unified data is essential for blockchain interoperability and for enhancing the user experience, both crucial for the success of Web3.”
