Coinbase: What is required for Web3 identity?

Coinbase: What is required for Web3 identity?

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By: Alex Reeve

In order to create an open financial system for the world, we need to make Web3 accessible to everyone. This requires us to build an intuitive, permissive and trustworthy identity experience based on the combination of the advantages of Web2 and Web3. The first step of this experience is to make it easy for anyone to obtain a free Web3 (ENS) username , we still have a lot of work to do on this step.

If you’ve worked with cryptocurrencies, chances are you’ve experienced the anxiety of sending tokens or NFTs to 42-character addresses like 0x2133a64a3bE8B64827B26B08e166d0b478bd09D3. To make this easier, Coinbase has partnered with the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) to allow users to claim a "name.cb.id" username using the Coinbase Wallet browser extension.

In order to create an open financial system for the world, we need to ensure that people from all walks of life can use Web3. Facilitating the adoption of human-readable username standards is a key part of making Web3 look friendly to everyone. With this feature, anyone can now claim a free "name.cb.id" Web3 username to send and receive cryptocurrency (instead of using 42 character addresses), interact with others, and use it as their Web3 basis of identity.

While this is an important milestone, your username is only one part of your online identity. There are other identity-related gaps that need to be filled before Web3 can be used by billions of people. While Web3 has early promise, it is often unintuitive and lacks a viable way to communicate and assess trust and legitimacy. To fill these gaps, we need to combine the convenience of Web2 with the privacy, security and control of Web3.

What is identity? Why is this important?

When we create an account or log into a product, we are using our identity to gain access. Identity is how products and platforms represent who they are, manage access and authorization, and assess trust. Identity has three core parts:

• Representation: How you are represented as a user (eg, your username and profile).
• Access: Prove that you are the owner of the identity (e.g., log in) to gain access to the product.
• Authorization: Determine what we are allowed to access based on who we are.

In today's Web3, we can use wallet addresses or usernames (such as nick.eth or nick.cb.id) to represent. It is also possible to enter Web3 by using the seed phrase to configure our wallet or restore access to the wallet. Specific tokens or NFTs can grant us access to exclusive communities, etc.

Hasn't Web2 already solved this problem?

Web2 has invested heavily in developing intuitive and easy-to-use identification products. But the vulnerabilities of Web2 identity are already starting to show: the need to manage multiple accounts and passwords; having to deal with "relentless" spam; a lack of privacy, security and control.

Many of us have given up privacy, security and control for convenience. We only realize the shortcomings of Web2 when we are affected by data breaches, organizational overreach, or loss of access. But in today's world, these events are becoming inevitable.

What does it take for Web3 to thrive?

The basic customer needs for Web2 and Web3 identities are the same. The difference is how they meet. Web2 is centralized, offering convenience and flexibility at the expense of privacy, security and control. Web3 is trustless and decentralized, but it has the shortcoming of usability. For Web3 to thrive, we need to combine the best of both worlds (flexibility and usability without sacrificing privacy, security or control) and create an experience that:

• intuitive. It needs to make it easy for every user to transact and communicate with others via human-readable usernames, rather than daunting 42-character addresses.
• tolerant. Every user needs security, and they need a way to restore access without relying on securely storing sensitive recovery phrases -- where one mistake could cost someone their livelihood.
• trustworthy. People need to be able to understand whether the people or apps they interact with are trustworthy, and apps and users need tools to demonstrate trust to others.

Evolving Web3 Identity

Web3 has the opportunity to address many of the shortcomings of Web2. With encryption, we control the keys to our identities, putting our security in our hands. But the reality is: Web3 is daunting right now. So, what does the Web3 community need to do to make the benefits of Web3 available to everyone?

User ID.

We need to make it easy to define and manage portable, interoperable, human-readable usernames that sit on top of rich, customizable public identities ranging from anonymous to fully public. Users should be able to maintain multiple identities in different environments (e.g. one for work and one for gaming).

Tools to help everyone stay safe and feel safe.

Today, Web3 violates one of the fundamental laws of security because our identities are vulnerable to a single point of failure: the recovery phrase. Compromised apps, devices, or social engineering attacks can all lead to identity theft. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a classic example of Web2, and Web3 will require an equivalent solution that can protect every user.

Recovery when something goes wrong.

We've all forgotten our passwords at some point and shouldn't expect a recovery phrase to be any different than a password. We can't scale an ecosystem where losing a recovery phrase can cost someone their livelihood - users need a way to regain access. Products such as social recovery or multi-party computation (MPC) technology offered by Coinbase’s dapp wallet are creating a more forgiving experience, enabling wider adoption of Web3 applications.

trust and legitimacy.

Passports are valid because the government certifies their legitimacy. The utility of Web3 identities also relies on proof of the legitimacy of identities by trusted parties. Users will need to collect and manage proofs of credentials and legitimacy. Applications will need a way to issue and verify the validity of user identities and credentials.

Interoperability across Web2 and Web3.

Over time, the concepts of "Web2" and "Web3" will become blurred, and later users will not see a clear difference between the two. They expect seamless access to "Web2" and "Web3" from one identity and one set of credentials, and we need to enable that experience. Likewise, we need to provide users with a chain-agnostic identity that they can use across all of Web3.

Establishing Identity for Web3

Building a strong Web3 identity layer requires the intense focus of a strong team that can build and iterate quickly. This often means building and improving locally before scaling globally (and in a decentralized way). Coinbase and many of these organizations need to embrace this long-term vision from the start: open source, open standards, and working closely with the broader Web3 ecosystem.

Most importantly, we cannot lose sight of the core promise of Web3 Identity. We need to build in a way that prioritizes user privacy, security, and control, while being intuitive, forgiving, and trustworthy.

Coinbase has already started this journey with organizations like ENS and Verite to provide everyone with free Web3 identity (cb.id), and they will continue to expand their identity services.

Source：https://medium.com/the-coinbase-blog/what-web3-identity-needs-54d5a7c1e198

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