Private Credentials
Holonym is a privacy-preserving identity protocol. It uses zero knowledge proofs to allow users to prove facts about themselves without revealing their whole identity, and it allows organizations to verify their users without storing their users' sensitive information.
Often, identity verification is required for legal or practical reasons such as KYC, fraud prevention, proof-of-age, and Sybil resistance. However, developing an application that preserves privacy has historically been difficult. This problem is biggest in web3, where most data is on a public ledger. Not only is obtaining privacy on a public ledger difficult, but the adverse affects of losing privacy are greater: "doxxing" a user's wallet address once reveals all of the address' past and future activity.
Holonym is a private credential system that make privacy-preserving identity possible and simple both on- and off-chain. It adheres to the following properties:
A private credential system should have the following properties:
- 1.The party who issues the credentials (e.g., some KYC provider) cannot determine the user's wallet address
- 2.No facts should be revealed about the address who submits the proof, other than the fact which is being proven (e.g., 0xabcd....'s age is over 18)
- 3.Proofs using the same identity can be submitted from any blockchain address, and doing so will not publicly associate the addresses together
A user can prove a variety of statements with a Holo, without revealing their identity. These include facts needed for compliance, Sybil resistance, and wallet recovery. Example statements are:
"I have US residency""I have non-US residency""I am an accredited investor""I am over 18""I am the same person who created this wallet" if the wallet must be recovered"I have never voted in this DAO's governance""I have never received this airdrop from any other crypto address""I am not on a blacklist""This $1K transaction is not part of a greater 100K transaction split up into pieces" (e.g., for Bank Secrecy Act and other regulations)
Many of these are currently ready, and others can be enabled by contacting us and/or contributing to our GitHub
Note: Proof generation currently takes about 2-15s, depending on the device
For using Holonym in your (d)App, continue to
Otherwise, take a peak into the architecture of Holonym
Last modified 1mo ago