The rise of generative AI took the world by storm. Today, with nothing but a few instructions written in a prompt, AI can generate astonishing content of any kind, freely and without barriers.
While this sounds exciting and opens the door to endless possibilities, there is also a darker side to this story—one where this technology is used by some bad actors to cause harm. With just a pinch of creativity, it is not hard to imagine a scenario where a bad actor leverages AI to generate a fake video of a supposed CEO of a major bank discussing the insolvency of his institution. How much chaos could that generate if the video goes viral? An instant bank run, panic in financial markets, waves of protest.
In a world where seeing is no longer believing, and where AI can generate or manipulate digital media, particularly video or audio content, and spreading it at the speed of light via the internet, how do you know who to trust?
Ultimately, there are two main paths ahead: 1) having a centralized 'Big Brother' in control of all information to ensure the accuracy of sources and limit deepfakes, or 2) putting people back in control by reinventing the notion of digital identity on the web.
One may argue that if liberty and self-sovereignty are foundational values for creating a virtuous world, then the latter option seems far more appropriate. In this context, it appears that crypto could have its role to play.
The inherent properties of blockchain and crypto technologies offer a promising path forward in the digital identity landscape. If AI can generate an infinite amount of quality content, then crypto can authenticate it. Similarly, if centralized AI takes control over users' data, crypto can restore a sense of data ownership—and that is a big deal.
The first step in this direction is to develop a Web3 digital identity solution to allow for data ownership and security. This is what Solana ID is currently building.
Solana ID is a digital identity and reputation platform that combines both Web2 and Web3 activities and credentials. To do that, they are leveraging blockchain as well as Zero-Knowledge (ZK) technology to link every identity credential to a public-private key wallet that can be neatly carried around the internet in a private, secure, and scalable manner.
In that way, each user can be linked to a reputation score and every source information can be verified using this system and linked to its related user reputation score. An ideal solution for installing trust in trustless systems and fighting against bots, fake accounts, or even deepfakes.
The tech stack of Solana ID incorporates various components and technologies to ensure privacy, interoperability, and usability. Here's a detailed breakdown of the main elements:
Source: Solana ID
Jack of all trades, master of none. Although Solana ID's global mission is to create a Web3 of trust—where every piece of content on the internet can be securely linked to a digital identity in a private and secure manner—the project has narrowed its scope and is currently focusing on disrupting the current ad-based model of the internet.
Through its decentralized ID profile solutions, Solana ID aims to help businesses deliver much more personalized offers while ensuring they target only real users—no bots or fake accounts. More importantly, these models protect the privacy of end users and ensure that they are fairly rewarded for the information they choose to share. A win-win situation for everyone.
Source: Jupresearch
Solana ID started their journey by targeting this specific sector because they believed that helping dApps find sustainable ways to attract and retain more users were the biggest use case for web3 digital identity at the moment. But in the future the project will expand its use cases and we believe that this could find overlap with the decentralized AI movement.
As of writing this, over 40,000 users have signed up to Solana ID priority pass holders and already 1,000 users have already paid to mint their Priority Pass to secure their lane number. This is some good early signals of strong traction for Solana ID.
Moreover, the protocol has secured partnerships with major pillars of the Solana ecosystem such as Orca, Jupiter, Solana Superteam, and many more.
Source: Solana ID
Two things characterize the Solana ID team: they are passionate and they understand well the problem they are tackling. With that in mind, here is an overview of the main leadership positions:
The token powering the Solana ID ecosystem is $SOLID, an SPL token on Solana. It is set to have a maximum supply of 1 billion with an initial circulating supply at launch of 22%. Token distribution details are as follows:
Source: Solana ID
$SOLID has different utilities within the Solana ID ecosystem:
At a later stage, token holders will also be able to participate in protocol governance and decide on the direction of the protocol, such as algorithm changes for score calculation, credential issuance, and related systemic design decisions.
As its name implies, Solana ID is currently focused on the Solana ecosystem. Hence, it is fair to assume that, in the short term, the market opportunity for this project is limited to current users of the Solana network.
Source: tokenterminal
Under this set of assumptions, we believe that Solana ID could attract between 98,000 to 490,000 unique users to its platform in the next year. But here, we didn’t even take into account the expected growth of the Solana ecosystem itself, which will grow the pie from which Solana ID is cutting pieces and could lead to even more positive numbers.
In any case, if we assume that a significant portion of the intrinsic value of Solana ID is directly related to the growth of its user base, then this appears to be an interesting opportunity.
On a longer-term horizon, Solana ID is in direct competition to capture a share of the global targeted ads market. According to optimistic projections from the team, Solana ID could potentially capture a market size worth $195 million.
Source: Solana ID