Decentralized Identity allows people to control their digital identities without depending on intermediaries or a service provider. Digital identity refers to any information related to an individual, organization, or an application that exists on the internet, It can be a user username and password, or your purchase history.<h2>Why do we need a decentralized Identity?</h2>In the digital era, our identities are scattered on different platforms storing credentials and personal data over various databases. Traditional Identity management systems are centralized and are vulnerable to hacking, data breaches, and privacy violations.Have you experienced scrolling through socials and seeing an ad that was exactly what you are looking for on Amazon? Our personal information like our credit card, name, and address is being stored and shared on an increasing number of websites while websites often use our data to track people to display targeted content and advertise. As people access more websites and apps, they have more accounts to create and manage, which creates a bad user experience.Decentralized identity management leveraging blockchain technology and smart contracts offers a promising solution by giving individuals to create, manage, and authenticate their identities without needing to trust a single central authority<h2>Key Features of Decentralized Identity:</h2><ul><li>Self-Sovereignty: Anyone can create their digital identity using self-executing smart contracts recorded on an immutable blockchain serving as a unique digital identity.</li><li>Security: Users can selectively disclose only the necessary information, preserving their privacy and minimizing the risk of unauthorized access to sensitive data.</li><li>Privacy: Users can selectively disclose only the necessary information, preserving their privacy and minimizing the risk of unauthorized access to sensitive data.</li><li>Interoperability: Decentralized identity solutions are designed to be interoperable across various platforms and services, allowing for seamless authentication and data sharing.</li></ul><h2>Sample Smart Contract Implementing Decentralized Identity</h2>This contract enables users to create decentralized identities represented by ERC721 tokens. Each identity can have a name and arbitrary attributes associated with it. Create a project using <a href="https://github.com/BuildBearLabs/Scaffold-Eth-2-BuildBear">Scaffold-Eth 2 x Buildbear</a>&nbsp;lets you create your own private Sandbox, forked for various EVM and EVM-compatible blockchain networks, with your own Token faucet and blockchain explorer.&nbsp;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:50%;"><img src="https://strapi.buildbear.io/uploads/carbon_6_53ff85a377.png" alt="carbon (6).png" srcset="https://strapi.buildbear.io/uploads/thumbnail_carbon_6_53ff85a377.png 164w,https://strapi.buildbear.io/uploads/small_carbon_6_53ff85a377.png 500w,https://strapi.buildbear.io/uploads/medium_carbon_6_53ff85a377.png 750w,https://strapi.buildbear.io/uploads/large_carbon_6_53ff85a377.png 1000w," sizes="100vw"></figure>&nbsp;<h2>Contract Functionalities:</h2>Creating Identities: Users initiate the process by calling the createIdentity function and providing a name for their identity. This function checks whether an identity already exists for the caller's address, preventing duplicate identities and ensuring uniqueness.Upon successful creation, the contract stores the identity information in a struct, associating it with the user's address. This struct includes the user's name and an empty mapping for additional attributes.Now let us create an identity by calling createIdentity() function passing parameter. After a successful transaction, you will get the output as :<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:50%;"><img src="https://strapi.buildbear.io/uploads/Screenshot_from_2024_02_19_10_38_43_b726ce4076.png" alt="Screenshot from 2024-02-19 10-38-43.png" srcset="https://strapi.buildbear.io/uploads/thumbnail_Screenshot_from_2024_02_19_10_38_43_b726ce4076.png 131w,https://strapi.buildbear.io/uploads/small_Screenshot_from_2024_02_19_10_38_43_b726ce4076.png 421w," sizes="100vw"></figure>Setting Attributes: Users can further customize their identities by setting additional attributes using the setAttribute function. This allows for the inclusion of various personal details or preferences associated with the identity, enriching its representation on the blockchain.The contract provides a getAttribute function that enables anyone to retrieve specific attribute values associated with an identity owner's address and attribute key.Now after creating an Identity, let us try to set and read the attribute values from the blockchain using setAttribute() and getAttributes() functions. Pass the correct parameters to the function to retrieve the values like this;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:50%;"><img src="https://strapi.buildbear.io/uploads/Screenshot_from_2024_02_19_10_40_19_6a1691c192.png" alt="Screenshot from 2024-02-19 10-40-19.png" srcset="https://strapi.buildbear.io/uploads/thumbnail_Screenshot_from_2024_02_19_10_40_19_6a1691c192.png 186w,https://strapi.buildbear.io/uploads/small_Screenshot_from_2024_02_19_10_40_19_6a1691c192.png 500w," sizes="100vw"></figure><figure class="image image_resized" style="width:50%;"><img src="https://strapi.buildbear.io/uploads/Screenshot_from_2024_02_19_10_40_55_019344336a.png" alt="Screenshot from 2024-02-19 10-40-55.png" srcset="https://strapi.buildbear.io/uploads/thumbnail_Screenshot_from_2024_02_19_10_40_55_019344336a.png 245w,https://strapi.buildbear.io/uploads/small_Screenshot_from_2024_02_19_10_40_55_019344336a.png 500w," sizes="100vw"></figure>Congratulations! We have successfully implemented decentralized identity using solidity smart contracts.<h2>Other Use cases</h2><ul><li>Banking and Financial Institutions: Streamlined authentication processes and enhanced data security for financial transactions.</li><li>Organizations: Issuance and verification of fraud-proof credentials to mitigate the risk of data breaches.</li><li>Developers: Integration of secure authentication mechanisms into applications, eliminating reliance on passwords.****</li><li>Individuals: Empowerment of individuals to own and control their digital identities, preserving privacy and security.</li><li>Healthcare: Secure sharing of medical data between patients and healthcare providers, ensuring confidentiality and integrity.</li><li>Supply chain: Traceability and verification of products through blockchain-based identity solutions, enhancing transparency and accountability.</li></ul><h2>Conclusion</h2>Decentralized identity, powered by smart contracts, enhances control and protection over our digital identities. Leveraging blockchain resolves issues in centralized systems. Challenges like scalability and regulatory compliance persist, but it's vital to address them while harnessing decentralized identity's potential for a secure, inclusive digital future.<h2>BuildBear Tips:</h2>Web3 Code Snippets: 📚 Need help with web3 libraries? BuildBear offers tailored code snippets for popular libraries like Web3.js, Ethers, Wagmi, Web3j, and Web3py, all customized to fit your Sandbox. 🧑‍💻One-click Deployment: 🖱️ Effortlessly deploy 30+ of the most-used contracts with just a single click using BuildBear's no-code deployment feature.Contract Verification: 🔍 Configure your Hardhat or Foundry projects seamlessly with BuildBear-generated config file snippets, simplifying contract deployment and verification. 🛠️<h2>About BuildBear:</h2><a href="https://buildbear.io/">BuildBear</a>&nbsp;is a platform for testing Dapps at scale, for teams. It provides users with their own private Testnet to test their smart contracts and Dapps, which can be forked from any EVM chain. It also provides a Faucet, Explorer, and RPC for testing purposes.BuildBear aims to build an ecosystem of tools for testing Dapps at scale for the teams.Connect with us on&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/_BuildBear">Twitter</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/build-bear/">LinkedIn</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://t.me/Web3_dApp_Developers">Telegram</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://github.com/BuildBearLabs">GitHub</a>Author:&nbsp;Sana

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Decentralized Identity allows people to control their digital identities without depending on intermediaries or a service provider. Digital identity refers to any information related to an individual, organization, or an application that exists on the internet, It can be a user username and password, or your purchase history.

Understanding Decentralized Identity with Smart Contract

Let’s get started then, Shall we?

Let’s get started then, Shall we?

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