SSI: when I should start charging my customers?

SI: When I Should Start Charging My Customers?

Thursday 20H

Convener: Robert Mitwicki

Notes-taker(s): Robert Mitwicki

Tags for the session - technology discussed/ideas considered: SSI, Business model, monetization, value chain

Discussion notes, key understandings, outstanding questions, observations, and, if appropriate to this discussion: action items, next steps:

KYC is not cheap and SSI and VC can reduce the costs by far. One of the most popular assumptions is that the verifier is the one who will pay and should pay as this is an additional value for him. But in the current model this does not necessarily hold. If you show your passport in some foreigin country they are not paying to see that credential.

The value is not in data but in the data flow. Data is like electricity it has value when it flows. Seems like monetization of the VC could harm the adoption. Especially that a lot of analog credentials are “kind of free”.

How often do you get new credentials? In many cases is not the thing which flows through the system. Variable source of data has a value but more value comes with data flows itself. SSI brings identity to the next level - makes the PKI simpler and cheaper but that is not what we are after.

Users not necessarily would like to take the responsibility for their identity, so they probably would not want to pay for it either e.g. paying for wallets. The costs would have to be pushed to the companies or organizations who benefit from letting people use digital credentials because this reduces their costs.

SSI is an enabler and unlocks new ways of building businesses with a more consent driven way and allows data to flow. Seems the biggest value is behind the hill called VC. VC is just a key to unlock new stuff and this new stuff will bring the biggest value.

Zoom Session Chat:

21:43:28 From Paul Dunphy : @sebastian - did Commerzbank make any conclusions about SSI?

21:44:19 From Sebastian Bickerle : Still exploring the space via lissi.id

21:44:58 From Paul Dunphy : Thx

21:48:06 From Eric Weber : build a smart contract that pays issuer when verifier does verification

21:50:29 From Gabe Cohen : That isn’t necessarily privacy preserving for the holder

21:51:01 From Eric Weber : could you make it anonymous?

21:51:03 From Benedikt Olek : ...or the issuer and verifiers

21:51:23 From Gabe Cohen : Not without significant data volume

21:52:19 From Rory Martin : Verification occurs over two different steps: retrieving the DID of the issuer, and checking any revocation status. It seems difficult to charge during the DID resolution, so you could build the entire payment into the revocation check. This may drive verifiers to avoid checking the revocation status.

21:54:08 From Rory Martin : The sovrin token white paper seems to suggest that the verifier pays the issuer with a blinded payment. Is anybody familiar with that model?

21:54:22 From Sebastian Bickerle : Binding the payment on the revocation is actually an interesting idea

21:55:24 From Rory Martin : http://sovrin.org/wp-content/uploads/Sovrin-Protocol-and-Token-White-Paper.pdf

21:55:49 From Rory Martin : Page 34 shows the triangle of payment

21:56:18 From Sebastian Bickerle : I’ve seen that, but it does not really go into detail

22:06:22 From Paul Dunphy : Another big challenge in banking KYC and VC is pinpointing liability. If BankA KYCs a customer (badly) and BankB trusts that VC - can BankB evidence that they trusted a credential in good faith, and BankA should receive the “punishment”.

22:07:04 From Eric Weber : In most countries you pay for your passport as a holder

22:16:23 From Richard Esplin : Sorry it took me a while to get back. I kicked a hornets nest and figured it would be impolite to leave. grin

22:19:16 From Andre Kudra : Good to have you, Richard. We are all interested on how Evernym sees SSI value propositions and selling Points to customers. :-)

22:23:33 From Eric Weber : understand who looses money in the use case today (fraud, theft...), then sell them guarantee

22:32:19 From pknowles : Correct

22:32:30 From Richard Esplin : That's a pretty good guess.

22:32:41 From Richard Esplin : Regarding YouTube premium. grin

22:36:15 From Paul Dunphy : I think some evidence of the future potential of people paying for VCs, can also be seen by who pays for FIDO U2F or FIDO2 devices.

22:36:38 From Paul Dunphy : (spoiler, it’s the nerds :) )

22:38:37 From Andre Kudra : Back in 3 minutes.

22:41:37 From Richard Esplin : Most of our adoption today are for "Issuer is Verifier" use cases. So they know exactly where the value is.

22:45:49 From Richard Esplin : Our experience is that users want control, but want to be able to contract with a vendor to ensure they can get out of any problems that arise with their data.