Adopting new technologies can be a daunting task, tying up resources and taking much longer than planned. You might even think that you’ll just stick to the broken system you know than the new system breaking in ways you never anticipated.
Verifiable credential technology was designed to minimize all these adoption problems.
New to decentralized identity? A good place to start would be the Beginner’s Guide!
By Tim Spring
Verifiable credentials enable high value data to be shared seamlessly and verified instantly — without having to check in with the source of the data, or the data itself having to be stored and managed by a third party. New technologies enable you to instantly trust, cryptographically, both the source of the credential, and the authenticity of the data stored inside.
The ability to use this immediately actionable data to create more seamless processes is a powerful value proposition. With verifiable credentials you can create an identity and verification layer that can transform the creaky, fraud and security nightmare that is Web 2.0 — if, and only if, it’s easy to implement, right?
The specter haunting IT is lifting and shifting to new systems. Spiraling costs and receding deadlines make the new, shiny thing a difficult bet. And then there are the risks of sudden obsolescence (the newer, shinier thing) or vendor lock-in to a system that’s suddenly a lot more costly to run and update.
There are a few ways verifiable credential technology enables safer, smarter digital transformation.
1. You don’t need to replace your existing system. Verifiable credentials and decentralized identity can be added as a layer that orchestrates your existing identity and access management systems and cloud services. This means you can slowly transform your systems at a pace that’s comfortable and cost effective.
2. Off-the-shelf ecosystems and solutions are available to create this layer, you can build as much or as little as you want in-house.
3. You can choose open-source solutions. Open source means freedom from vendor lock-in. Not only can you build on a system you fully own in a way that meets your needs, you get to benefit from a community of developers constantly innovating on the codebase.
Start simple and small
At Indicio, we believe in starting small and picking a simple use case. It doesn’t matter whether you are an SME or a global corporation. Learn how the technology works by solving a simple problem and then expand. Often once our customers discover how easy it is to implement and use verifiable credentials, they quickly hit the scale button.
A typical customer journey might look something like this when learning about, experiencing, and then implementing verifiable credentials:
Depending on your technical background, you might want to start with a demo video or hands-on workshop, where you get to issue, hold, and verify a credential.
For the next step you can explore Indicio Proven, where you can develop and demonstrate a proof-of-concept and go all the way to deployment — with support from the Indicio team. This provides everything you needed for a complete interoperable solution, providing the shortest possible learning curve to get you to production.
Digital transformation is inescapable. There is a lot of money to be made with faster, easier to use products and services. But they can’t be delivered without verifiable data and identity. The key to mastering the next stage of the web is to combine flexible, low-cost, low-risk transformation with a maximal capacity to interact, interoperate, and scale.
Why wait to catch up?
If you have questions about the technology or would like to take a closer look at specific use cases please get in touch with our team.
