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MicroStrategy has announced the development of a decentralized identity solution on the Bitcoin blockchain. The protocol, called MicroStrategy Orange, employs a Bitcoin Inscription DID methodology similar to the Ordinals methodology and uses unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs) for control to manage decentralized identifiers (DIDs). Michael Saylor, the company's co-founder and executive chairman, announced the innovation at the Bitcoin For Corporations conference on May 1st.
The Bitcoin Inscription DID method (did:btc) uses the Bitcoin blockchain only to store and retrieve DID information. UTXOs on the chain are used to control the DID. This increases scalability and redundancy when creating DID documents, while reducing fees and block space consumed.” draft Potential specifications (documentation) for new solutions on MicroStrategy GitHub.
According to Saylor, MicroStrategy Orange is a sidechain-agnostic, open-source effort that can process up to 10,000 DIDs in a single Bitcoin transaction. This system aims to simplify the implementation of hisDID for organizations and individuals and provide a secure and anonymous way to manage online identities.
“The goal of this method is to use only the public Bitcoin blockchain as a data source, while providing a trustless, tamper-proof, and long-lived decentralized identity. [DID-CORE] specification and upward compatibility for future enhancements,” the document states.
DID provides an anonymous way to manage an online identity that is different from your real-world identity, enhancing your privacy. The MicroStrategy Orange suite includes Orange applications such as Orange Service for organizations to issue their DIDs, Orange SDK for developers, and “Orange For Outlook” for digitally signing emails.
The onboarding process includes an invitation from your organization, creation of a DID, and registration on the Bitcoin blockchain, ensuring your data is persistent and tamper-proof.
According to MicroStrategy Executive Vice President of Engineering Cezary Raczko, MicroStrategy Orange's vision is to integrate DID on Bitcoin with the broader “verifiable credential ecosystem.”
In other words, anyone can verify the authenticity of these credentials across different applications without relying on a central authority. Verification is done by checking information on the Bitcoin blockchain, which is known for its immutability and security.
DID can be used to verify a user's identity on social media platforms, and has the potential to issue and verify credentials in a more secure, user-controlled, and decentralized way, Raczko said. Highlighted potential use cases.
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