IDTrust: Hashgraph heats up digital ID battle for Worldcoin, Microsoft

The Hashgraph Group (THG) has reportedly announced its foray into the blockchain-based digital ID arena. Unveiling a self-sovereign identity (SSI) platform called “IDTrust”, the Swiss tech firm said it will allow users to issue, manage, and verify their credentials without having to involve centralized authorities.

IDTrust has been created on the Hedera network, which is a decentralized public network that acts as a blockchain, supported on the Hashgraph consensus.

Understanding IDTrust

The aim of IDTrust is primarily to work with enterprises and governments, helping them move the sensitive details on their employees and nationals on-chain. Given the blockchain backing, THG believes, the platform will offer an overall improvement in the transparency, authentication, and storage ecosystem for data and information.

Stefan Deiss, the co-founder and CEO of TGH has that IDTrust will combine the capabilities of blockchain, as well as Artificial Intelligence (AI) to issue unique digital identities to its users, CoinTelegraph reported on Friday, August 1.

Deiss further highlighted the flexibility quotient of IDTrust. He revealed that the platform will not require its users to be part of the broader Hedera ecosystem or even hold the Hedera token, a level of adaptability he claimed other similar solutions like Worldcoin lacked.

“This sets it apart from solutions like Polygon ID or Worldcoin, which focus primarily on proving identity or uniqueness. Compared to Microsoft Entra, IDTrust offers a decentralized trust model that offers individuals full control over personal data,” the report quoted Deiss as saying.

The development of IDTrust comes at a time when the Swiss government is pacing up discussions around creating a national digital identity system. Earlier in June, for instance, the Swiss Federal Council started inviting regulatory consultations around e-ID implementation in the country.

CoinHeadlines has reached out to THG seeking more information on IDTrust.A eply from the company, however, remains awaited for now.

Competition in the blockchain ID space

Over the years, a number of blockchain firms have launched projects that aim to provide on-chain identification services for those interested in obtaining one.

Sam Altman’s Worldcoin is among the first such projects that controversially collects people’s eye-scans to issue them a unique ID. Worldcoin has often explained its initiative as one that would eliminate the need for real humans to disclose their personal details while engaging with websites and applications and keep them distinguished from bots. The project went live in 2023 and since then, it claims to have issued unique World IDS to over 14.4 million individuals. Several nations including Germany and France have objected to Worldcoin’s eye scanning technique and have moved to restrict its expansion within their jurisdictions.

Microsoft introduced a similar initiative called “Entra” in 2022. As explained by the Windows-maker, Entra is a cloud-based digital identity management service to help enterprises to oversee and adjust access levels for their employees based on risk level monitoring.

Along with Switzerland, other regions like the European Union (EU), and Vietnam have also shown an interest in exploring the creation of national digital ID syetems.