Numerous Industry Leaders Eager to Invest in the Decentralized Identity Market
Evolutions from the widespread usage of paper to the deployment of electronic mode, to digital, and now to biometric have played a crucial role in shaping the global economy. Similarly, the effective management of these identities has significantly transformed the business landscape and shifted consumer as well as government interests from centralized and federated systems toward decentralized ones.
The advancement of decentralized systems has enhanced the operational capabilities of various industries, such as automotive, manufacturing, and construction, in terms of enhanced safety measures, connectivity, cost reduction, and convenience for users. There are various application areas of decentralized identity such as finance, government, healthcare, housing, and mobility.
The report by BIS Research, titled “Global Decentralized Identity Market: Focus on DID Class, Identity Modality, Application, and Use Cases; Strategic Analysis and Future Outlook”, tracks the particular market and is compiled in a bunch of 155 pages, including insightful figures and market tables.
The report includes details about the companies across the ecosystem including trust providers, decentralized application providers, software/technology providers, and regulators. The growing cybersecurity market has led to a large number of developments being undertaken by these companies to stay ahead in the competition. The rising consumer inclination to safeguard their own interest in terms of privacy is expected to be a major factor for the decentralized identity market to further flourish in the coming years.
There has been a gradual rise in population since 2010, with a year-on-year average of 1.16%. The biggest concern with regard to human identities is that of the privacy and safety of a user’s identity. The increasing population is an indication of a greater number of identities issued to the users, along with a greater number of identities for enterprise as well as for IoT-driven products. Under such circumstances, a larger group of identities are prone to cyber threats.
The most popular data breaches that took place in 2018 include the Under Armour Data Breach and MyHeritage Security Breach. The exposure of personal information of about 30 million users on Facebook in September 2018 also contributes to the list. These cyber threats indicate the extent of risk that has been posed by various organizations upon the users’ personalized data. Moreover, another factor which acts as a growth enabler for decentralized identity market is the increasing demand of non-human digital IDs among the consumers.
The concept of self-sovereign identity in the field of identity access and management has successfully led to the users gaining autonomy on their identity-related data, thus ensuring a safe and secure transaction, which is done through cryptographic keys approved from the users themselves. With the growth and implementation of innovative concepts and technologies, such as self-sovereign identity, the increasing cases of data breaches and cyber threats are estimated to decline in the coming years.
Competitive Landscape
The competitive landscape of the decentralized identity market includes different strategies undertaken by the key stakeholders to gain market presence. Since the system is currently under development and testing phase, therefore all the stakeholder companies are working together to assist governments and regulatory authorities for drafting standards and regulations.
Certain strategies adopted by key companies in this regard are product launches and developments, partnerships, collaborations, and mergers & acquisitions. Some of the key players in the decentralized identity ecosystem are Civic Technologies, Inc. (U.S.), EVERNYM INC. (U.S.), uPort (U.S.), Jolocom GmbH (Germany), and Microsoft Corporation (U.S.).
Numerous investments have taken place in the recent past in the decentralized identity space, which showcases the degree of interest among industry leaders in this ecosystem. However, the key challenge lies in coordinating these endeavors, keeping in mind, the regulatory and infrastructure framework in order to support these services.
It is anticipated that as the technology further develops, decentralized identity is expected to garner a larger degree of clarity through necessary procedures undertaken by both government and private players.
