FAQ
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Litentry's founder, Hanwen Cheng, was a former Software Engineer at Parity. While he was working on a Signer project at Parity, he realized the need for an interoperable identity system and started a side project, which eventually became Litentry. In 2019, after he built his team and took the project more seriously, Litentry quickly set off: they received a grant from the Web3 Foundation, then a million-dollar seed round from FBG, Candaq, Hypersphere, Signum, Altonomy, and other crypto VCs. The team also listed the utility token LIT on Binance in 2020 and incubated three projects in-house.
There are a couple of reasons: the historical context is that back in the early days of our project, we were using Ethereum to build applications which heavily subject to transaction fees and long duration time. It wasn't a particularly good experience for both users and developers, so we started to look for alternative products. We believed that cross-chain will be the future of blockchain, and after comparing different projects ex. Cosmos, Polkadot, we decide to move forward with Polkadot.
Polkadot has fast iteration, cutting-edge technology, and high potential in the cross-chain space. It has a vision of helping people build entire blockchains and integrating these blockchains with each other. The CTO Gavin Wood also has a deep understanding of Web 3 and the blockchain application ecosystem. With Polkadot, we find it relatively easier and more efficient to build our protocol related to building from scratch.
Litentry's protocol and front-end products are used for any type of identity data generation, computation and transfer where security and privacy are important. They allow you to manage your digital identity data scattered across web2 & web3 platforms, generate and manage a verifiable identity with the help of privacy preserving computation.
Some of the use-cases include private & secure identity data injections into NFT’s, dApps & other apps, credit scores & eligibility for under-collateralized lending and other reputation-based benefits, audience selection for quality airdrops based on crypto experience and project contribution, and transportation of reputation & status metrics across Web2 & Web3 platforms.
Litentry's MyCryptoProfile (MCP) 2.0 featuring PhalaWorld was launched on June 24th 2022 and has successfully driven the creation of over 7000 ID graphs for use in PhalaWorld through MCP's shielded aggregated web3 identities. MCP is positioned as a pilot version of Litentry's trustless aggregated identity and has proven to be an effective way to connect dApps with targeted audiences while protecting user privacy.
My Crypto Profile was actually one of the first products issuing a truly ‘Soulbound NFT’
Since its launch, MCP has received valuable feedback from users and has garnered support from business partners. This has led to the conception of the Identity Hub (IDH/ID Hub), which is a merging of Drop3, an on-chain quest and airdrop platform based on aggregated identity and MCP. ID Hub is an open platform for dApps and users to exchange identity data while maintaining privacy. As MCP is a middle-layer service, it adds value to the dApp experience but may not provide enough guidance to users on why they are being asked to record their on-chain identities.
Our protocol is designed to be EVM compatible, furthermore Identity Data and the format in which we issue identity data is ‘blockchain agnostic’. A verifiable credential is a human readable text format. See it as an official letter that contains all the necessary information to verify whether the content in the letter is true. Although we are using a parachain as a trust anchor to store our verifiable credential on any other dapp or protocol is able to use these credentials without the need to be present on the polkadot ecosystem. So we can basically integrate any type of data a blockchain data indexer can offer, be it avalanche, solana, or other L2’s.
No, Litentry uses a Trusted Execution Enclave (TEE) to protect user data. The TEE is like a blackbox in which the code is open sourced, yet Litentry cannot see what input is given by the identity owner. This ensures that the data is stored, processed and protected in a secure environment. The Intel SGX chipset is used for this purpose, where all verified accounts & addresses are stored in the form of an identity graph.
No, the sensitive relationships between the accounts are stored in the Trusted Execution Environment, which is only accessible when the private key of the identity owner is included in the request to open it. Currently, all the SGX nodes are under the control of Litentry, which minimizes the risk of attacks by malicious nodes. Litentry is actively working towards decentralization, and the eventual decentralization of the nodes is inevitable. Please also read TEE FAQ
Currently, the only way to access the Litentry protocol and its features is through the Identity Hub. In the near future, Litentry plans to release several SDKs to enable more direct interaction with the protocol. Please reach us at [email protected] if you have an interest in integrating our technologies.
Litentry's protocol infrastructure follows a self-sovereign identity framework, which gives users complete control over their data at every stage of the process. The Identity Hub is unable to access or analyse user data unless they give permission through a cryptographic signature.
All data management and sharing is initiated and authorized by the user. Litentry is an identity middle layer that allows users to reclaim control over their data sovereignty and use, leverage, or benefit from it as they see fit. Third-party partners are encouraged to offer clear benefits and incentives in exchange for data insights from their users.
Last modified 3h ago