As we know , there are other technologies and companies looking for DI solution. Since many of them are popular technologies or huge company with significant investment, we should consider them as risks for our work. At least we have to be aware of what comes new via them to this ecosystem. So a classification is required.

1- Companies with centralized Identity on the way of decentralization (GAFAM)

• Google
• Amazon
• Facebook (Meta)
• Apple
• Microsoft

  • Microsoft Entra Verified ID: Microsoft has been actively involved in decentralized identity solutions. They have developed technologies like Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) and verifiable credentials to enable self-sovereign and decentralized identity management. It has contributed to open-source projects like the Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF) and is working on initiatives such as the Microsoft Authenticator app. Microsoft Entra Verified ID Service is an issuance and verification service in Azure and a REST API for W3C Verifiable Credentials that are signed with the did:web method. They enable identity owners to generate, present, and verify claims. This forms the basis of trust between users of the systems.

2- Competing Technology

• A- Ledger Technologies
  • Blockchain based

    • IBM: IBM  is another company that has shown interest in decentralized identity. They have been involved in standardization efforts and have explored the use of distributed ledger technologies for decentralized identity solutions. It is including IBM Verify Credentials, which allows organizations to issue and verify digital credentials using blockchain technology. 

    • Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF): DIF is an organization focused on developing open standards and protocols for decentralized identity. They work on emerging standard specifications and open-source code to drive the development of decentralized identity solutions. Members include Companies like Microsoft, IBM, and Consensys.

    • Sovrin: 

      • Evernym: Evernym company specializes in self-sovereign identity solutions and offers the Sovrin Network, an open-source decentralized identity network built on distributed ledger technology.

    • Dock
    • Chainlink
    • uPort (Serto- Veramo)
      • Consensys: Consensys company is a blockchain software technology company that offers solutions for decentralized identity, including uPort, a self-sovereign identity platform built on Ethereum.
      • uPort uses the blockchain as an identity certification authority where a smart contract represents the digital identity of a user while allowing the revocation and replacement of that user’s keys. uPort identities can take many forms: individuals, devices, entities, or institutions. Uport identities are self-sovereign, meaning they are fully owned and controlled by the creator, and don’t rely on centralized third-parties for creation or validation.
      • uPort project has split into two new projects: Serto and Veramo. Veramo is performant and modular APIs for Verifiable Data and SSI. You can create and manage decentralized identifiers + verifiable credentials without worrying about interop and vendor lock-in. Serto enables people and enterprises to utilize the newest innovations in decentralized technology to make data more portable, private, and valuable.
    • ION
      • ION is a Layer 2 open, permissionless network based on the purely deterministic Sidetree protocol, which requires no special tokens, trusted validators, or additional consensus mechanisms; the linear progression of Bitcoin's timechain is all that's required for its operation. ION is designed for scale, supporting thousands of DID operations per second across the network. ION has been launched on Bitcoin mainnet and is based on a strongly eventually consistent architecture that enables embarrassingly parallel ingest, processing, and resolution of DID operations.
    • BlockID: 

      • 1Kosmos is a company that focuses on distributed identity solutions. They aim to provide secure and privacy-preserving identity management using decentralized technologies. BlockID is A distributed identity cloud service that unifies identity verification and passwordless authentication. 1Kosmos BlockID is a fully standards-based platform for complete user authentication. BlockID takes the strengths of decentralized identities, and adds layers of security, user biometrics, and hardware-backed YubiKey authentication to effectively protect access to systems.  It is a certified solution for NIST 800.63.3, UK DIATF, FIDO2, iBeta DEA EPCS, ISO 27001 and SOC II. Compliant to GDPR standards. [1][2]

    • DID Alliance: DID Alliance is an open industry association for decentralized identity (DID) services that ensure the credibility of digital identity.

• • • World Mobile: World Mobile is a commercial company that has already implemented decentralized identifiers (DIDs) in their operations. They utilize DIDs to provide identity solutions in underserved areas.
    • ShoCard : ShoCard is a blockchain-based identity authentication platform that aims to provide a trusted identity by protecting users’ identity [46]. It uses distributed ledger technology (DLT) to bind a user identifier, existing trusted credentials, and additional identity attributes together with cryptographic hashes to be considered for similar to face-to-face transactions. ShoCard uses Bitcoin time-stamping for signed cryptographic hashes of the user’s identity information.[3]

• • DAG based
    • IOTA
• B- Non-ledger Technologies
  • IRMA

3- Market Growth Challenges: Expanding the service’s market can be difficult.

Identity programs often need to fill a supply/demand gap in a marketplace, needing to persuade both users and service providers to join their identity ecosystem, rather than use existing or alternative services. This can be true whether the service is centralized, federated, or completely decentralized.

This means that often, digital identity services take much longer to scale than originally planned. Without sufficiently attractive and useful services onboard, the case for signing up may not be clear to citizens, and without sufficient volumes of verified users, service teams may not see the value in the identity service, and may wait for growth. Without sufficient uptake, for new services, the work required to make services truly self-service based on the trust in the identity, can be harder to justify. [4]

References:

[1] https://www.1kosmos.com/

[2] https://www.yubico.com/works-with-yubikey/catalog/1kosmos-blockid/

[3] Travel Identity of the Future—White Paper; Technical Report; ShoCard: Cupertino, CA, USA, 2016

[4] How to control your biggest risks in digital identity