Bankless - EthCC #7 | "The Web3 Identity Meta" - Evin McMullen

Starting point is 00:00:02 Welcome Bankless Nation to the ECC experience. On this particular episode, we are talking with Evan McMullen of Disco. And Disco is, of course, building off the world of off-chain, verifiable credentials. We're all obsessed with soul-bound token these days. But verifiable credentials are kind of the same same, but not on chain. So Evan is a pioneer and huge advocate of what she calls minimal disclosure, which is actually not something she calls. It's a standard set by, I believe, the Web 3 Consortium, which is not something she's named,

Starting point is 00:00:29 but it's actually a set of ethical standards set by some internet three-letter agency standards agreement committee that talked about this idea of the least amount of personal identifiable data that is released into the world the better because that preserves user sovereignty. So there's been this whole like debate about soulbound tokens or verifiable credentials and Evan is a firm believer of the verifiable credentials movement and that is what she's building over at disco and you can just hear that in her passion. She's just a very eloquent speaker and I think everyone has a fun time talking to her, whether it's listening to her on a podcast

Starting point is 00:01:02 or just hanging out with her in real life. She seems to have everything that's ready to go in her brain. So from a content perspective, it's very, very awesome. It's a content producer. I quite appreciate it. So let's go ahead and get into

Starting point is 00:01:13 that very wonderful conversation with the fabulous Evan McMullen. We usually do our pre-recorded ads for the episodes like these, but since they are so short, we are speed running them, and so here that goes. And we're going to start with Rocket Pool.

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Starting point is 00:02:08 which you should also go watch, but not before you're done watching this. But when you do watch that video, make sure it's on a privacy-first browser, which is why you should be using Brave. It blocks all the browser ads. It's got a native Web3 wallet, and it puts the user first the Web3 way. You know what else puts the user first?

Starting point is 00:02:24 Ledger hardware wallets and the Ledger Live ecosystem. I know Ledger is a great product because I have literally nine of them and I have 99% of my crypto assets on my Ledger wallets. And the Ledger Live ecosystem is all you really need when it comes to living a bankless life, such as buying with Fiat, swapping, and staking. But for the rest of you that are sitting on stable coins because the market is scary right now, make sure you're using a decentralized bankless stable coin. May I suggest die from Maker Dow?

Starting point is 00:02:49 The most tried and tested stable coin in existence. But with Maker, you don't have to hide your stables on the Ethereum Layer 1. Maker is building thy portals so you can mint thai natively across all the layer twos so you can make sure that your assets don't go down another 90%, but you still get to go do

Starting point is 00:03:05 all the defy things across the L2verse. So I hope you use these sponsors on your quest for going bankless and right now I bring you my conversation with Evan McMullen. Evan, how's it going? GM, David, or BJ, as I guess we're saying here,

Starting point is 00:03:18 bonjour. It is wonderful to be here at ECC. I'm so happy that you're going to be the person that introduces that to the bankless nation because I have not been sharing that inside joke with all of them. I regret nothing. So since we're in Paris, instead of saying GM, we've been saying BJ for bonjour, of course.

Starting point is 00:03:35 Yes. Good morning in the local language. But, of course, as we know, GM is agnostic of culture, time of day. So we love a good universal greeting. Evan, how has this conference so far, we're still on day one. So there's a lot of conference left. But you've like risen quickly onto the scene of being the queen of Web3 data. So how has this conference been for you? It has been a wonderful adventure, David. There have been a few events leading up to today. And the theme that I'm sensing throughout all of these side events and my

Starting point is 00:04:04 experience of the conference so far is that we are ready for account abstraction. People are thinking about identity of the human beings who sit behind wallet addresses. So it's really wonderful to see the ecosystem coming together in service of non-financial utility, especially given this very unique opportunity we have in the build market. You know, I've been thinking about all day, reflecting on ECC last year where Vatalek gave his talk about how we need to focus on non-financial use cases of blockchain. And then that was like kind of just like an idea for six months. And then Lenz Protocol came about. And then we had this resurgence in decentralized identity and disco has risen come onto the scene. And so like a year later, we're finally doing the thing that Vatelic talked about

Starting point is 00:04:46 a year ago. There's so much to unpacking the last like year in the lessons that we've learned. but also Vitalik's giving a talk again on Thursday in two days. So I'm hoping he kind of helps us nudge that even further because we all seem to be perpetually behind the talk by about like six to 12 months. But how much more is there left to do in the world of non-financial use cases of blockchains? How much left is there to build? Most of it. Most of it. I think, you know, so obviously we know public blockchains are a really wonderful place for data that has a double spend problem that requires global public availability in perpetuity, you know, until the death of the universe. But for all other kinds of data for which that is not optimal, we need to build a similarly

Starting point is 00:05:26 rich ecosystem to what we can enjoy with smart contracts and on-chain interactions. So love Vitalik's foresight. I take issue with the fact that he canceled Kim Kardashian last ETCC, but like it's fine. But yeah, I think it's a really wonderful moment for us to come together, not only is the Ethereum ecosystem, but also to find common ground with other based chains that are reaching the ceiling of fun and utility that you can enjoy with only public data. I was talking to Stani earlier today, and one of the things we were focused on is like, we've got this blockchain tech stack that everyone is generally familiar with, right? We got the Ethereum layer one, we got all these layer twos, we got ZK rollups, we got optimistic rollups, we got application specific chains. But also completely

Starting point is 00:06:05 separate to that, we have this new stack that's coming about. And it's like this data stack where we have like file storage, we have like ceramic network, which I'm not actually sure how to classify that. So that's the first question to you is what the hell is ceramic and how to classify it. But then we also have like disco, which is like the top level funnel for all of these things. Can you just like share an illustration or your vision for like this tech stack that's being built in parallel to all of our blockchain stacks? So I would say the way we make this cake is hardware, network, infrastructure application. And so in that infrastructure layer, which is like, the very substantial center of the cake. That is going to be where our data goes to sleep at night. So teams like Ceramic are building decentralized storage that we at Disco use in a manner encrypted against the user's keys. So they're in ownership and control of that data. But what this allows for is increased censorship resistance. So you don't have a centralized authority lording over a given centralized set of data. It diminishes the risk surfaces that we typically associate with centralized data storage as well. And it offers a unique facet of compositive.

Starting point is 00:07:10 You can build upon this data and many apps can engage with it, but it doesn't need to be publicized in the same manner that we do on chain. So this word data is so generalizable because it literally means like everything. And when I was first talking to you about this like data stack, I was like, okay, decentralized data, like verifiable data. It was so broad that I had a hard time visualizing it until like I just got it repeated and repeated and repeated. So like what's an example of like data that would be put in like ceramic, for example, that we could like, on or tinker with or build upon. Is there a use case that we could talk about? Oh my gosh, so many.

Starting point is 00:07:44 So one that we're really excited about working on right now. The disco team is issuing membership credentials to members of DOWs that attest to their membership in good standing. So for those communities that don't want to have an unfettered secondary market for their membership, having, you know, qualifying traits, experiences, contributions that represent your membership in a community should come along with a proof of that good standing that you can use in Web 2 contexts to unlock things like tickets, content, merchandise discounts in a Web 3 context to access permission defy pools and interact with smart contracts, as well as in physical

Starting point is 00:08:19 spaces. You can use this very same credential that you've used for Web 2 and Web 3 to even enter a physical party, as we've tested before with the disco team. And so having independently verifiable user-owned data that can be implemented in multiple contexts to unlock a broad variety of experiences, not just a single piece of data for a single experience. That's the beauty of having interoperability here, right? This week, we've spent a lot of time filling out forms to go to parties. If you've ever been to a crypto conference, you probably know what that's like. And so we can save ourselves a lot of time and agony if the basic information about us is readily available so we can essentially auto fill these forms. But rather than inviting Google to do that for us by holding a copy

Starting point is 00:09:03 of our data, which they're conveniently also selling, monetize, and using without our explicit consent, we can be in control of that interaction. And this is something that is just totally agnostic to the crypto world. It just so happens to use cryptography. And so we kind of think of it as like, you know, inside of crypto, inside of Web3. But there really is no like boundary between what you're talking about in this data stack towards the whole rest of the world. Actually, it has very little to do with the blockchain, I'd say.

Starting point is 00:09:29 Exactly. You can sign independently verifiable data, verifiable credentials, with keys that you get from a blockchain. But just because your keys come from a public chain doesn't mean you have to use them to interact on the public chain alone. And so we now have two realms of capability for our existing key pairs in Web 3, as well as many in Web 2. We can push on-chain public transactions. We can sign independently verifiable private data that we pass around via API or off-chain means. And so what this allows us to do is enjoy interoperability across Web 2 and Web 3 across chains without needing explicit bridges, without needing to pay gas fees, without our concern

Starting point is 00:10:10 for security of assets being locked up on one side and information not being able to flow. And so when we think of the Web 3 that was promised, banking the unbanked, enabling smoother experiences IRL, all of these things require an identity layer. Who is this user behind the wallet? And so something we're talking about a little bit earlier today is like what is the atomic unit of Web 3? Right now we think of it largely or talk about it largely as wallet addresses. But I'm sure you probably have more than one wallet address.

Starting point is 00:10:40 And I'm sure you do too because that's good obsec. But what that means is you're the same David who shows up for all of these different wallets. There are different facets of you. But as far as the Ethereum protocol is concerned, you are a different person every time. And so in order to enable greater, you know, seamlessly in our interactions and to avoid building a whole bunch of silos on a slower, more expensive database, we need to reorient our design choices around the atomic unit of a human being. Ethereum is a human coordination tool,

Starting point is 00:11:12 and if we are not building to optimize for the human experience, what are we optimizing for? Right, right. Yeah, there's that meme that, you know, Ryan, I'm pretty sure it has a scheduled tweet out every six months, is that your Ethereum wallet is like the passport to the Web3 metaverse. And also, some other people have talked about this use. case for NFTs in the same way. We're like, you know, NFTs are like your identity or then an identity NFT can represent who you are. But that doesn't really make any sense because I can have as many Ethereum wallets as I want. And I can also have as many NFTs as I want. And so when we talk about like, when you say the atomic unit of like Web 3, you're talking about like a human spirit, like a human

Starting point is 00:11:50 soul. And there is no way to get that on chain. And so it has to be created in like this more like bottom up type fashion. Can you talk about like the representation of like a human person in a bottom up type fashion versus how other people think of it as like Ethereum wallets or NFTs? So Ethereum wallets and NFTs are very concrete, specific, bounded entities. And so they're easy to count. So when we're, you know, telling our venture capital investors about our traction, we can count the number of wallets, count the number of NFTs. NFTs are easy to buy. And so we can obtain them readily.

Starting point is 00:12:23 We can choose to self-select into communities. But NFTs offer a very low assurance around who they're whole. holders are, right? And NFT only shows that your public key has somehow attained a relationship with a token ID. I mean, it doesn't mean that you earned it, bought it, you know, made it yourself, or airdropped, it, stole it. And so, you know, NFTs offer the same assurances around identity that your watch does, that your shirt does. These are objects you have purchased to represent your taste profile, but they are not David the person. Actually, my watch does say it's a Hoffman watch. Okay. Well, clearly, well selected.

Starting point is 00:13:00 As your pool cats, as your crypto punks, you choose the aesthetics that you like to represent you, but you cannot be contained as a human being inside of that. Now, what a bottom up approach in terms of identifying a human being looks more like, I think is, you know, how do we think about the data exhaust you create? As you move through the world, you're generating all kinds of, you know, moving kinetic energy around, creating all kinds of data trails and the apps that you interact with, the spaces you walk into, the metal detectors we walked through earlier today. And so the unique pattern of data that you emit as you move through the world, that trail is a description of what has made you, you.

Starting point is 00:13:40 Yeah. As opposed to proactively self-selecting items to purchase and demonstrate your taste profile. Instead, a bottom-up approach to identity can look a lot more like capturing the actions you have taken, the contributions you have made, the qualifications that you enjoy. I'm sure Kevin O'Walky will appreciate this metaphor, but you talked about, like, data exhaust, which is probably like the most unique thing about you. There's no way to recreate your own data exhaust in the time of the day that you listen to this music on Spotify while being in this physical location, engaging with this app at that particular time. Like, that is a civil resistant bit of data exhaust. And I think in the world of like this decentralized tech stack where we can make that data private and capture it and then also make that composable with something like disco, all of a sudden you're like recycling that exhaust into a greater purpose. And all of a sudden we can just like use this recaptured data exhaust and start to plug it into other places. So when we do plug it into the Web3 apps that we use, like our D5 protocols that we engage with or our Dow's that we govern over, how does that experience become richer as a result of being able to leverage all. of this data that we would previously just like exhaust into the atmosphere.

Starting point is 00:14:54 So when we think about defy protocols, often we run into challenges because we end up playing with bots. And discerning who is human, who is not identifying high assurance anti-civil proofs has long been a challenge. Fortunately, one that we are tackling along with Kevin and the Gitcoin team. So, you know, you as a human being do all sorts of activities all day that a bot can't do, right? A bot can't drink wine on the sun here in Paris.

Starting point is 00:15:18 A bot cannot eat shredded cheese by the light of the refrigerator at 2 a.m. You are doing all kinds of activities throughout your day that a bot can't do. And so why do you have to suffer the indignity of filling out a CAPTCHA when you visit a website? Like you've already done all kinds of human activities today. You've proven to the world that you are a human being, but you have failed to capture them in a form that can be read by the interface you're interacting with. And so your ability to capture your actions of humanity, the unique stride of your walk, the distribution of your weight in a chair, all of these idiosyncratic expressions of self are more than enough to start to define the data shape of your person. But because we don't have a meaningful method of capturing those and we haven't yet agreed on sort of a standard language for how to treat this, we are still in the world of silos. And so, you know, in DAOs, obviously, we are reaching the ceiling of fun and utility that we can have coordinating around group chats with bank accounts.

Starting point is 00:16:19 Moving from one DAO to another is an extremely costly ordeal, right? It's like your first day on the internet when you show up to a new discord to join a new DAO. There's no independently verifiable way for you to prove that you've been writing the newsletter, that you have been organizing events, that you have been doing, you know, AMA sessions or whatever. You may have some contextual proof, social proof, but certainly nothing cryptosal. geographically reliable in the same way that we trust the data from our public chains. And so in an instance of a DAO, you can receive independently verifiable proofs off-chain, private, under your control of those non-financial actions, perhaps of your accountability as a member, of your contributions as a leader. And so once you're able to bring essentially that DAO resume from one DAO to another,

Starting point is 00:17:04 we lower the switching costs of moving from one organization joining another. We increase the liquidity of our labor, as it were. And I think this kind of unlock is necessary to enable a Dow-based future of work, because otherwise we maintain a system of silos built on slow or more expensive databases. This is also something I'm seeing in the metaverse space as well, where we have a bunch of proprietary, so-called metaverses where people can purchase or display NFTs. But without interoperability among them, it's just having a bunch more user profiles that don't talk to each other where we're filling out the same forms over and over again when we onboard. Right, right, right, right. Yeah. So that user onboarding and just like filling out forms, I think it's something we can obviously relate to that.

Starting point is 00:17:50 But I want to use that as, let's like fast forward to 2025. We've built out this like decentralized data stack. Disco has issued a bajillion verifiable credentials. Everyone here at ECC number eight, I think in 2025, has their disco profile. They've got their VCs in it. And for all the conference scores, and you've already alluded to this, like, you know, you've got to sign up with. event bright or maybe it's partyful or maybe it's like whatever. You also have to apply to ECC and there's like an application process. Let's like role play and go forward like a few years. What will the crypto conference experience be like under this new paradigm when we've fixed all of these broken things? Well, one of the initial challenges with ECC was that many people were not able to get tickets

Starting point is 00:18:33 because they got bought it. And so being able to have a civil resistant ticketing platform to allow people to attend a conference who have demonstrated sufficient qualifications, I think would be fantastic. Now, that said, you might argue that being able to bought the ticketing site demonstrates your technical aptitude, but whether or not that's going to make for a good community is another question entirely. I think it is also an exciting opportunity to solve the discoverability problem of these spaces. So identifying one's way through the talks throughout the day, finding the right people to collaborate with, identifying other folks who share your team's ideologies, or even finding side events has been a very odd asymmetric totem pole of alpha. So we are all atomic units

Starting point is 00:19:20 buzzing through this conference center. And the search process is very laborious. We have to review these schedules. We have to seek people out. And certainly based on the number of people like running down the hallway yelling my name, the search process could be a lot more efficient. And so I think the time we spend here can be much better suited to our goals. And we can spend less time searching in earnest and more time finding the experiences that we came here to vibe with. Beautiful. I think we've already been talking about most of your answer, but I'll just lay it out to you anyways. We need to build our way out of this bear market. What do we need to do in this world of decentralized identity to build our way out of this bear market? I think that the way we build out of this bare market and the way we decouple the crypto markets from the traditional

Starting point is 00:20:05 finance markets is to add another access to the graph. So right now I think of, you know, blockchains as sort of flat databases that map public identifiers with tokens and interactions, but we need account abstraction in order to achieve capabilities that the traditional financial markets cannot. And so if we add in the ability to have user-owned off-chain contextual, rich data that can be much more expressive and much more specific and narrow and plentiful than what we typically enjoy on chain, then we will give ourselves a new set of superpowers that extend beyond financial interaction. And it is that reputation and identity system that will allow us to bring forth the future that we all grew up watching in sci-fi movies.

Starting point is 00:20:55 So during this last bull market, there was like a ton of crypto hate that came from like, oh, these NFTs are just for like rich kid, or like, you know, gaming was like, get these NFTs out of my games. I don't want it. Like, I'm already being succumbed by like overburdened my micro transactions, but just a bunch of just hate from just like the financial side of crypto in this last bull market. Do you think this, this world of like decentralized identity and all of this like verifiable credentials can like win the hearts of minds of people that just aren't not like turned on by all the money side of crypto? I think that making things suck less for people in their daily lives is a

Starting point is 00:21:28 winter every time. I think that the hyper-speculative financial environment of NFTs and of, you know, tokens and defy rightly turns a lot of people off. Like, we call them Ponziomics for a reason. That doesn't slap with everybody and that's okay. But what that means is that we need to stop building for ourselves. We need to stop having backlogs filled with what we want to make that day and start orienting our product practice around how do we intervene in the problems that real people face and make their experiences better, more frictionless, cheaper, and easier. You know, we in the Web3 space have long relied upon emergence as a fetish to give us new ideas.

Starting point is 00:22:13 But emergence is no substitute for good UX research, historical context, and appreciation for your users. And so, you know, I know I'm often mentioning the human part of human coordination tools, like now is the moment. We've got the protocols. We've got the infrastructure. We need to design for people, which means that we need to redouble our commitment to user experience design and research. That means that we need to take on product testing in iteration in a way that we never have before because yeeding out another copy pasta AMM is not going to win the hearts and minds of the people who are not already in this building. Evan, thank you for joining me at ECC.

Starting point is 00:22:53 Always a pleasure. Thank you, David. Cheers.

Bankless - EthCC #7 | "The Web3 Identity Meta" - Evin McMullen

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