5 comics to help you quickly understand Solana ID
At a high level, Solana ID can be seen as a new platform.Original Title: Solana ID is attracting eyeballs this month
Author: James Hanley
Compiled by: Deep Tide TechFlow
Solana ID is attracting a lot of attention this month.
While some teams focus on games and memecoins, @solanaidentity is tackling a completely different issue: the current Web2 advertising model.
On this whiteboard, I will explain:
The Web2 advertising model
Challenges faced by crypto founders
How Solana ID benefits builders and users
Understanding the Current Web2 Advertising Model
We use platforms like Facebook, Google, and TikTok every day.
When we use these platforms, they collect a vast amount of our data and sell it to advertisers.
This means that these platforms—rather than us—profit from monetizing our data.
We are the product that profits others.
But what if we had control over our own data?
Crypto Teams Face Challenges in Acquiring Real Users
Teams in the crypto industry create many cool products. But as Confucius once said:
"If a founder builds a cool product in crypto but no one uses it, does it count as GMI?"
Imagine a founder named Jay who has a cool crypto project called CCP.
If Jay is lucky enough to find some organically generated users, how does he determine which users are most important to his project and community?
Jay can look at the users' wallet addresses, but that could just be one of 1,000 Sybil wallets.
Does he have 1,000 real, independent users, or is there just one user faking 1,000 wallets and spamming Discord?
Or perhaps a user behind a Solana wallet is actually a big whale on Ethereum (R.I.P.), ready to transfer funds to Solana soon.
This is indeed a complex and tricky issue, especially if Jay is considering airdropping future tokens.
Solana ID Addresses Both Issues
A) Gives users the keys to their data
B) Helps teams better identify high-value users to attract and retain them
How Does Solana ID Achieve This?
SOLID Vault.
The SOLID Vault allows Sam, a "SOLID enthusiast," to store proof of ownership for many decentralized but highly valuable accounts he holds.
Imagine Sam storing the following proofs of ownership in his SOLID Vault:
Crypto wallets: Solana, Ethereum
His large Coinbase account
His Twitter account with 1,000 followers
His active Discord profile that makes many high-value contributions in Discords like Jupiter or Sanctum.
This is extremely valuable information for CCP's founder, Jay.
For Sam, he can now directly benefit from having control over his own data. After all, only Sam can prove he is the user behind that vault.
Connection Points
Now that Solana ID has given Sam the ability to own his data (provable on-chain), his vault can receive a score based on the proofs within it.
Seeing the vault's score, Jay can offer Sam special discounts and even reward points in the upcoming airdrop points program for CCP.
All of this is achieved without Sam ever revealing sensitive information stored in the SOLID Vault.
Sam is happy because he benefits from owning his data, and Jay is pleased to offer generous perks and discounts to entice Sam to try his new products.
Unlocking the Solana ID Platform
While I have only scratched the surface of the technology, I believe that in a highly adversarial environment like crypto (Sybil, bots), and against the backdrop of fat platforms that own and sell user data, the identity issue makes Solana ID particularly interesting.
At a high level, Solana ID can be seen as a new platform for:
Users to leverage data for their own benefit;
Project teams to better target and incentivize potential users;
Project teams to better understand and reward their current users, for example, through targeted airdrops based on behavior (similar to Sanctum's profiles).
While I anticipate encountering some bumps along the way in addressing this issue, I will elaborate on the SOLID Vault, underlying technology, and potential obstacles in future whiteboards.
