Web3 Digital Identity: Proving Our Online Identity and Owning All Vestiges of It

In 2014, Gavin Wood of Web3 fame wrote that “a person's assets and identity online [will be provable ]…” because of Web3 decentralization and its components like “hardware wallets”. Law Student Samuel Mercaldo teamed up with CyberJuris Network Founder, Doug DePeppe, to publish this article to explain how the features and architecture of Web3 stand to transform the rights of actors, writers, artists, celebrities, and everyone else - as the dawn of AI beckons.

After first outlining the risks to actors and writers from AI being called out by the Screen Actors strike, the article turns to an overview of property law to make the case that data has inherent features of property that could - and should - be protected under property law, such as the right to own, license, sell, and monetize one’s data assets (like NIL). Those are representative of the bundle of rights associated with ownership and protection under property law.

This enlightening writing goes on to describe how Web3, by its very architecture, affords data owners the ability to control all permissible uses, and enforce rights against infringers - such as AI abuses that have not been authorized. The piece ends with this bold, aspirational - and perhaps inevitable - outcome, if property law is rendered applicable through Web3 technology: “The laws of property, and owning data, which are inextricably linked with Web3 technology, will toss digital identity theft into the dust bin of history.”