When I first got introduced to sismo, the first thing that came to me was how this solves the KYC problem in web2. But it’s not that simple. Let’s take a closer look at what Sismo is, what a zk attester means, and what zkBadges are.
Sismo is a [modular] protocol that issues zkBadges for reputation portability and aggregation. Sismo enables users to generate ZK Badges proving their reputation or identity without compromising their privacy - It really does sound a lot like a KYC ‘no-doxing solution’. But it gets a lot cooler.
At the core of Sismo are three things:
Badges, Attesters & Accounts. A couple of other honorable mentions are the Sismo vault, Sismo factory, & The Sismo Hub. Let’s talk about zk attesters.
Attesters
An attester is a smart contract that verifies users’ requests and mints badges. They are core smart contracts of the Sismo protocol. They are in charge of verifying requests and issuing attestations.
Attestations are a way for users to gain access to certain gated communities or services, and they’re represented by Non Transferable ERC-1155 Tokens, also known as badges.
We really cannot talk about attesters without talking about groups. The Sismo protocol batches accounts that share the same historical on-chain data or certain Non Fungible Tokens into a group.
An example of a Group of accounts are ENS DAO voters, Early Ethereum Users (users with transaction data dating back to 2018), Gitcoin grant donors, and so on. The Sismo protocol has simply aggregated the data on these accounts and “batched” them into a group. The possibilities with this are endless, really. You could make a group of accounts you distributed a POAP to for an even you held, and you make those accounts eligible for a zkBadge airdrop, by simply getting the event-id of your POAP event.
zk[Badges]
Badges are tokenized attestation, non-transferable ERC-1155 tokens minted by attesters. ZK badges are minted by a ZK attester.
With zkBadges, you can gradually reveal only the necessary data, this can be especially useful if you, as a hacker, are building a tool that works with the credit score of an individual. With a zkBadge, said user can make use of their badge to attest to the fact that they indeed have a credit score of/above a certain amount without revealing all the other details about themselves before gaining access to whatever service they need. This is the true power of self-sovereign identities.
Accounts
With sismo, there are two types of accounts. A source account, and a destination account. Let me explain. Think of a source account as your ‘real’ account, while a destination account is an account where you can mint zkBadges on, this account then inherits some, if not ALL of the onchain activity of your source account BUT keeps all of that data private, with nothing but a zkBadge to prove that all of that data exists, and your destination account now has access to do everything your source account could do with the added advantage of anonymity!
Sismo Vault
The Sismo Vault is an encrypted amassment of secrets that is accessible to only its owner.
Sismo vault is an encrypted vault that houses all of your accounts. Source and destination alike. It can also be thought of as an encrypted password manager. Inside your sismo vault, you can import as many Source or Destination accounts, and manage them. Web3 accounts - Ethereum Address owned by a private key, and Web2 (currently Twitter and Github) accounts. You can see what badges have been minted on each account, you can also see what badges you are eligible to claim, and much more.
Your Sismo vault empowers you to be self-sovereign!
I partnered with a friend of mine, zkPorter to issue out zkBadges to individuals who took his “Introduction to Zero Knowledge” 6-part series class on youtube. I followed the 15 minutes tutorial on the sismo documentation to create these badges. You can find that here. There are other, non-technical (no-code) ways to build/design sismo badges. The sismo factory was built just for that! Go check it out. It’s pretty cool! https://factory.sismo.io/
So, if you watched zkPorter’s entire class, and already claimed the POAP he distributed, then you are automatically eligible to claim this zkBadge, and you can visit this link to claim your “ZK Veteran” zkBadge!
Kindly follow zkPorter and geniusyinka on Twitter for updates
Conclusion: On “Decentralized ‘KYC’”
In addition to providing secure and private identity verification, Sismo zkBadges also offers a number of other benefits. For example, zkBadges can potentially help to reduce the costs and time associated with traditional KYC processes, as it does not require manual checks or the storage of sensitive data. zkBadges can also potentially help to improve the user experience, as it allows users to easily and securely verify their identity without having to share personal information.
Sismo Badges are especially useful for:
Web2/web3 gated services
Reputations systems
Decentralized Identity curation
Sismo zkBadges has the potential to revolutionize the way in which identity is verified in a decentralized self-sovereign ecosystem!
These use cases are simply scratching the surface of the massive innovation that can be done with zkBadges, and on Sismo. Hackers, get ready!