A self-sovereign identity (SSI) account implements Account Abstraction (AA) to provide limitless features and integrations. These include social-recovery wallets, social profiles, NFTs, domain names, staking, and a broad range of DeFi applications. With the power of smart contracts, the Tyron SSI Protocol gives real power to users, enabling them to control everything in their accounts. These accounts are open source and developed with the support of TyronDAO.
The Tyron SSI Protocol aims to provide equal financial opportunities to all users by developing smart-contract accounts and other decentralised applications. This is achieved by making the same open-source code (public and free software) accessible to everyone. SSI accounts are stored on blockchain platforms, which eliminates single points of failure like FinTech intermediary companies and banks.
The purpose of the SSI Protocol is to provide you with sovereignty over your data in a world where data is growing exponentially due to new technologies that capture online activity of billions of users worldwide. However, the possibilities for accessing digital identities and protecting their information become jeopardised when social media companies and banks abuse new technologies for their private interests. Furthermore, data centralisation is increasingly problematic, especially with the advent of big data, data mining, and artificial intelligence technologies.
Social inequality among people can vary depending on their socio-economic class, age, ethnicity, race, or gender identity, which can directly impact their opportunities to achieve financial independence and sovereignty over themselves. With social awareness and the aim to fight social and environmental injustices, the SSI Protocol develops networks of self-sovereign identities that give full control and ownership to the user.
A Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) Account is a collection of user-owned smart contracts that leverage Account Abstraction to improve security and user experience. In other words, it is a user account designed with decentralised technologies that grant you complete control over your data and finances.
The Self-Sovereign Identity Protocol has a modular architecture that builds upon the W3C Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) standard. An SSI DID is an alphanumeric code that corresponds to the address of a user-centric smart contract called DIDxWALLET on a blockchain platform. It has an associated DID Document, which describes public data of that DID to enable user verification and other decentralised authentication functionalities.
Specifically, an SSI Account is a collection of smart contracts that can execute transactions and manage your data (including financial assets) independently, proving account ownership without third parties, centralised registries, or intermediary companies. The software is all open source, meaning that you can access, understand, and improve the software's functionalities to extend and enhance your self-sovereign identity.
An SSI account includes social-recovery wallets with a digital social identity. It also has a Non-Fungible Token (NFT) Domain Name that identifies it on the network of self-sovereign identities. Any privilege or credential that an SSI achieves, such as being an affiliate of a specific community, is not only bound to a blockchain address but also tied to their NFT Domain Name. This enables more functionality, such as Social Recovery and Verifiable Credentials, which improve user security and online experience.
Suppose your controller wallet (Externally Owned Account) is compromised or unavailable (i.e., stolen or not accessible to you anymore). In that case, you can recover your SSI account with all its assets with the help of your Guardians (family, friends). Therefore, with Social Recovery, there is no single point of failure, making your identity truly self-sovereign.
The SSI Protocol was developed in response to the damage caused to nature by certain technologies or their human use. The founder of the Self-Sovereign Identity Protocol is an engineer with experience in petroleum engineering, who witnessed some of the negative effects of the extractive industry. This experience allowed him to understand that the exploitation of natural resources is driven by a logic of domination and commodification of nature for the economic benefit of a minority of people. The co-founders of the SSI Protocol also have backgrounds in geology and anthropology.
Through their work and research, they have witnessed the unfortunate scenarios and vital effects caused by extractivism. This practice started with colonialism and was later exacerbated by neoliberalism, causing profound socio-environmental damage. This includes environmental problems such as pollution, overuse of water resources, accumulation of toxic waste, and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as negative consequences for local and community-based economies. Moreover, this has led to a paradoxical widening of the poverty gap, concurrent with rising oil and gas revenues, precarious work conditions, and an increased cost of living.
Throughout history, technology has been predominantly used with a strongly anthropocentric focus, placing men (mainly male) at the center of power. Modern technologies, such as the internet, illustrate the centralisation of data as yet another consequence of the anthropocentric use of technology. This includes the use of new technology to take advantage of users' data, including their financial assets. While web technologies have improved the world and the way we interact, the problem that arises is that using these technologies in such an anthropocentric way generates a centralised system of control that has taken over the organisation of governments, finance, health, and education systems, among others, i.e. a system of power and cosification. This system limits and endangers us by taking away our right to freely control our data and assets.
Many online identities rely on companies that act as Identity Service Providers (ISPs). These ISPs are trusted third parties, but they have become single points of failure and, therefore, security vulnerabilities for our data. The current identity system still has inherent weaknesses of the trust-based model, which were also described in the Bitcoin white paper. Under this system, we often have to create new accounts for each company we interact with, such as airlines or e-commerce businesses, repeatedly giving away our personal data. The problem is that our data can even be used to manipulate our vote in democratic elections, as happened in the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal. Many companies exploit our data without proper consent, which should involve a complete understanding of the consequences. Profiling techniques are used to categorize us based on personal data, traits (such as age or physique), and information from online consumer behavior. The lack of regulation has led companies to use misinformation and fake news to manipulate our opinions. This not only affects our general perception of topics such as democracy, but it also influences our individual preferences.
Censorship is another issue that deprives us of the freedom to express ourselves as we wish. By storing our data on private networks, those who control them can arbitrarily modify or delete it. This problem also extends to our financial data, as banks often have control over our funds and centralised exchanges control our private keys. For instance, in Argentina, during one of the biggest financial crises in modern history in 2001, banks restricted access to their users' dollar savings with the so-called "Corralito".
Unfortunately, the human-centered or anthropocentric ****use of technology often results in a significant decline in the common good, including nature and human rights. This is due to the prioritisation of the private interests of a minority of individuals who act as intermediaries. Consequently, access to new technologies is limited and unequally distributed, resulting in a lack of equal opportunities.