Growing adoption of Verite credentials will support secure, privacy-preserving participation in DeFi and Web3
Circle Internet Financial and Parallel Markets will collaborate to build accredited investor credentials using the Verite decentralized digital identity credentials established by the Centre Consortium, expanding opportunities for privacy-preserving, compliant transactions using open standards.
“Verite credentials allow us to support organizations providing access for accredited investors to DeFi and Web3 in a safe, transparent and compliant manner.”
Centre was founded in 2018 by Circle and Coinbase to set technical standards that support USDC and Verite. The Verite standards enable users to take true custody of their data and identity in a way that is secure and portable, turning any crypto wallet into an off-chain identity wallet. Users are able to share credentials and attestations requested by organizations without revealing unnecessary personally identifiable information (PII).
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Initially focused on privacy-preserving compliance for decentralized finance (DeFi), research is also ongoing into adjacent use-cases for participants. The working groups co-designing additional credentials and use-cases include leaders in the growing decentralized identity space, facilitated by the open-source foundations and architecture open-sourced by Centre.
Issuance and verification of accredited investor credentials like those being built by Parallel Markets allow individuals and organizations safe and cryptographically secure access to opportunities in DeFi and Web3 economies. The portable, privacy-preserving nature of the credentials significantly reduces friction while facilitating compliance with Anti-Money Laundering and Know Your Customer (AML/KYC) requirements.
Kim Hamilton Duffy, Director of Identity and Standards at Centre said of the announcement, “Credentials for accredited investors demonstrate another step towards mainstream adoption for crypto finance, without compromising on privacy or compliance.” Added Brian Muller, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Parallel Markets, “Verite credentials allow us to support organizations providing access for accredited investors to DeFi and Web3 in a safe, transparent and compliant manner.”
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Launched in February 2022 with the support of industry leaders, Verite was created as a set of decentralized identity protocols that allows users to transport their credentials throughout the crypto ecosystem. With Verite, users hold their credentials in their wallets rather than storing data in siloed repositories that are vulnerable to identity theft. Rather than an on-chain token or NFT-based design, Verite utilizes chain-agnostic verifiable credentials to allow identity-verified participants to request and share only the information necessary to validate a claim.
The news of the collaboration between Circle and Parallel Markets follows on the recent announcement at Circle’s inaugural Web3 conference, Converge22, that Circle, Archblock, the team behind the TrueFi protocol, Parallel Markets and MetaMask Institutional have built the first proof-of-concept for Know Your Business (KYB) credentials using Verite. The growth of the Verite ecosystem into new actors, more complex types of credentials and additional use cases, combined with the ease of payments facilitated by digital dollar currencies like USD Coin (USDC) has the potential to significantly improve security, transparency and efficiency for users, while maintaining privacy.
In addition to Parallel Markets, identity verification firms 1Kosmos and Sum & Substance, enterprise wallet vendor Arculus, decentralized identity integrators walt.id, investor accreditor InvestReady, and others have committed to prototyping on the Verite standards and extending the ecosystem into new use cases. Portable credentials for non-US Know Your Customer (KYC) checks and US accredited investor status will be issued directly to direct customer control in the public launch of the first Verite products.
Developers interested in helping create the future of institutional DeFi and other use cases can build with Verite.
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