Web3 market may be slowing but stakeholder collaborations on ID are not

Web3 might have lost momentum as some suggest, but there still is investment, policy and development energy behind what most people involved with the infrastructure movement agree is an inevitability.

The sector’s biggest investors signed on to more funding rounds last year than 2021, according to reporting by technology news publisher Crunchbase.

It is true, of course, that Web3-related placements of all recorded players are down compared to 2021 but there are other folds of IT funding today where investors with the deepest pockets are sitting it out.

A caveat: Crunchbase’s focus was narrow. Editors counted venture-backed cryptocurrency and blockchain starts. That largely aligns with biometrics, but it is not the same universe. Also, more rounds could have been placed but not announced.

Then there is the three-way joint Web3 promotion venture launched this week in Hong Kong.

Web3 vendors Flomesh, StarNet and HardenedVault have created the Web3 Infrastructure Foundation, a nonprofit that will promote and support software development, open protocols, community participation and systems cooperation, according to statement released by the three.

Decentralized identity authentication is one of the infrastructure items the venture will focus on.

Flomesh is an open-source network software company, the foundation will promote the creation of infrastructure. StarNet Technology sells decentralized Internet storage. HardenedVault is an infrastructure security firm.

The trio say that Hong Kong, a free port, has an accommodating regulatory regime that will help push the movement.

And while it is a formality, the Web3 ID Coalition‘s backers have formally launched the membership group.

Like the foundation, the coalition will promote Web3 development, but with a digital identity focus.

It also differs in that the coalition will be a more political organization, working, for example, persuade the executive branch of the U.S. federal government to adopt Web3.

The group, which has already hosted conferences, is small at the moment, with five members: Identity.com, Unum ID, Blockchains, Genubank and Solutions at Work.

Article Topics

decentralized ID  |  digital identity  |  investment  |  research and development  |  standards  |  web3  |  Web3 ID Coalition  |  Web3 Infrastructure Foundation