Vitalik Buterin: Projects with digital identification can be eradicated by the use of nicknames

Buterin cited as an example a WorldCoin project (earlier – Worldcoin), where more than 13 million unique users have already been registered. The project was created by the Director General of Openai Sam Altman (Sam Altman) and Alex Blania. Users are scanned by the retina so that they can prove their “humanity” and get the World ID identifier. The company claims that the collected biometric data is protected by evidence with zero disclosure, allowing users to prove the authenticity of information without personality disclosure.

Buterin fears that such projects can eradicate pseudonym, that is, the use of nicknames, pseudonyms. With an individual identifier, even if ZK is used, people will manage to conduct their activities with only one public account. In the world of growing risks, with the same drones, people will be deprived of the opportunity to protect themselves with the help of pseudonyms, and this carries many drawbacks, buterin is sure.

On the other hand, digital identification projects using the evidence with zero disclosure may be useful, the co -founder of the Ethereum recognized. They are able to make the Internet better, helping people determine who in front of them are also people or artificial intelligence (AI).

“At first glance, the wide introduction of a digital identifier with ZK seems to be a big victory … It seems that our social networks, votes and all types of Internet services will be protected from manipulations by bots, and all this without prejudice to confidentiality. However, if the identifier system is designed for one person, each user will be able to have only one account, unlike Google, where a person can make about five accounts, ”Buterin wrote.

Earlier, Buterin said that the main priority for the developers should be confidentiality, and not transparency so that the government and corporations could not take advantage of the client data.