Blockchain-based Identity Management

Author(s):

Doug Simmons
Principal Consulting Analyst

Gary Rowe
CEO, Principal Consulting Analyst

This is the second of our series of blockchain-related research reports and it sets a foundation for organizations to understand how blockchain or distributed ledgers can fit within an identity management ecosystem. The convergence of identity management and blockchain provides an opportunity to look at blockchain-based identity management from two primary perspectives; first from an identity management-centric view and second, from the perspective of how blockchain has evolved to support a broad range of identity management use cases, including people, applications and devices.

This report focuses on a next-generation identity ecosystem that provides each person a single set of identity credentials, available for use across all electronic services encompassing government, consumer, and corporate entities (i.e., Bring Your Own Identity, or BYOI). Blockchain has the potential to be a valuable part of this ecosystem by enabling the recording and distribution of trusted identities and associated information without requiring reliance on a specific centralized third-party authority.