Microsoft is using Bitcoin to help build a decentralized Internet – Reason.com

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In an age of increasingly pervasive government surveillance, security breaches and high-profile cancellations, in which internet giants have ultimate control over user profiles, credentials and data, Microsoft is helping create technology that would give individuals property rights over their own virtual identities.

The mission of the ION project is to create decentralized identifiers, or DIDs, which can serve as an anchor for our activities all over the Internet. If the goal of bitcoin is to remove the power of centralized institutions over money, ION is trying to do the same with online identities.

To achieve this level of decentralization and immutability, ION is built on the shared database used to record bitcoin transactions, known as the blockchain. Although Microsoft does most of the work, the company would have no control over who participates in the system.

Daniel Buchner, a self-proclaimed libertarian, is the project manager for ION. Reason spoke with him at the 2021 Bitcoin conference in Miami to discuss how this technology could usher in a new era of hyper-individualized online identity and privacy.

Narrated by Nick Gillespie, edited by John Osterhoudt, camera by Jim Epstein and Noor Greene, additional graphics by Lex Villena

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