Attestation Service

Overview

In today’s world, we are flooded with vast amounts of misinformation, both on-chain and off-chain, making it difficult to distinguish what is true. We urgently need a universal way to verify the authenticity of information.

The Attestation Service (AS) was created to address this. AS is a data attestation system based on distributed ledger or other decentralized technologies, ensuring data authenticity. AS allows any entity to attest to anything, thereby providing a guarantee of its authenticity.

Why AS

In an era of information overload, verifying facts, proving the authenticity of information, and establishing trust are critical. In the real world, people are constantly engaging in various forms of attestation. Notaries attest that you signed a document, doctors certify your health status, universities validate your graduation certificate, you prove the posts and likes you share on social media, banks attest to your eligibility for a loan, and even your friends vouch that they like or trust you. Such interactions are endless.

However, in the decentralized world, trust based on traditional centralized institutions is no longer effective. We cannot rely on a single entity in the decentralized world.

AS allows anyone to make on-chain or off-chain attestations about anything. You only need to register a schema on any topic (or use an existing one) and then reference that schema to make an attestation.

Advantages of AS

• Permissionless: Anyone can create and verify attestations without relying on a specific centralized authority.

• Immutable: On-chain attestations benefit from the immutability of blockchain technology.

• Revocable: Supports revocation mechanisms for attestations, maintaining system flexibility.

• Cost-Effective: Off-chain storage options reduce gas costs while preserving on-chain verification capabilities.

Use Cases

Sybil Resistance: In the Web3 ecosystem, attestations can verify that users are not bots, ensuring that token airdrops and incentive distributions are not dominated by "sybils" or opportunistic actors.

Trusted User-Generated Content (UGC): Verifies the authenticity of content, such as on online review platforms, Q&A communities, and more, ensuring data reliability in the era of large language models.

Identity and Reputation Systems: Builds decentralized identity and reputation graphs, allowing reputation data from different platforms to aggregate into an individual’s overall reputation.

Other Applications: Voting systems, authenticity verification, market compliance, digital notarization, and more.