Earlier this month, Linda Jeng, founder and CEO of Digital Self Labs, hosted a superb roundtable on digital identity at the Institute of International Economic Law of Georgetown University Law Center, sponsored by the Hard Yaka Foundation.

We caught up with GlobaliD co-founder and CEO Mitja Simcic for a quick recap on the event and what he learned on the latest episode of FUTURE PROOF.

Here’s Linda:

Congressman Bill Foster — THE thought leader on digital identity on the Hill — kicked off the day with the keynote speech on the importance of getting digital identity and privacy right for the digital future. We then had public sector session to hear how different countries are approaching digital identity. The EU adopted a wallet/credential approach with its eIDAS legislation. Brazil onboarded 80% of its adult population onto real-time payments PIX. In the US, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, US Treasury has launched its Identity Project, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on its work with state DMVs to issue mobile drivers licenses mDL.

Then we had a private sector session with the Better Identity Coalition, Universal Ledger, etonec GmbH, Prove, GlobaliD, Mastercard and IDEMIA North America. We discussed the different paradigms from federated identity to credential-managed identity and the challenges of building identity ecosystems. Followed by a fascinating discussion about the various technical standards groups from ISO, OpenID, DIF to LEI. For the research session, we heard from researchers at the Bank for International Settlements — BIS, International Monetary Fund, ITAM, Georgia Institute of Technology, American University, The Aspen Institute, FinRegLab and McKinsey Global Institute on key research trends from macro to privacy effects.

• GlobaliD on X
• Mitja on X

EPISODE 25 — Learnings from the Georgetown Law identity roundtable was originally published in GlobaliD on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

GlobaliD has been flying under the radar this last year, but there’s been a ton of hard work going on behind the scenes, and the app is more feature-rich than ever.

In our latest episode of the FUTURE PROOF podcast, GlobaliD co-founder and CEO Mitja Simcic gives us an overview of how we’re rethinking trust in the 21st century while also catching us up on some of the most exciting recent updates.

• Download the GlobaliD app
• GlobaliD on X
• Mitja on X

FUTURE PROOF EP. 24 — Every soceity is built on trust was originally published in GlobaliD on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We’re thrilled to announce GlobaliD’s new CEO — co-founder Mitja Simcic.

Co-founder Greg Kidd remains on the Board of Directors as Chairman.

As CTO, Mitja has overseen the technical and product development of GlobaliD since its inception and brings experience and continuity to GlobaliD’s next chapter.

Here’s Mitja:

Trust is the foundational building block of any society, but today, trust is at an all-time low — in our companies, our governments and institutions, and in each other. The reality is that many of our antiquated trust systems have simply broken down as we’ve seen decades of digitization across every industry.

At GlobaliD, we’re building the tools that will rebuild trust not only for today, but the many challenges of tomorrow — all while keeping the keys of the castle with the person that matters most: You.

Mitja and the team have been working super hard behind the scenes in the last year and the culmination of that will be a series of feature rollouts in 2024.

The name of the game this year is rapid experimentation. With these new trust frameworks, we’re entering uncharted territory and the only way to figure out what works and what doesn’t is through constant engagement with you, our community.

Here’s a bit of what we have in store right around the corner:

• A smarter, more streamlined onboarding experience — We’re making it easier for both users and partners to get started.
• Decentralized, Secure Messaging Platform with WhatsApp Integration — Owning your communications is just as important as owning your identity. We’re starting with WhatsApp but Telegram and Slack are on deck.
• Enhanced Non-Custodial Wallet with Fiat Ramps — Users will be able to hold and exchange value that they fully control within GlobaliD’s trusted ecosystem while also being able to view their assets across different custodians.
• Introduction of TrustLink — This is our first step toward allowing users to build digital trust without the need to download an app.
• Public Badges for Identity Verification and Gamification — Badges will allow for quick assessments of reputation while giving users pathways toward leveling up.

Learn more about GlobaliD

GlobaliD’s next chapter was originally published in GlobaliD on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

At GlobaliD, we’ve been on a mission from day one to provide every individual with a digital identity that they own and control. Last year, we took that one step further, giving users the ability to own and control their money with the release of our non-custodial wallet.

It’s also why, today, we’re announcing that we’re transitioning to the Universal Namespace. This will allow users to own and control a unique name associated with their digital identity through an independent third-party namespace rather than one managed by GlobaliD.

A namespace is simply a set of unique names that are tied to different types of things so they can be easily identified. In the context of the internet, the Domain Name System or DNS namespace tied domain names to relevant IP addresses so that people could easily find the websites they were looking for.

The concept of a namespace is key to the mainstreaming of digital
identity — just as it was for the mainstreaming of the internet. The early internet was a fragmented mess. The only way to find anything was through hard-to-memorize IP addresses. With the arrival of DNS, we could now visit wikipedia.com rather than 80.190.205.15.

In a sense, the DNS namespace made the internet more human.

The same goes for digital identity, which is even more complex than simply visiting a website. Someone you want to interact with may have many public keys, URLs, or platform accounts you need to keep track of. Now, all you need is their unique name.

At GlobaliD, we’ve been thinking deeply about namespaces over the last few years — we published our first white paper on the subject in the beginning of 2019. As an early mover in the digital identity space, we’ve often had to come up with original concepts and terms in order to help develop and push the industry forward.

That’s also been the case when it came to a namespace for identity. As such, we originally built a namespace in-house. But the long term vision was always for the namespace to be managed independently outside of GlobaliD. That’s something we laid out in our white paper. Ultimately, we believe the namespace should be a public good.

We now have the opportunity to make that vision a reality.

For GlobaliD, this is a big step toward interoperability with other digital identity platforms. For instance, GlobaliD may support additional namespaces in the future, giving users a choice over their service provider. Regardless of which namespace you choose, your unique name will always be attached to a verifiable credential that you control.

In all, this is an incredibly exciting evolution for GlobaliD’s digital identity offering.

The transition will require one additional step for you, the user, but we truly believe that the end destination — where individuals control their name, their identity, and their money — is worth the effort.

The simplest way for this transition to work is for existing users to re-onboard with GlobaliD and claim a new name through the Universal Namespace.

This transition does mean that users will lose their existing identity history on the platform once they re-onboard with a new name. That includes things like chat history, vouches, and verifications.

This wasn’t an easy decision to make and we’re incredibly empathetic to our early adopters, but ultimately, it became clear that this was the best path forward, one most aligned with our values and vision.

For GlobaliD, this clean slate is also an opportunity for us to provide major upgrades to our messaging and wallet platforms as well as a bevy of new features that will arrive with our next generation digital identity platforms, which will be released in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, users will still be able to access their wallets via their private key, but they will no longer be able to access it through the app.

For now, you can head over to the Universal Namespace (/uns) to reserve your unique name. Make sure you sign in with the same phone number you’ll use with GlobaliD so that we can link your name to your GlobaliD identity.

You should also keep an eye out for notifications from the current GlobaliD app that will include prompts and instructions which will help you throughout the re-onboarding process.

In all, we’ve got plenty in store for all of you in 2023.

Q&A

1. Will I be able to keep any part of my current digital identity?
   No, you will lose access to all of the data that was associated with your old name including chat history, groups you joined, and funds in your wallet. However, you can transfer funds out of your wallet now before the transition takes place, or you can use your keys to move your entire wallet to another non-custodial client. If you are locked out of your wallet before you have a chance to migrate it, you can reach out to our support team for help exporting your non-custodial wallet recovery key.
2. Will I be able to keep my old username?
   No. The Universal Namespace (UNS) is a new service which will manage GlobaliD names moving forward. All existing users of GlobaliD will re-onboard with UNS by claiming a name on this separate, independent namespace. Because UNS has been managed independently of GlobaliD, some names have already been reserved and owners of GlobaliD names may not have their names available on UNS. If your old name is available in UNS, then you can claim it and re-onboard using that name.
3. Will the Universal Namespace reserve my existing name?
   No. You need to reserve your new name on your own. You will be able to do this within the updated GlobaliD app upon release, but you do not have to wait. You can go ahead and reserve your new name now by visiting the Universal Namespace website.
4. What if I have money or assets in my GlobaliD Wallet?
   You will need to transfer funds from your current GlobaliD Wallet to a new wallet by May 30, 2023 in order to maintain access to your money. Alternatively, you can export your wallet recovery phrase to host your wallet with another app. A new wallet tied to your username will be made available to you upon release of the updated GlobaliD app.
5. What is the Universal Namespace?
   The Universal Namespace (UNS) is a discoverability platform that enables people to securely connect their online accounts and data with a unique name. With UNS, users can determine how they are found online by building a public profile that connects all of their digital identities to one universal name they own and control — making it easier for them to be discovered across different ecosystems. UNS is managed independently of GlobaliD and provides name services to multiple providers, in addition to GlobaliD. You can obtain a name by signing up with your phone number on the Universal Namespace website.
6. Can I export any of my data before it is deleted?
   Yes. If you are locked out of your wallet before you have a chance to migrate it, you can reach out to our support team for help exporting your non-custodial wallet recovery key. Otherwise, go to your Wallet tab and tap on the key icon in the upper right-hand corner to get your wallet recovery phrase. You can also contact our support team if you would like us to export your chat history. All other data such as your credentials, verifications, and public bio information will be lost.
7. What is the deadline to reserve my new username and transfer funds from my wallet?
   We will release the updated GlobaliD app within the next few weeks and notify you when it is available so that you can re-onboard. However, you do not have to wait for this release in order to claim your new name. You can go ahead and reserve your new name now by visiting the Universal Namespace website. You can also go ahead and transfer the funds from your current GlobaliD Wallet to a new wallet in order to maintain access to your money.

Introducing the Universal Namespace was originally published in GlobaliD on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Launchpad is a regular series highlighting updates to the GlobaliD product ecosystem.

After recently releasing our all new GlobaliD Wallet, we’re excited to keep the momentum going and announce that Selective Share is now available in the GlobaliD app.

The reality is that we share way more than we need to when trying to establish trust. You shouldn’t have to share your driver’s license and all of its associated information in order to purchase a bottle of wine. You shouldn’t have to send a photo of your ID to an Airbnb host just so they can have peace of mind. As we all know, it’s risky to have your personal information out in the wild.

That’s where Selective Share comes in — where you only need to share the minimum amount of information in order to do the things you need to do.

In the future, that could mean having a credential that proves that you’re over 21 years old. That way, you should be able to make age verified purchases without having to share anything else about yourself. This concept is already gaining traction. JPMorgan’s Onyx unit recently announced a solution that could allow you to access Buy Now Pay Later services with only your credit score — and nothing else.

You can learn more about the concept of Selective Share with our 101 series.

With Selective Share from GlobaliD, when someone (such as an Airbnb host) asks for your ID, you can send only the relevant fields they need — photo, name, address, etc. — instead of the entire document. The GlobaliD app will automatically generate a digital file with only those fields that you can send to the Airbnb host.

More ways to share

While this feature introduces a new way to control and protect your information, not everybody might be willing to accept this form of identity yet. Your ID Wallet also allows you to:

• Share your entire digital ID
• Share a photo of your ID

In this case, our goal is to meet users where they are and provide the ease and convenience of a versatile identity wallet as the rest of the world progresses toward a more private and secure future.

New features and improvements

• Selectively share attributes from any of your credentials with external parties. Click on the fields that you want to send and conveniently share them with who you need to. The recipient will see only what they need to rather than having access to all of your personal information.
• Share a digital version of your entire ID. Select this option to send a digital document containing all of the fields from your ID. The recipient will have access to all of the information they requested, but not an actual photo copy of your ID.
• Share the front of your physical ID. Select this option to send a photo of the front of your ID card. The GlobaliD app will generate a JPG image of your ID that you keep stored securely within the app. You will no longer have to take a picture of your ID every time someone requests it, or risk keeping it stored on your smartphone.

Visit the App Store or Google Play Store to download the latest version of the GlobaliD app today.

If you would like to learn more about GlobaliD, visit our website or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. You can also sign up for the GlobaliD Insider newsletter to receive monthly updates on digital identity, company news, and more.

Launchpad: Introducing Selective Share was originally published in GlobaliD on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We’re all sharing way more information than we need to online. In this episode, Trey Steinhoff, product marketing director at GlobaliD, explains how the new Selective Share feature introduces a new way to control and protect your information. With Selective Share from GlobaliD, when someone asks for your ID, you can send only the relevant fields they need — photo, name, address, etc. — instead of the entire document.

• Download the latest version of the GlobaliD app
• Trey on Twitter

Past episodes:

• EPISODE 22 — Introducing our new ID Wallet
• EPISODE 21 — Building awareness around digital identity
• EPISODE 20 — Telling our story with the new GlobaliD website
• EPISODE 19 — Making decentralized identity mainstream
• EPISODE 18 — Everyone will have an ID wallet
• EPISODE 17 — Digital wallets of tomorrow will be PRIVATE
• EPISODE 16 — How XUMM Wallet is changing the game
• EPISODE 15 — Olympic hopeful Lila Lapanja is a GlobaliD ambassador
• EPISODE 14 — What we learned at Solana Breakpoint
• EPISODE 13 — DeFi and Identity: Compliance in a decentralized world
• EPISODE 12 — The future of GlobaliD Groups
• EPISODE 11 — The XRP Card and the future of communities
• EPISODE 10 — How to decentralize identity and empower individuals
• EPISODE 09 — Understanding GlobaliD’s identity platform
• EPISODE 08 — Owning your identity and data with VP of Design Antoine Bonnin
• EPISODE 07 — Understanding the future of fintech with Ayo Omojola
• EPISODE 06 — Establishing trust and safety in tomorrow’s networks
• EPISODE 05 — How ZELF combines the power of payments and messaging
• EPISODE 04 — The future of blockchain with the creator of Solana
• EPISODE 03 — Should we trust Facebook?
• EPISODE 02 — JP Thieriot on why Uphold isn’t delisting XRP
• EPISODE 01 — The SEC’s crypto turf war and why XRP isn’t a security

Have a question for us? A topic you’d like covered? A guest you’d like to see? Let us know!

• GlobaliD on Twitter

FUTURE PROOF EP. 23 — Introducing Selective Share was originally published in GlobaliD on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You’ve probably heard of KYC (Know Your Customer), or experienced it first hand when you signed up for an account at a financial institution. It’s the process in which a bank, for instance, verifies that you are who you say you are — typically by asking for identifying documents and other relevant personal information.

KYC is a subset of anti-money laundering (AML) and countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) obligations that many firms must deal with. Originally, these regulations were designed for financial institutions but over time, the scope has expanded to other industries as well such as healthcare, fintech, and even the nonprofit world.

International standards are set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) but local rules can vary by jurisdiction.

The purpose of KYC (and AML and CFT) is straightforward. It’s about keeping real customers safe and keeping the bad guys out of the system. These are good things!

In practice, however, traditional approaches to KYC create a host of issues:

1. They’re exclusive. People who don’t have access to traditional identifying documentation will have trouble accessing basic financial services. Migrant workers, for instance, might not even have a home address. According to the World Bank, 1.7 billion people still lack access to a bank account.
2. They’re expensive. KYC and compliance represents a huge barrier of entry for new companies who not only need to implement systems for identity verification but must also now manage all of that user data in a private and secure way. Which leads us to the next point.
3. They create honeypots for hackers. It’s no secret that data breaches have risen astronomically over the last ten years as more and more industries have gone digital. Each time you are asked to verify your identity, your personal data and information is now stored in yet another server somewhere, which becomes a target for criminals. Many of these companies don’t specialize in data security.
4. They’re ineffective. This is the saddest part. Despite the best intentions, KYC is often ineffective at catching or deterring the bad guys. This is inherent to how the system operates today. Data is siloed because institutions hold data in their own proprietary system, and these systems don’t talk to each other. A criminal could try to infiltrate one institution with a synthetic identity. If that doesn’t work out, they still have all the other ones to try. Those other institutions would be none the wiser.

These are major issues! The cold hard truth is that we won’t be able to even begin addressing them without fundamentally rethinking how our identity systems work from the ground up.

But if you’re reading this blog post, you likely already know that new approaches already exist. These approaches were designed from the ground up with the digital world in mind — versus the legacy and often paper-based systems that they will ultimately replace.

By leveraging portable and reusable digital identities, financial institutions and other organizations can cover more people around the world, reduce their costs, and create a more seamless and convenient onboarding experience for their users.

These solutions were designed with privacy and security in mind. And because the user owns their data and no longer has to redundantly share it each time they want to sign up for a new service, there’s less targets for hackers.

Reusable identities also drastically reduce the barriers to entry for new companies. Which means that companies can focus on what they do best: building great products and services.

Best of all? They’ll be much more effective at keeping the bad guys out.

That’s the point, anyway, isn’t it?

If you’d like to learn more about GlobaliD, visit our website, contact our sales team or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

You might also like:

• Part 1: What a smart and humanistic approach to digital identity would like
• Part 2: The Trust Triangle — the system of issuers, holders, and verifiers that illustrates how identity works (and how it’s broken, today)
• Part 3: Why the ID Wallet is the first step toward achieving a new vision for digital identity
• Part 4: Why every company is an identity company
• Part 5: What is Bring Your Own Identity?
• Part 6: Reusable Identity
• Part 7: Device-based identity
• Part 8: Selective sharing
• Part 9: Non-custodial wallets

GlobaliD 101: Know your customer was originally published in GlobaliD on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Keeping your money somewhere safe and accessible is a problem as old as civilization. In modern times, we have a few practical solutions. You could always keep some cash “under the mattress” such as at home in a safe and some spending money in your wallet. But for larger sums, it makes sense to keep your money with a bank, where it’s secure and FDIC insured.

That money at the bank also exists in digital form, recorded on the bank’s internal ledger, making it easily accessible via ATM or debit card.

In the context of this piece, keeping your money at the bank is a form of a custodial wallet. By depositing your money with the bank, they now have custody of your assets and hold the keys, but allow you to access your funds at your convenience. Naturally, some restrictions apply, both from a regulatory and operational perspective. There might be limits on how much money you can take out without providing additional information. Or the bank might be closed on Sunday.

The arrival of the non-custodial wallet

The rise of Bitcoin and crypto — now a trillion-dollar asset class — has birthed a new way of storing your funds: the non-custodial wallet.

Similar to the bank, your money exists in digital form on a ledger, but rather than sitting on the bank’s ledger, the accounts are listed on a blockchain.

And because this is a non-custodial wallet, you own the keys to your wallet rather than the bank. In a way, it’s akin to keeping cash at home in a safe or in your physical wallet. Since it’s in digital form, you can securely and conveniently keep far larger sums under your direct control. The best part? You can access your funds and initiate payments for transfers 24/7/365 in real-time and with minimal costs. That’s the benefit of relying on a blockchain (and yourself) rather than a bank.

Non-custodial wallets can hold an assortment of assets — from crypto to NFTs to fiat-denominated currencies such as US dollar stablecoins. With the emergence of decentralized finance or DeFi in this last crypto cycle, we saw non-custodial wallets facilitate the transfer of billions of dollars of value.

A compliant wallet that you own and control

With sums like that, regulators and policy makers are taking notice. Now that crypto winter is upon us, the focus will now shift towards digital identity and how to make non-custodial wallets compliant.

Last week, GlobaliD released its non-custodial wallet with support for crypto, NFTs, and US dollar stablecoins — all while being attached to a digital identity, one of the first of its kind.

Our vision for the future of digital wallets is straightforward. You should be able to have ownership and control of your identity and your wallet. You should have the keys to your economic potential in a fully compliant manner. Empowered by digital identity, these types of wallets should eventually be fully featured just like your custodial wallet at the bank.

That’s great news for individuals that care about their digital and financial sovereignty, but it’s also great news for the 1.7 billion people who don’t have access to a basic bank account, many of whom don’t have access to traditional identifying documents.

A bridge to web3

From there, it only gets more exciting. Another way to look at non-custodial wallets is that they’re sort of like a browser for the blockchain. Just as Netscape made the internet accessible to millions of mainstream users in the 90s, digital wallets for your identity and your money will be your portal into web3 and beyond.

Learn more about the new GlobaliD Wallet:

• Launchpad: The all new GlobaliD Wallet

Visit the App Store or Google Play Store to download the latest version of the GlobaliD app today and check out our non-custodial wallet.

If you’d like to learn more about GlobaliD, visit our website, contact our sales team or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

You might also like:

• Part 1: What a smart and humanistic approach to digital identity would like
• Part 2: The Trust Triangle — the system of issuers, holders, and verifiers that illustrates how identity works (and how it’s broken, today)
• Part 3: Why the ID Wallet is the first step toward achieving a new vision for digital identity
• Part 4: Why every company is an identity company
• Part 5: What is Bring Your Own Identity?
• Part 6: Reusable Identity
• Part 7: Device-based identity
• Part 8: Selective sharing

GlobaliD 101: Non-custodial wallets was originally published in GlobaliD on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Launchpad is a regular series highlighting updates to the GlobaliD product ecosystem.

Fresh off the heels of our revamped ID Wallet, we’re thrilled to announce the brand new GlobaliD Wallet.

A digital identity is only as good as what you can do with it. At GlobaliD, our vision from day one has been to provide anyone, anywhere with not only a digital identity but also a digital wallet. Historically speaking, trust and value have always gone hand in hand. People generally don’t transact with others unless there’s a sense of trust. Similarly, you won’t be able to open a bank account unless the bank knows who you are — unless the bank trusts you.

But the traditional system isn’t very efficient at managing that process, excluding 1.7 billion people from basic financial services.

With today’s release, we’re one step closer toward getting those people connected to the global economy.

Identity + Wallet

A non-custodial wallet is essentially a wallet that you have complete control over. It’s not too different from having cash in your actual wallet. That’s your money you can access whenever you want. It’s right there.

Compare that to a custodial service such as your bank account. It’s still technically your money, but it’s managed by a third party. It’s relatively easy to access your money, but you’ll have to go through your bank to do it — whether online, at the ATM, or with an in-person teller.

With a non-custodial wallet, you hold the master key to your funds.

Back in June, we announced our transition from a custodial wallet solution to a non-custodial one. The reasoning was and still is straightforward. The primary limitation to custodial offerings is access, given that they operate in a tightly regulated space. For instance, our previous custodial implementation of the GlobaliD Wallet was restricted in a handful of states due to local regulations. A non-custodial solution allows us to enable more users around the world to have the full GlobaliD experience.

This also marks one of the first times a digital identity is attached to a non-custodial wallet solution.

Today, non-custodial wallets operate in a regulatory gray zone since they aren’t tied to an identity, which ultimately limits their real world usability. By baking in privacy-preserving digital identity, GlobaliD’s non-custodial solution has everything it needs to become fully compliant in the context of existing regulatory frameworks.

What that means is the GlobaliD Wallet has the potential to serve your most common banking use cases such as storing funds, getting paid, and, of course, shopping online — all while giving you full ownership and control of your identity, your data, and your funds.

The new GlobaliD Wallet is also your bridge to the next chapter of the internet — what people are calling web3. This initial version is currently built on Solana, but Ethereum support is on the way — stay tuned. The eventual goal is support for all the major blockchains, all in one place. That means you’ll be able to seamlessly transfer funds between the traditional banking system as well as the metaverse.

Finally, your identity is also defined, in part, by what you own — including NFTs. Last month, Ticketmaster announced that it was going all-in on NFTs. There’s also projects experimenting with NFTs as another form of identity credential. From gaming to fashion, you’ll be able to hold all those NFTs alongside your Bored Ape — if you’re into that kind of thing — right in your GlobaliD Wallet.

With this release, we’ve taken a giant leap toward fulfilling that vision.

Here are all the things you can already do with your new GlobaliD Wallet:

New features and improvements

• The non-custodial wallet can be found in the Wallet tab of the GlobaliD app. When you open the app, you can quickly navigate to your GlobaliD Wallet by selecting Wallet at the bottom of the screen. Any assets you add to your GlobaliD Wallet will be readily available at your fingertips.
• Support for USDC, SOL, and Solana NFTs — with more coming soon. Upon launch you will be able to hold, send, and receive USDC, Solana and Solana NFTs in your GlobaliD. We will expand support for Ethereum and other digital assets in future updates.
• Store, view, and send Solana NFTs and NFT collections. You can house all of your Solana NFTs and NFT collections in the new GlobaliD Wallet. In the NFT tab of the wallet, you can easily navigate through your digital tokens.
• Send SOL, USDC, and NFTs directly to GlobaliD users or wallet addresses. You can conveniently send tokens by typing in the name of another GlobaliD user, or just by entering a receiver’s wallet address. Receivers could also generate and share a QR code via GlobaliD which they can use to collect payments.
• See a transaction log of all of your activity in the GlobaliD Wallet. You can review all of your activity in the GlobaliD Wallet’s transaction log. Additionally, a Transaction ID that links to a Solscan URL is generated for all Solana transactions.
• Data minimization and a path toward financial inclusion. The new non-custodial wallet includes GlobaliD’s platform-wide onboarding requirements. Users who have yet to complete onboarding will need to declare some basic identity information in order to access the wallet. These requirements set the foundation for a fully compliant non-custodial wallet that has the potential to broaden access to regulated financial services. It also opens the door to compliant crypto services and regulated DeFi. We’ll share our vision for a fully compliant digital wallet that you own and control in upcoming editions of Launchpad.

Visit the App Store or Google Play Store to download the latest version of the GlobaliD app today.

If you would like to learn more about GlobaliD, visit our website or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. You can also sign up for the GlobaliD Insider newsletter to receive monthly updates on digital identity, company news, and more.

Also check out:

• The Launchpad: Introducing the new ID Wallet

Launchpad: The all new GlobaliD Wallet was originally published in GlobaliD on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Meet the Team is our ongoing series of employee profiles. It’s an opportunity for our users and partners to get to know us a little better. As a remote company with employees around the world — from the U.S. to Slovenia to Spain to New Zealand — it’s also an opportunity for our team to get to know each other a little better.

We’re proud to introduce Gašper Okršlar, Director of Delivery at GlobaliD. Gašper has been working in the technology industry for about six years and is the co-founder of Zavod Sportivita, an online platform that provides free educational activities for kids and their parents. He earned his undergraduate and Masters degrees at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia.

He joined the GlobaliD team in 2021 and helps lead our multi-disciplined engineering teams that plan, build, deploy, and support our software products in multi-geographic locations.

Meet Gašper

My name is Gašper Okršlar and I’m a productivity enthusiast who works in IT. I’m currently the Director of Delivery at GlobaliD where my primary responsibility is to lead our software teams and ensure that our products and solutions achieve the needed objectives.

What attracted him to GlobaliD

I enjoy working in environments where I have to tackle multiple projects at once, and I’ve always been fascinated with scaling and optimizing internal teams. I was looking for a new challenge and GlobaliD seemed like a perfect fit since it checked all my goals — it was an international team with a very interesting product and great potential. I love that GlobaliD is solving many of the problems that exist within the digital identity space. This is going to be something everyone is talking about a lot sooner than most of the world realizes.

On his role and responsibilities

As Director of Delivery I work with almost all of our departments including engineering, project management, product marketing and communications. I’m responsible for managing, developing, and adapting the programs and processes needed to ensure a smooth delivery of our product and app updates. I coordinate with leaders and personnel from all departments in order to identify any bottlenecks in our processes and figure out ways to remove them. I’m also responsible for reporting the status of delivery operations to our management and leadership teams, and I serve as one of the key links between leadership and engineering.

Thoughts on the recent GlobaliD app update and ID Wallet release

It was very exciting to see the ID Wallet released and made available to all our users. We had been building that product for about a year and a half. It was great to see it become a reality and this release sets us up to begin delivering more product releases that are part of our long-term vision. We’ve really switched our focus and taken a much more market-centric approach by discovering what people need and will use, and we’re putting our energy into making those products. For example, I’m really looking forward to releasing our non-custodial wallet which has been in the works for a couple of months now.

On GlobaliD’s vision, ethos and the importance of credentials

Everything we’re building is helping us get further toward fulfilling our vision of putting people in control of their identity and data. That’s why we’re putting such an emphasis on incorporating verifiable credentials into our products. They’re really taking things to the next level because nobody can take a credential away from you or change it. You’re dealing with real, live data that affirms your identity.

People may not realize it yet, but we’re in this transition period where we’re going from using identity solutions that can be easily manipulated, to real identities that represent a real person on the internet. We’re taking baby steps to get there right now, but our vision is crystal clear and when we get there it’s going to change everything.

Bridging the gap between Web2 and Web3

I see GlobaliD as a bridge between Web2 and Web3. Our challenge is making sure that someone who has never heard of Web3 has a seamless transition to the next version of the internet. To do that we need to make products and features that seem familiar to the end user. They will run on new networks and new technologies, but ideally the user won’t notice a difference. If somebody can use a banking app then they can use a non-custodial wallet. It should be as easy as that. If we deliver a product that works and needs as little explanation as possible, then we will start to see widespread adoption of Web3 products. We’ve got a long way to go, but I see the potential. We’re trail blazers and we just have to lead people down the right path so they feel comfortable.

Balancing compliance and regulation with decentralization

I think we’re one of the few companies that are putting a lot of effort towards compliance. A good example would be the noncustodial wallet. We could have just built it and made it very similar to other wallets on the market, but we thought about how to make it compliant. We built in anti-money laundering support, meaning that if you’re on the sanctions list you can’t use the GlobaliD wallet. We’re really finding a balance between a centralized and decentralized approach. Decentralization isn’t necessarily a state of being. It’s a journey that you take and strive to achieve.

What he’s looking forward to

Every release cycle is a challenge, but every time we ship an app update I get very excited. No two releases are the same and it’s always interesting to see what gets people’s attention and what they respond to. Every update is also a chance for the team to learn or adapt to a challenge we need to overcome, and that’s what ensures we keep improving the app overall. With that said, I’m honestly just always looking forward to the next release because it means we’re building a new product or adding a new feature.

On his experience before joining GlobaliD

I received a bachelor’s degree in Forestry and a Masters degree in Spatial Planning before accepting a job with the Slovenian Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning in the Cohesion Policy division. While I was there I got the opportunity to work on large infrastructure projects such as wastewater management systems, drinking water management and territorial investments. A few years later I decided to move to the private sector and work for a digital marketing agency. I started as a Project Manager before being promoted to a Key Account Manager. I began to get really interested in the idea of working for an international start-up company and ended up joining the GlobaliD team as a Scrum Master. After about a year I was promoted to Senior Project Manager and now I’m the Director of Delivery.

On his hobbies and interests

I recently started a podcast with a coworker called Casual. We discuss a lot of different topics such as online privacy, crypto trends and warrant canaries (listen to episode 17 to learn more about those). You can find Casual on YouTube, all podcasts apps and at casual.is. We plan to pick up the pace soon and publish episodes more frequently. Subscribe to check it out and support the show.

If you would like to learn more about GlobaliD, sign up for the GlobaliD Insider newsletter. You’ll get monthly updates on digital identity, company news and more.

Also, ICYMI:

• Meet the Team — Nikhil Khare, Product Manager
• Meet the Team — Stefanie van Dyk, People Operations Manager
• Meet the Team- Meaghan Decorpo, Customer Care Manager
• Meet the Team — Todd Collins, Head of Design
• Meet the Team — Kevin Boehm, Head of Product
• Meet the Team — Erik Westra, Head of GlobaliD Labs

Meet the Team: Gašper Okršlar, Director of Delivery was originally published in GlobaliD on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.