Building a Decentralized Web With Web5

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In this talk, we discuss and get an introduction into Web5, an open source decentralized web platform that returns ownership and control over data to individuals where it belongs. It does this by providing a new layer for the web that enables developers to build decentralized applications and protocols.

This talk has been presented at JSNation 2024, check out the latest edition of this JavaScript Conference.

FAQ

Web5 reduces the friction of onboarding on new platforms by allowing users to easily reuse their personal information, such as preferences and credentials, across different websites and services.

The main pillars of Web5 are decentralized identifiers (DIDs), verifiable credentials (VCs), and decentralized web nodes (DWNs).

Decentralized web nodes (DWNs) act as data stores for decentralized web apps, allowing users to manage and reuse their own data across different devices and platforms.

Web5 improves user data control by allowing users to own and manage their own data and identity, giving them the ability to share or restrict access to their information across various platforms.

Web5 is named to signify its advancement beyond both Web2 and Web3 by merging their best features, particularly decentralization and user data control.

Potential applications of Web5 include universal music playlists, connected travel experiences, health records management, and financial solutions that ensure user identity and data control.

Decentralized identifiers (DIDs) are self-owned entities that allow users to control their own identity. They are W3C standards and can be used across multiple platforms.

Web5 can reduce costs for companies by minimizing the need for data servers and centers. It allows companies to focus more on user experiences while enabling users to be in control of their own data.

Web5 is a decentralized platform that combines the best features of Web2 and Web3, allowing users to own their own data and identity and reuse this information across multiple platforms.

Verifiable credentials (VCs) are cryptographically signed digital documents that ensure trust and verify claims on the Internet. They can be used for various purposes such as birth certificates, educational certificates, and employment verification.

Adewale Abati
Adewale Abati
13 min
17 Jun, 2024

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Video Summary and Transcription
Today's Talk introduces Web5, which combines the best of Web 2 and Web 3 to build a decentralized web. Web5 consists of three pillars: decentralized identifiers, verifiable credentials, and decentralized applications. Verifiable credentials are used on platforms like LinkedIn, while decentralized web nodes act as data stores for web apps. Web5 allows users to own their data, reduces friction in onboarding, and enables example applications like Universal Music Playlist and Connected Travel. Building for Web5 presents challenges such as key management and data usage, but there are resources available to learn more about the technologies.

1. Introduction to Web5

Short description:

Hello, everyone. Welcome to JS Nation. Today, I'm going to be talking about building a decentralized web with Web5. The web is powerful and accessible, but a lot of the data is owned and centralized. Web 5 aims to combine the best of Web 2 and Web 3, allowing users to own their own data and identity. Web 5 consists of three pillars: decentralized identifiers, verifiable credentials, and decentralized applications.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to JS Nation. It's my pleasure to be giving this talk today, a lightning talk about building a decentralized web with Web5.

My name is Adewale Abati, and I'm a web engineer and developer advocate, currently working as a staff developer advocate for TBD, which is essentially a company that is looking to build a decentralized future. Today, I'm going to be talking about building a decentralized web. And to do that, the first question is, what is the web like today? Right?

The web is powerful and it's accessible, and I love it for that, but it also has its own shortcomings. One of my favorite things about the web is the fact that I can access it on almost any device, my PlayStation, smart watches, smart TVs, as the case may be. But at the same time, a lot of the data on the web is owned and centralized by corporate bodies, where users and everyday users do not have access or control over their own data. But if you look at the web and the progression over the years, it was initially designed to be decentralized, where people come in, share information, link pages to each other, and the web gets connected.

So introducing Web 5 today, I get a lot of jokes about people asking, why is it not called Web 4? What's Web 5 all about? Right? And Web 5 is essentially trying to take the best of Web 2, which is the current web that we experience today, that we view today, and also the ideology and the best parts of Web 3, which is the decentralization and users being in control of their own data and most of the essentials of the web. So what this means is that Web 5 is a decentralized platform that allows users to own their own data and identity and be able to reuse this information across multiple platforms. There was recently a story of what's it called? A Twitter user went to that site to change to X, where they just obtained their username right, and they had no control over that, because it was never their own identity to begin with. But today we log into multiple websites, multiple platforms using some of the social logins. And this is what Web 5 is looking to improve on when it comes to the web in general.

So there are three pillars of Web 5, and these are all technologies that are built by different standard bodies. And I'm going to be going through each one of them to introduce you to the technology, so I can interest you enough to go learn more about them, because this is just a lightning talk, right? The first one is decentralized identifiers, and they are all self-owned. Decentralized identifiers are self-owned entities that allows you to be able to control your own identity. If you think about every other means of identity on the web today, they are owned by different other bodies like email, social handles, and they cannot be taken from us at any point in time. They are W3C standard, meaning anyone can build and contribute to this standard and start working on it, start using it in everyday life, right?

And the string, a deed is essentially a string that you can be identified with, which is kind of like your name. And using this, you can go to different platforms, using different technologies to identify yourself on the Internet. An example of a deed is this on my screen right now, which is a deed example and a bunch of string, which is three important segments of it. The first identifies as a deed, and the second one is just trying to define what method. The same way we have TLDs, like domainnames.com.net, they kind of specify what kind of deed this is. A deed also resolves like a TLD, meaning it points out this name, this string that identifies somebody, this is the location of the document that you can use to find out more information about them that they've chosen to share.

The next thing, which is also one of my favorite parts about these pillars, is verifiable credentials. Today, it is very difficult to know what is true, correct, or authentic on the Internet. But with verifiable credentials, which are cryptographically signed digital documents, you are able to ensure trust and also verify claims that people make on the Internet. So, think about stuff like birth certificates, educational certificates, or just prove that your TLD or the claim you are making is actually valid. All of this can be digitally signed, cryptographically signed and verified and connected to deeds to make sure that this thing is also connected to the identity. And this can be used in different, different platforms.

2. Verifiable Credentials and Decentralized Web Nodes

Short description:

I think LinkedIn as an example, uses verifiable credentials to issue certification on their platform and it is also connected to deeds. The third and final pillar of Web 5 is decentralized web nodes. Decentralized web nodes acts as data stores for decentralized web apps where the user themselves can host or, you know, manage their own data and they can reuse it across different devices as the case may be.

I think LinkedIn as an example, uses verifiable credentials to issue certification on their platform and it is also connected to deeds. A simple example here is imagine Alice, a fictional character applying for a loan. And for Alice to be able to prove that she works at a specific place, to be able to grant this loan, an easy way to do this would be a company, ACME in this case, issuing a verifiable credential, which includes a name, a salary, and just some kind of validation that, yes, this is an employee of ours. And all of this can be sent across board or shared with the people that have been given the right permissions to verify that the claim that Alice is making is actually true. There are companies today that are also working on using verifiable credentials in different sections of the world, essentially. We have companies that are building digital travel documents, which essentially is a verifiable credential or works kind of like a passport, which this person is allowed to enter into this country or this person is a citizen of this country because it's essentially tied to their identity as well. And it kind of opens up a whole world of possibilities when you start to think more about what verifiable credentials are capable of being, right?

The third and final pillar of Web 5 is decentralized web nodes. And this particularly, you know, tackles the problem of data and who is in control of our data, right? Decentralized web nodes acts as data stores for decentralized web apps where the user themselves can host or, you know, manage their own data and they can reuse it across different devices as the case may be. The decentralized web nodes can also hold, you know, public and encrypted data so you can choose to share some part of, you know, your own personal data like your name or your age if you want to, in some cases, and other public information with people or even websites. And mentally when you think about how this could, you know, could work or improve your life in general, you could think about onboarding flows, right? If you go to a website, say, a design website like Figma, and you have to, you know, customize user preferences, you know, fill in your name, your email, stuff that you do like every other time and you go to a different website, if these are all decentralized web applications, it's easy to reuse your personal information that you've chosen to give them permission to across all of these websites. And that is what is possible when we as individuals are in control of our own data or at least having it accessible to us in a controlled form. So if you're working on a web application or even using a web application that is, you know, web 5 enabled or is decentralized by nature, it's easy for you to use across your different devices. We use your data on these platforms. For example, think about if you have a music playlist on Spotify and you want to change the provider to, say, Apple Music, you're able to go around with your own music data and go to a different platform because your data is yours or the experiences that these people create is something that you can choose to, you know, put around for, right? So these three things I've mentioned are essentially the pillars of web 5.

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