Identity.com is the decentralized identity marketplace we’ve been operating over the past couple years that is making it safer and easier to exchange identity information between two parties. We’ve done that by creating a platform that utilizes the latest crypto technologies and smart contracts so that these transactions are private and secure, whether or not the two parties know or trust each other. This has been a remarkable step forward toward building a new identity ecosystem.

Today, we are excited to announce that moving forward, Identity.com will be operating independently as a 501(c)(4), a nonprofit organization to promote social welfare. The vision for Identity.com has always been to operate independently from Civic, and in fact, one-third of the CVC tokens were allocated for distribution to incentivize participation in the ecosystem at the time of the token sale. Now, with the official launch of Identity.com as a nonprofit, Civic is transferring the incentive tokens to Identity.com and partners, like wikiHow and Coinbase Earn. Civic will remain the largest holder of CVC tokens for the time being, with two-thirds of our 330M tokens currently unlocked. We want to reiterate that we have no intention to sell our tokens at this time.

With its substantial progress, Identity.com is ready to spread its wings as an independent nonprofit organization. At Civic, we’ve always been of the mindset that such an ecosystem should not be owned by any one entity because its mission is to bring benefit to the greater good. So, Identity.com will continue to operate with the goal of helping decentralize the world’s personal information and providing a marketplace where people can transact, making it seamless and secure for people to get control of their personal information.

Identity.com runs on the CVC token, and that’s an essential element of its operations. We believe that crypto tokens have another use case, and this is a great example of a utility token that can be used for global identity verification. So, for example, with this approach, there are no currency exchange issues. People can pay using CVC from any part of the world in one marketplace. As we pick up more speed and the marketplace expands, the cost of identity verification starts to lower globally. It then becomes easier, safer, cheaper, and more secure to issue digital identities to everyone in the world in the future. Another result is that data hygiene becomes more important, and companies then only need to take the minimum amount of personally identifiable information in order to complete the transaction.

We’re pleased that Identity.com is ready to further its mission to decentralize the world independently, and Civic is looking forward to continuing to build on top of its platform.