XRP Ledger’s Digital Identity (DID) Amendment Goes Live, Here’s Why It Matters

• The XRP community is celebrating a key milestone after introducing Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) on the XRP Ledger.
• DIDs will provide a secure and private way to verify identities, which helps both individual users and large institutions.

The XRP Ledger is edging closer to officially launching Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) by integrating the XLS-40 amendment. Consequently, 28 out of 35 validators (85.71%) had approved the amendment leading to its launch on October 30, 2024.

Mayukha Vadari, a senior software engineer at RippleX, announced on X (formerly Twitter) that the DID amendment for the XRP Ledger is live. “The XRPL DID amendment goes live today!” she said. Vadari explained how decentralized identifiers (DIDs) work within the XRP Ledger to make the tech more approachable.

The #XRPL DID amendment goes live today! DIDs (Decentralized Identifiers) in web3 can be pretty confusing, when looking into how they work. Here’s an explainer for XLS-40 and DID on the #XRPL!

— Mayukha Vadari (@msvadari) October 30, 2024

Business leader Jack Claver highlights how this change is a game-changer for the XRP community. He says that DIDs provide a secure and private way to verify identities, which helps both individual users and large institutions.

What are Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) on XRP Ledger?

Developed by the World Wide Web Consortium, DIDs are new types of IDs that allow users to have secure and self-controlled digital identities. Unlike traditional IDs that rely on central systems, DIDs give users full control over their digital identities without any middlemen.

On the XRP Ledger, decentralized identifiers (DIDs) let users control their own identities without a central authority. Each person can update or deactivate their ID whenever they want, which makes the system more secure and less prone to the risks of centralized identity setups.

Verifiable credentials (VCs) are also key. They allow users to prove who they are in a secure way, using cryptography to keep information tamper-proof and trustworthy. In this ecosystem, the user manages the DID, the issuer provides the credentials, and the verifier checks them.

Why DIDs Matter for Secure Transactions?

Vadari described DIDs as unique, user-owned IDs not controlled by any central authority. “A DID is like a fingerprint,” she explained. Alone, it doesn’t do much, but when connected to verifiable credentials or other data, it proves identity without relying on centralized systems.

These identifiers are built to last, are accessible globally, and are verifiable through cryptography. They follow W3C standards to work with any distributed ledger or network. On creating a DID, Vadari mentioned a new transaction type called DIDSet that allows users to set up their DIDs on the XRP Ledger, linking a DID with an XRPL account.

There are also concerns about identity forgery. One user asked, “Ok, so what is preventing me from copying someone else’s document and assigning that to my new DID identity?” Vadari explained that the two-way link prevents this: “Their document won’t point back to your identity, so it won’t be valid.”

Another user wondered about managing multiple identities across different accounts. Vadari said you can create multiple DIDs if you like, similar to having separate social media profiles not tied to your real-world identity.