cheqd, a technology company enabling individuals and organisations to take full control of their data, has launched its highly anticipated mainnet network.

cheqd’s mainnet network is built for self-sovereign identity (SSI) vendors to disrupt established identity paradigms and create new authentic data marketplaces. SSI is an emerging user-centric concept for exchanging authentic and trusted data, including people and organisations, in a more secure manner.

With over 20 market-leading SSI vendors already joined, including cheqd’s first three partners DIDx, Spherity and DanubeTech, each SSI vendor will utilise cheqd’s network and native token, $CHEQ, for its payment rails and decentralised governance to build never-seen-before commercial models.

Working to become the de-facto payment mechanism for authentic and trusted data regardless of country, industry or underlying technology, the start-up aims to give people and organisations back their privacy and control of their data. This is achieved by turbocharging the adoption of SSI through the implementation of sustainable payment systems and other economic incentives.

Advertisement

As stated in a research by Juniper, the SSI market is set to reach annual revenues of $1.1 billion by 2024, up from $100 million by the end of 2020. This demonstrates the appeal to institutions that value secure and verifiable identities.

The current identity model is built and controlled by third-party providers. This means that individuals often have to pay to access their own data. In addition, the user experience can be tiresome as, on average, people have to manage over 100 different accounts tied to their email addresses. In many ways, this makes a paradise for threat actors, as they can target organisations’ data silos and use phishing and social engineering techniques to trick individuals into giving away their passwords.

According to IBM’s Data Breach Report 2021, the average total cost of data breach has increased by 10% year on year, from $3.86 million to $4.24 million – the largest single year cost increase in the last seven years. Naturally, companies with more robust security measures have been less impacted, and organisations that lagged in areas such as security, AI and automation have been hit the hardest.

Fraser Edwards, CEO and co-founder, said: “The concerns around data privacy have been around for some time, and as we continue to transition to a digital economy, it has become apparent that we must take it more seriously. Trust, in both the physical and digital worlds is too important to leave it in the hands of big-tech, that is why at cheqd we believe that introducing our mainnet network and the subsequent payments and commercial incentives for self-sovereign identity ramps up the adoption of the technology and puts users truly at the centre with full ownership. There are a number of industries adopting the use of SSI tech, such as finance, travel, and healthcare – these sectors are ahead of the game when it comes to understanding the relevance of decentralised data storage and the importance of effective credential verification to increase transactional security and prevent fraud.”

Ankur Banerjee, CTO and co-founder, added: “cheqd’s mainnet release marks a new milestone in how personal and organisational data can be shared privately and securely. Fundamentally, we believe no single company – including cheqd itself – should control how critical Web infrastructure works, and we’ve spent significant effort to ensure our technology can be controlled by the people it’s meant to serve. Our network is public for anyone to join, and unlike proof-of-work blockchains like Bitcoin, it is designed to be orders of magnitude more energy-efficient. We are excited to be building this on the Cosmos blockchain framework ecosystem, which is used by some of the largest blockchain networks.”

Advertisement

cheqd’s mainnet is a public permissionless network built on interoperable and open standards anyone can start utilising the network to develop solutions, either individually or with one of cheqd’s partners, to issue and receive data from their customers.

Backed by significant investors such as CMCC Global, Outlier Ventures and Tendermint Ventures – a core contributor to the Cosmos network, cheqd is guided by a unique governance framework, enabling staking and voting among owners of its dedicated token $CHEQ.