Crypto Sapiens - Re-architecting the internet around the individual with Evin McMullen, Co-Founder & CEO of Disco
Primer: Our family. Our friends. The people at work. Each group only sees one facet of us. What if people could see us holistically? In this episode of Crypto Sapiens, Evin McMullen introduces Disco, a platform that enables you to be the shining center of the party. Choose what you want to reveal, and to who you want to reveal.
Background
Grew up on a farm in Ohio
Started thinking about data ownership when she was a kid
Her father was an attorney. Made a presentation to her parents about the fair use statute
During her undergrad days, she continued to be fascinated by legal wrappers that could make data freer
Saw peer-to-peer technologies emerged
Did her undergrad thesis on identity expression across different platforms
Helped launch IBM Watson, secured funding for CERN, worked at Berkshire Hathaway
Worked at ConsenSys for a few years
Co-Founded Disco
Identities And Peer-To-Peer Networks
In the last decade, we moved from siloed identities to identities that are able to carry information and interact across different platforms
Can now have assets tied to our identities through the use of blockchain
Humans have created a strange situation where apps would buy and sell our data instead of having individuals as the physical transport layer for information
The asymmetry of data access has turned into an economy of surveillance capitalism
Identity And Data Ownership
Its Importance
In the US, Americans spend 11.5 billion hours a year filling out forms
The manual re-entering of basic information about ourselves adds to friction in onboarding
The vision of a personalized future means never having to fill up a form and setting preferences about oneself again
“We are called Disco because we believe that you are the multifaceted center of the party.”
- Evin McMullen
The more facets users add to their Disco profile, the more nuanced and complex your self-expression is
Its Value With Respect To DAOs
Currently, decisions in DAOs are led by the wealthiest
Need to find a way for people to accrue reputation and recognize their non-financial contributions
Disco
Creating And Sharing Information
Ability to receive credentials
Users can choose to decrypt those credentials to mark them as public for apps to interact with
Once validated, the credentials can inform an app or an in-person experience
Disco cares deeply about selective disclosure
Will be exploring zero knowledge proofs and predicate in their roadmap this year
Zero Knowledge Proofs And Identity
A zero knowledge proof allows us to share general information about ourselves to determine whether we fit the requirements to enter someone's party
Collaboration With Other Projects
Issuing credentials of membership to the Boys Club community
These credentials can be used to access chat channels on Telegram & Discord, collaboration tools, and GitHub repositories
Will be integrating with Shopify
Users of Disco will be able to use their credentials to access merch
Credentials
Users can issue credentials to themselves that define their preferences
Have peer-to-peer credentials that you can write to others
GM credentials: Facebook-style pokes that allow you to greet others
Snaps: Accolades given by one teammate to another community member to recognize their unique contributions
Zodiac credential: Web3 Horoscope and Tarot card readings
Podcast credentials: For guests that participate, listeners that listened in, etc.
“If I know that you enjoy the same kind of music, attend similar events and that you are also a Pisces, you've got all kinds of fun elements of commonality.”
- Evin McMullen
Bringing People Together
For Web3 to thrive, it must contain culture
Our keys need to own and control data about us (culture, affinities, and experiences)
It is through the representation of shared identity that we find one another:
New groups of people
Best DAO to join
A new job
identifying a co-founder
Web3 Social
Fortunate that Lens and Farcaster have put effort into social discoverability and social interaction
Working with Lens, thinking about how to complement their on-chain data with off-chain data
Web3 social is about integrating a greater degree of choice and portability to our social experiences
Their Collaboration With District Labs
The original proposal for how we might have credential or reputation-gated on-chain logic was described in EIP-1812
It was not a good idea as it is slow, costly, and exposes the contents of the credential
Thanks to the MetaMask and District Labs teams, they now have the ability to generate a signature at the app layer
This enables the use of credentials for access control to on-chain logic while still preserving privacy
Thoughts On AI
Is an enthusiastic user of ChatGPT
Excited to bring her data backpack to an AI-enabled recommendation engine
“Verifiable credentials are vibes, they describe our preferences and our traits, the qualities we can't encompass with just our financial data alone, that give nuance to our experiences.”
- Evin McMullen
Anything Else That She Wants To Cover
User-centricity and apps that are relevant to human experiences are what will welcome the next billions of users
Need to teach people how to manage interactions using lower consequence, non-financial data before building up toward tokens and NFTs
Most Influential Person In Her Crypto Journey
Deana Burke and Natasha Hoskins — Making Web3 more welcoming for everyone
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