OneName
A registrar for the .id namespace on the Blockstack network.
| Date | Investors | Amount | Round |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | investor | €0.0 | round |
| investor investor investor investor investor investor | €0.0 | round | |
$4.0m | Early VC | ||
| Total Funding | 000k | ||
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OneName was established in 2014 as a pioneering service for creating a digital identity on the blockchain, co-founded by Muneeb Ali and Ryan Shea. The founders, who went through Y Combinator in the summer of 2014, envisioned a re-decentralized internet where users have complete control over their identity and data. Ali, with a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Princeton University, and Shea, with a background in Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton, shared a vision to solve the problems of increasing centralization on the web.
The company's core offering was a decentralized identity system that initially utilized the Namecoin blockchain before migrating to the Bitcoin blockchain to leverage its superior security and larger developer ecosystem. This system, known as Blockchain ID, allowed users to register a unique, human-memorable username and associate it with real-world data like social media profiles. Unlike traditional authentication methods controlled by large corporations, OneName provided users with private keys, giving them sole ownership and control over their digital identity, preventing any single entity from revoking their access or modifying their data.
OneName's service functioned as a registrar, enabling users to create and manage their blockchain-based profiles. The business model was centered on providing the tools to establish these self-sovereign identities. The insights and challenges from building OneName, such as the limitations of storing data directly on a blockchain, led to the development of a more comprehensive system. The company evolved, and its efforts were merged into a larger project called Blockstack (now Stacks), which aimed to build a new decentralized internet. OneName officially ended its registrar support over two years prior to February 2019, providing a migration path for users to transfer their IDs to the Blockstack software.
Keywords: decentralized identity, blockchain ID, self-sovereign identity, Bitcoin blockchain, user-controlled data, digital identity, Namecoin, Blockstack, Y Combinator, identity verification