Associazione Blockchain Italia used Trinsic to create a plugin that gives any WordPress site the ability to embed self-sovereign identity capabilities for login.
Associazione Blockchain Italia (the Italian Blockchain Association) is a nonprofit organization that focuses on fostering discussions around the research, development, and advocacy of blockchain-based solutions. The group specifically focuses on the economic, technological, legal, and social implications that blockchain applications will have on society.
In 2020, Associazione Blockchain Italia won an NGI eSSIF-Lab Infrastructure Grant due to its proposal of creation of the WordPreSSI Login—a plugin for WordPress sites that enables a login experience using verifiable credentials instead of using usernames and passwords. With the grant’s backing, Associazione Blockchain Italia is working on making the plugin publicly accessible as soon as possible in order to contribute to the SSI ecosystem and facilitate to the adoption of the technology. Below we detail how and why Associazione Blockchain Italia used Trinsic to build WordPreSSI Login.
Associazione Blockchain Italia wanted to find an effective way to show the potential of self-sovereign identity (SSI) and verifiable credentials. Its organization members decided that in order to encourage the adoption of verifiable credentials, they needed to create a solution that addressed a problem that is felt by a wide range of people on a regular basis. With that criteria in mind, they chose to focus on improving the login experience as their first use case.
According to statistics, WordPress powers 39% of websites around the world. In order to access a WordPress account, an account administrator must log in. This process is done through entering a username and password. Associazione Blockchain Italia decided that it would build a plugin, called WordPreSSI Login, that would enable any WordPress website to embed login using verifiable credentials instead of usernames and passwords. After scoping the project, Associazione Blockchain Italia needed to find the verifiable credential infrastructure to power its first release of the plugin.
After evaluating the different options in the market, Associazione Blockchain Italia decided to use Trinsic to power the verifiable credential infrastructure in the first version of its WordPreSSI Login plugin. The organization determined that Trinsic had the best developer tools to quickly implement verifiable credentials. With Trinsic Core—Trinsic’s API—Associazione Blockchain Italia was able to create their plugin in a few weeks.
The benefits of using the WordPreSSI Login plugin include:
Website administrators can implement the WordPreSSI Login plugin in minutes. Once implemented, users then have the option to login with verifiable credentials. To do so, a user would first need to download a digital identity wallet (like the Trinsic Wallet) to scan the QR code that is given upon user registration. The user’s login credential would then be sent to and stored in the Trinsic Wallet. The next time the user wants to access the WordPress website, he or she would receive a notification in the Trinsic Wallet asking if they would like to share their login credential, which they can approve at a click of a button. No more passwords (and more importantly, no more password resets). Login just got a whole lot easier!