With the growing popularity of DeFi and other decentralized apps, digital identity and authentication are more important and pertinent than ever before. Maintaining security and privacy without depending on a central database or power has been a major challenge many tech companies have been working to solve in innovative ways over the past few years, and PhoenixDAO is one of them.

PhoenixDAO is a community-based decentralized platform with the goal of rebirthing digital identity in our world using custom-made solutions. The startup was created to cater to the needs of businesses and institutions while powering the next generation of DeFi apps and has plans to operate through two main projects: a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) and through its dApps. This will enable the community to take part in the governance and incubation of any proposed projects, while also offering a creative front for the company to release and breed innovations in the crypto space.

The Phoenix Ecosystem

Currently, the Phoenix ecosystem comprises of protocols and solutions in the areas of identity, payments, storage, tokenization, authentication, dApp store and more. In terms of active projects, the company aims to have five flagship products in the near term. Only one of these has been launched thus far, but the rest are in various stages of development and incubation, of which we will spotlight a few.

First, Phoenix Identity is a digital identity protocol at the center of the Phoenix ecosystem. The protocol creates and links digital identities across different DeFi-based dApps, apps and APIs. As a modular and open framework powered by ERC-1484, Identity allows individuals to both craft their digital identities and to share their data in a secure way with anyone they want. Furthermore, the Identity protocol allows for decentralized on-/off-chain identity management.

Phoenix is also developing Phoenix Authentication, a blockchain-powered two-factor authentication protocol to verify DeFi app logins and approve transactions using digital identity. Normally, on TOTP-based authentication systems, keys need to be shared between a device and database for a person to access their accounts. By leveraging public key cryptography, Phoenix Authentication stores keys only on the user’s device, eliminating the possibility of hacks via database breaches. Furthermore, the protocol is designed to allow developers to develop a two-factor authentication system that combines the best features of traditional authentication apps and Universal 2nd Factor systems, all while maintaining functionality on the user side that allows for users to verify sign-in and other requests with the click of a button.

Going deeper into decentralized finance, Phoenix’s projects also include Phoenix Payments, a collection of free and open source smart contracts built on Ethereum created to facilitate payments without the use of a third-party escrow service. Through the use of the Payments protocol, users can complete one-click authorization of debit and credit POS transactions, as well as instantaneous P2P, P2B and B2B payments which are secured by the Phoenix Authentication and Identity protocols. On top of this, Phoenix Payments is essentially cryptocurrency-agnostic through the incorporation of other protocols and technologies like atomic swaps.

Finally, as previously mentioned, one of Phoenix’s main projects is its self-operating Decentralized Autonomous Organization project, Phoenix DAO. Inspired by projects like DAOstack, Colony and Aragon, Phoenix aims to achieve full decentralization through governance and control from an invested network of community members. The DAO will be powered by Phoenix’s Identity-powered dApp Store, ensuring a one-person one-vote system.

Out of all of their projects, Staking dApp is the only product that has been officially launched. The decentralized application makes it possible for users to earn immediate interest on staked PHNX tokens at up to 20% APY. Currently, the team at PhoenixDAO are working on the v2 version to implement advanced features like liquidity farming and the ability for users to participate on the DAO platform through its native PHNX token.

The Staking dApp Interface

The Road Ahead

Following the company’s roadmap, the PhoenixDAO Events Marketplace has just been launched on Polygon as of March 30. The Events dApp is a decentralized Eventbrite-style marketplace where users can sell or find listings for event tickets, both free and paid. 

The PhoenixDAO Events Marketplace

In Q2, Phoenix is also set to begin beta testing for v1 of DAO and work on implementing multiple Layer2 scaling enhancements such as the integration of Binance, Smartchain and BSC. PhoenixDAO is also aiming to launch a non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace toward the end of this year.

ABOUT THE WRITER

Serena He is a Tech Innovation Fellow from the University of Southern California who is interested in AI and the intersection of design and technology. She enjoys covering news across the digital identity and tech space.

Contact Serena He at serena@identityreview.com.

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