Technology giant Microsoft announces its own decentralized ION network and moves to Bitcoin mainnet.
Team member Pamela Dingle informs on the Microsoft website about a huge step for the company in a decentralized identity space.
The basic concepts of the Sidetree DID blockchain network protocol, which is the basis for ION, began to take shape four years ago. Subsequently, in 2017-18, the company recognized the importance of this project, contributed with larger investments and began developing a prototype Sidetree within the Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF).
Pamela also highlights the tireless efforts of all the workers in the DID ecosystem, thanks to which Sidetree is now in its final stages.
We’re thrilled to see ION make the leap to Bitcoin mainnet for its public beta. ION is an open, public, permissionless ‘Layer 2’ network built on open source code that anyone can review, run, and contribute to. From the very start, ION has been developed as a decentralized network designed to operate independently of centralized parties and trusted intermediaries, including Microsoft.
“As an open, public, and permissionless network, ION does not rely on privileged validators or trusted authorities of any kind – anyone can run a node to participate in the network.
To get started with ION, you can create ‘unpublished’ ION DIDs with basic client libraries, run your own node to create ‘published’ DIDs that are discoverable on the ION network, or find a node to publish DID operations for you.”
How to run ION and create DIDs:
- Use a CLI to generate DIDs locally: https://aka.ms/ion-cli
- Get an ION node running quickly via Docker: https://aka.ms/ion-docker
- Natively install an ION node yourself: https://aka.ms/ion-install-guide
The following steps include the transition to Bitcoin mainnet and public beta testing, feedback from the community will help improve the implementation of the ION itself.
Microsoft will also focus on new projects that will use ION and demos for a variety of uses. The following and biggest milestone will be the launch of the final version of ION in the fall of this year.
Also read about the InterWork Alliance, of which Microsoft is a member.
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