December, 20219 if any. Secondly, consolidating standards and protocols to allow for a wide variety of systems and data formats to interoperate with one another will take years to develop at scale. To this end, some ponder if future metaverses will truly be decentralized.With so much undecided, it can be difficult for businesses and public institutions to decide on what infrastructure investments hold the most promise. In somewhat relief, decentralized identifiers or DIDs offer at least one option that satisfies the interests of multiple parties. DIDs do this in two ways: creating digital identities and enabling digital scarcity.Currently our online identities are largely relegated to major providers under a federated identity framework (i.e. we log onto online services using only a small handful of IDs or accounts issued by tech companies who then store and process this data). Instead, individuals should be able to establish a digital identity wallet that would not only be used to manage their e-ID and credentials but also associate to data created by various online activities. By enabling consumers to gain greater access to their personal data, several objectives are achieved: consumers can build reputation, which in turn, improves access to financial services; sophisticated social and commercial interactions can be conducted cross-border with trust; and users will be able to traverse across metaverses more seamlessly.Centralizing this data poses substantial risks, however. As more and more of our lives move toward virtual and augmented mediums, the rate of data creation is growing exponentially, and with it, associated security risks. For this reason, it is essential that the design of such digital identity work off of decentralized data networks. Organizations such as W3C have widely accepted standards for creating decentralized identifiers which can be used tocreate digital identity schemes. This meets the aims of both metaverse and web 3.0 proponents, while also achieving greater levels of protection that global data protection regulations are now purporting.Secondly, DIDs can be used to support digital ownership and enable digital scarcity. Non-fungible tokens or NFTs have come into the public eye this past year due to their ability to establish unique asset ownership on the blockchain; however, at present, the creation of such unique assets is most often tied to one platform or blockchain. For a metaverse and future contributors to succeed, a more durable means to associate unique digital asset ownership is needed. In addition to storing personal data and credentials, DIDs can be used to associate ownership of virtual properties, such as software IP, as well as other virtual assets.Creating a fully functioning digital economy must support complex human behaviour and allow for efficient resource allocation. Creating digital scarcity and assigning immutable ownership to creative work or R&D-related resources will ultimately be required to incentivize participants to create in the larger metaverse. Building toward a DID-enabled futurescape can put us one step ahead. CREATING DIGITAL SCARCITY AND ASSIGNING IMMUTABLE OWNERSHIP TO CREATIVE WORK OR R&D-RELATED RESOURCES WILL ULTIMATELY BE REQUIRED TO INCENTIVIZE PARTICIPANTS TO CREATE IN THE LARGER METAVERSE
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