Hybrid Blockchain and Zero-Knowledge Proof Model for Privacy-First SSI Verification

Source abstract

Self-sovereign-identity systems grant users control over their digital identities, thereby eliminating the need for centralized authorities. Conventional blockchain-based identity management systems can expose identity-related metadata while imposing significant storage and computational overhead, and this raises issues with maintaining privacy and scalability. A hybrid architecture of “blockchain + zero-knowledge proof” was proposed by this study for privacy-first self-sovereign-identity verification, where the layers of public and private blockchains were integrated with zero-knowledge proofs to assure a secure, scalable, and privacy-preserving identity verification while protecting sensitive information from exposure. The proposed system had less data exposure, 0.2% against 10% in traditional systems. It also had a higher verification speed that could reach a one identity verification in 0.0051 s at low loads against 0.0068 s in traditional settings. Hence, the proposed system might double the performance, 98 transactions processed per second against 49 transactions processed per second, with improved efficiency hovering between 20% and 40%.