Persona will be the first project that uses Ark's new services to create its own chain. This will be connected to the Ark main-chain at a protocol level, allowing transactions and contract interaction to an unlimited amount of coins & tokens. In addition, access to a wealth of developer tools.
What is Persona?
Its an Identity management solution. Aligned with the latest EU Data regulations, the individual spends less time updating their data and service providers can access the latest version of the customer data.
What does that mean?
You upload your files(documents, copies of your ID) on an IPFS implementation over Persona blockchain. They are encrypted by the blockchain itself using your private key. Let's suppose you want to sign up for a contract with a new mobile carrier. You have your identity checked on Persona blockchain. What the mobile carrier staff will do will issue a request to have read access to your details. They will generate a QR code that you scan with your phone and you'll see that X company is requesting access to your date birth, address and ID. You'll sign with your private key and give access to your uploaded documents on Persona blockchain to see if the person they have in front is the same with the person from the documents. And that's all. Every company that has an on boarding process they have just to make sure that the person they have in front of their eyes is the same with the person of which documents they are checking.
Some of the best use cases of Persona will be found in customer - corporate partners relations. Signing up for new broadband that sort of thing.
Token Value & allocation:
PRS is a utility token. Users who offer verification services will be rewarded PRS each time they carry out verification. Payment by PRS tokens will be necessary each time an individual is verified by a private partner.
It’s quite a mouthful to explain, so here’s their explanation, taken from the whitepaper
The seeded number of tokens will be 100,000,000 priced at $0.2 per token. 70,000,000 allocated to the sale, the others for various development & team funds. The Bonus structure can be found within the whitepaper, those who buy before 30.1.18 get 50% extra PRS.
100,000,000 will be released, however the total number of tokens is unknown, and is subject to change per the T&C’s. I haven’t reached out to any of the Co-founders, and they are accessible on reddit, slack, bitcointalk etc. This will likely turn some off, but I believe the team want this token to have value, tying up personal funds ensures that work must continue. The founders have spread their personal token payments over 3 years, an indication of a good team… 10% at genesis 30% after 12 months, 30% after 24 months, 30% after 36months.
Team & Roadmap:
The project has very close ties to ARK, Stefan Neagu one of the Co founders of Persona is also an Ark Co-founder, advisors also feature Ark team members such as Mike Doty - Managing Director & lead Dev. It seems as if this project is the first in the ‘grand vision’, stipulations state that 12,000,000 coins must fund 10 other start-up projects that use persona for verification. An excellent way to improve an encourage use of the system.
Ark is gearing up, a new core rewrite, the completion of pushable chains and more should see Persona’s main net live in March.
Persona Timeline -
A quote from Stefan Neagu
Persona is not only about using a blockchain 2FA to log-in on various website(to replace your password) is more about who you are: your medical records, your fitbit logs, your pictures, your reputation. Is all about YOU.Is about offering cross-border KYC, is about offering identity as a service(while you are already on boarded with some bank, you might go to an utility provider and have your identity proven by the bank, who's client you already are), is about the EU Directive on Global Data Protection, which is the legal mean to prevent something similar like Equifax in US.You can join our community on telegram and discuss more, if you want. We would be very happy to share the enthusiasm of the project with you. https://t.me/joinchat/EHZJQkeWDSAosguXn6DWVg
Conclude
Persona is serious about this project, and won’t let any old riff raff in, in the early stages of these users will need to meet face to face to verify identity. This will be streamlined very swiftly, but it’s important that the initial core users are trustworthy and vetted. This project will reach and impact both users & companies, making data more accessible, their services more streamlined, yet still providing a fully encrypted, decentralised solution.
https://persona.im/documents/whitepaper-v1.pdf
https://persona.im/documents/persona-token-purchase-agreement.pdf