‘The Community Moved On’: Sovrin Announces MainNet’s ‘Likely Shutdown’

The Sovrin Foundation has announced that after seven years, it is now preparing for “the likely shutdown” of its platform by March 31, 2025 “or sooner”.

Sovrin has been one of the pioneers of self-sovereign identity (SSI), and was an early adopter of blockchain technology for decentralized identity management. It helped to define and popularize key principles of SSI, such as the use of decentralized identifiers (DIDs) and verifiable credentials, which are now widely accepted standards within the digital identity space, particularly under the guidance of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

It launched its distributed-ledger Sovrin Network in 2017, enabling the use of unique, persistent identifiers (the DIDs, which support Sovrin’s “Anoncreds” anonymous credentials) that are created and managed by individuals or organizations, rather than by a central authority like a government or a company. The network has been managed by “stewards,” trusted organizations worldwide, including large companies and institutions.

In announcing the likely end of the network, the Sovrin Foundation cited multiple factors in the decision, including:

• A decline in the use of its MainNet.
• Regulatory uncertainty with respect to decentralized identity.
• Strained resources as various technical issues had to be resolved.
• Limited involvement from the Steward community.

The group also noted that its board of Trustees has been grappling with a $2 million debt from the previous Board.

“Barring significant changes, MainNet operations are expected to cease by March 31, 2025,” the group stated. “If technical or financial changes occur that make it infeasible to operate the network, operations could cease sooner.”

In a LinkedIn post, Sovrin’s second-ever employee, Riley Hughes, suggested that there is essentially one overall reason for the group’s impending shutdown. “The community moved on,” he wrote. “Not only did traffic on the network decline, but no new vendors added Sovrin Network support in 2024.”

Hughes, who is now the CEO and co-founder of Trinsic, added that there are also “no realistic alternatives to Sovrin for adherents to the Anoncreds ecosystem,” indicating that “the growth rate of new vendors supporting the Anoncreds ecosystem is low-to-nonexistent.”

Acknowledging that there is much more to the situation than he can comment upon in a LinkedIn post, Hughes also pointed out the importance of incentives in decentralized systems. “Without an incentive to keep operating nodes, eventually the network would break down,” he observed.

Although Sovrin’s impending closure may be seen as a setback, it can also signal a maturation in the decentralized identity space. Other SSI solutions, particularly those adhering to open standards like DIDs (Decentralized Identifiers) and verifiable credentials, have gained traction and have, to some extent, inherited the mission that Sovrin helped establish. These include Trinsic, as well as Spruce ID, IBM’s Verify Credentials, and Microsoft’s Azure Active Directory Verifiable Credentials, among others.

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October 21, 2024 – by Alex Perala