Masa Protocol

meaning
真 (Masa)
truth, reality, genuine

identity
n
an individual’s sense of self defined by a set of physical, psychological, and interpersonal characteristics that is not wholly shared with any other person

Introduction

Masa is the world's first Soulbound Token (SBT) Identity Protocol. Masa uses SBTs to represent users' attributes in web3 and in the real world, along with a protocol-level abstraction that enables the full management of SBTs and the data attributed to them. The Masa Protocol provides the fundamental building blocks for a web3 identity management layer that encapsulates any type of data attributed to an individual in the real world or in web3.

By creating an identity management layer that enables a plurality of SBTs, individuals can build a web3 identity incrementally; Masa enables the full vision laid out by Vitalik Buterin et al. in the paper, Decentralized Society: Finding Web3's Soul.

With Masa, metadata attributed to a soulbound token is encrypted and can only be accessed with permission from the identity owner through the Masa Protocol.

What are SBTs

Soulbound Tokens, proposed by Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin, will form an essential building block for a Decentralized Society, or DeSoc. Soulbound Tokens are publicly visible, non-transferable, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that can serve as a web3 user’s identity that is intrinsically tied to their owners. These non-transferable tokens represent credentials and affiliations within a DeSoc and are linked to Souls. Souls are a type of identifiable address – generally a blockchain account, or in our case, an Ethereum wallet, that establishes provenance. A user can mint and burn their SBTs.