Self-Sovereign Identity Will Be a Billion-Dollar Industry by 2024

The SSI (self-sovereign identity) movement, which uses blockchain to give users direct control of who accesses their online credentials, will reach annual revenue of $1.1 billion by 2024, according to Juniper Research. This is up from an expected $100 million by the end of 2020.

The new research notes that 88% of revenue for SSI providers will come from businesses paying a subscription to run these identity services. As SSI solutions are still in their early stages, early adopter companies require a consultancy approach to aid implementation, as well as the technical solution from emerging SSI market leaders, such as Evernym, Civic and Metadium. Juniper Research believes that the need for the continued use of third party blockchain servers, like those offered by IBM and Microsoft, will result in the continued dominance of the subscription model.

However, Juniper believes other business models, like billing per user or per request, will grow slowly because of the many forms of competition that SSI faces, both from digital and traditional forms of identity verification. This will result in only 32 million end user apps being in use by the end of 2024.

The research shows how SSI will appeal to institutions that value secure and traceable identities in the long run, thanks to the immutability of blockchain records and the absence of large data repositories. However, there will be little differentiation of the user experience.

“Self-Sovereign Identity has high potential due to its security and data privacy credentials, but our report shows that, in order for it to succeed, businesses and governments need to take the lead and rule out use of less secure, but easier to implement, alternatives,“ explained research author James Moar.