MicroStrategy Develops Decentralized Identity With Bitcoin’s Ordinals Tech

Business intelligence company MicroStrategy, known as one of the largest Bitcoin holders, has unveiled MicroStrategy Orange, a decentralized identity (DID) protocol powered by the Bitcoin blockchain and inspired by inscription technology like Ordinals.

The latest development could show that MicroStrategy is supporting the concept of Bitcoin Ordinals.

Michael Saylor, MicroStrategy co-founder and Executive Chairman, shared the company’s new developments during his presentation at the annual MicroStrategy World conference in Las Vegas today.

More Ways to Use Bitcoin

The idea is to use inscriptions to verify the identity behind a message or social media post using a private key. The platform is expected to give individuals control over their own identities online, not relying on centralized providers.

According to an unofficial draft of the MicroStrategy Orange specs, the technique used (did:btc) leverages inscriptions to store DID documents on-chain. In comparison to other existing techniques, did:btc could be a more secure and permanent way to store DID information on the Bitcoin blockchain.

“The whole idea of burning a piece of data on the blockchain opens the door to the possibility that I might burn a digital signature, or I might burn a registration, or I might burn a hash of a document,” Saylor said. “Right now, enterprises have weak security compared to Bitcoin.”

Cezary Raczko, MicroStrategy executive vice president of engineering, added that MicroStrategy Orange aims to simplify DID adoption within organizations by offering easy issuance, pre-built applications, and an open development environment.

MicroStrategy is More Than an Investor

MicroStrategy Orange comes with pre-packaged applications that can be deployed readily. This allows organizations to leverage the benefits of DIDs without the need for extensive custom development.

Plus, developers can easily integrate DID functionalities into their existing applications and systems with the Orange software development kit.

However, the document also notes some drawbacks of DID, including expensive costs, slower speed, and technical complexity for users.

MicroStrategy’s announcement reinforces Saylor’s prior claim that they are a Bitcoin development company. The move also shows the company’s interest in exploring Bitcoin as an infrastructure layer, which goes beyond the common belief among “Bitcoin maxis” that Bitcoin doesn’t need layer-2 solutions or Ordinals.

In 2023, MicroStrategy announced the integration of Bitcoin’s Lightning Network technology into its corporate email address.The move leverages the Lightning Address transaction, enabling developers to replace a standard Lightning invoice or payment request with a familiar internet identifier like an email address.

Lightning Network is a Layer 2 expansion solution for Bitcoin that was born in 2015. Lightning Network uses channel expansion technology to make Bitcoin payments cheaper and faster.

In the past, CEO Saylor has repeatedly praised Bitcoin and the Lightning Network. Most notably, in June 2022, MicroStrategy Chairman affirmed that Bitcoin and the Lightning Network can rescue DeFi, not Ethereum.

The Lightning Network’s influence and adoption have undeniably grown in recent times, with applications in El Salvador, the Strike payment app, Twitter, and even major institutions like Bitcoin Suisse. Coinbase also announced this week that it had completed the integration of the Lightning Network in partnership with Lightspark.

dApps on the Bitcoin network haven’t gained as much traction as on other blockchains. However, with the participation of major industry players, there’s still room for progress in the future.

The revelation of MicroStrategy Orange comes after the company announced this week that it added 122 BTC, worth around $7.8 million last month, to its holdings.

With the latest purchase, the company now holds 214.400 BTC, with the average purchase price of each coin around $35,300. MicroStrategy’s BTC holdings also account for over 1% of Bitcoin’s total supply.

Andrew Kang, the company’s CFO, said MicroStrategy had acquired 25.250 since Q4/2023, and Q1/2024 is the 14th consecutive quarter that it added more BTC to its portfolio.