It is now beyond doubt at this point that blockchain will be disrupting every facet of the global economy. This includes healthcare, manufacturing, servicing, logistics, security and all the leading sectors. And to back this claim here’s the latest example of that in which a traditional internet company is investing in a blockchain startup.
Overstock, one of the most popular e-commerce platforms for the US market that sells almost everything available in a residential house, has invested $2 million into Salt Lake City-based Evernym through its wholly-owned subsidiary Medici Ventures. Evernym is a blockchain company that is building a self-sovereign identity solution using the distributed ledger.
Medici Ventures is Overstock’s blockchain investment arm. According to a Thursday press release published by Overstock, Medici Ventures participated in “Evernym’s recent Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE), which entitles Medici Ventures to convert its interest in the SAFE to preferred stock in Evernym’s future, priced round of equity financing.” The sale of the SAFE shares was closed earlier this month on September 4th but has only just been announced.
Commenting in a statement, Overstock’s newly appointed CEO and President of Medici Ventures Jonathan Johnson said that:
“Evernym is bridging the gap between the siloed approach to identity and true self-sovereign identity… Evernym’s platform allows every person, organization, and connected thing to have an independent identity. Evernym fills out Medici Ventures’ identity pillar within our keiretsu and will help advance our government-as-a-service technology stack for civilization.”
Medici Ventures’ own COO Joel Weight expressed similar sentiments saying in a statement that:
“Evernym’s strong technical team is building a set of services to eliminate identity theft and consumer fraud… Its decentralized, self-sovereign identity applications enable trusted interactions at scale without centralized intermediaries. This approach is squarely aligned with Medici Ventures’ vision of bringing individuals trust through technology.”
Self-sovereign identities are digital relationships that are digital identifiers of individuals that are only truly controlled by the individual themselves. Evernym, which was established back in 2013 has developed some leading solutions in the space already including the Sovrin Network and the Hyperledger Indy. Control of our identities is a goal that the company is aiming to achieve and they are not taking any corners to get there. Here’s what Steve Havas, Evernym’s president has said about Evernym’s vision and quest:
“Right from the start we’ve made it a rule not to cut corners in terms of ensuring a privacy by design, privacy by default position for our products – ultimately we’re designing applications that we as individuals would be happy to use.”
