I have been working on making blockchain more approachable to consumers and have developed a model using common shopping practices found in bricks-and-mortar stores:

• Walk into the door with my wallet in my pocket.
• Look at the items on the shelves and make a selection.
• Open my wallet to use a card or (believe it or not) pay with cash.

I can repeat the process down an entire block of shops. When online, I can use a payment service (or credit card, yikes!) and only have to supply an address for delivery purposes. The address does not have to be mine, and (many times) I don’t need to create an account with the store first.

If I would model the same transaction using the name/password system we use today, it might look like the following:

• Walk into the door.
• Look at the items on the shelves and make a selection.
• Tell the clerk my name to retrieve my wallet from the back because they store wallets for their customers.
• The clerk verifies that I know the password before giving me the wallet.
• Open my wallet to use a card or pay with cash.
• Return the wallet to the clerk to be returned to the storeroom.

I would probably have dozens of wallets being managed this way. As I get older, I need to remember where I have wallets and their passwords Luckily, each of the branded hardware store locations use the same wallet for me.

Of course, this is a strawman example. In my blockchain research, I started using wallets as a way to identify users because it simplifies commerce and allows me to focus on functionality. I do not really care about who the person behind the mask is, as long as they have the means to execute a transaction.

Presenting a list of wallet suppliers makes the identity process easy for consumers. This approach could be used in a non-blockchain operation as well. That being said, it can also be used for investing. My interest in wallets is for identification purposes.

When developing a business case for the approach, it is important to rely on multiple sources of information. There are more complete identity approaches that include Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI), but I wanted to work with an approach that was less involved so that consumers could get started quickly.