Ask HN: How can self-custody of identity and digital assets go mainstream?
There are risks involved in holding assets in centralised locations. I do like the idea of us being able to 'own' our own identity online, maybe that's a digital password, driving license or just as a login to a website.
I just don't see how this can ever go mainstream though. Hardware wallets are great, but they're nowhere near ready to be used by non tech people. I don't think we'll ever be able to trust people to _not_ lose their secret keys.
The problems I see with adoption are:
1) Why would governments or businesses back this when it means they'd just lose the current control they have today?
2) How do we deal with theft, loss?
3) How can we improve the usability?
I can imagine security keys built into phones becoming an important aspect, but in reality I don't see ownership of physical assets or identity moving to a blockchain. As far as I can see, we'll almost always need some centralisation and adjudicator of this data.