For decades the internet has handled identity in the worst possible way. Every time you open a bank account sign up to an exchange or access a financial service you are asked to upload copies of your passport utility bills and personal details Those documents are then stored in large centralized databases that get hacked leaked or misused over time You lose control of your own identity and you have no idea who is looking at it or where it is being shared This broken model is one of the biggest reasons people do not trust digital finance even though everything else has gone online.
@Dusk Citadel was created to solve this problem not by removing identity checks but by completely changing how they work Citadel is a zero knowledge KYC layer that allows users and institutions to prove who they are without giving away their private information Instead of sending your documents to every platform you interact with you verify yourself once inside Citadel and from that point forward you only share cryptographic proofs that say you are verified You remain in control of your data and you decide who gets to see what.
In the traditional KYC system every service becomes a data hoarder A bank keeps your passport An exchange keeps your address A payment app keeps your personal profile Over time your identity is copied and stored in dozens of places creating endless points of failure Citadel flips this model by turning identity into something you hold instead of something others collect Your verified information is kept in a secure enclave and when a service needs to check your identity it receives a zero knowledge proof rather than the data itself.
This means a platform can confirm that you are over a certain age in a certain jurisdiction or not on a sanctions list without ever seeing your name passport number or home address It only gets the answer to the question it is allowed to ask Nothing more This is not just better for privacy It is better for security because there is nothing valuable to steal If a database only holds proofs instead of documents a hacker gets nothing.
Citadel also solves a huge problem for institutions Financial companies are legally required to perform KYC and AML checks but they do not want the risk and cost of storing sensitive data By using Citadel they can comply with regulations while reducing their exposure to data breaches and liability They get cryptographic assurance that a user has been verified without touching the underlying personal information.
What makes Citadel especially powerful is that permissions are controlled by the user You can decide which platforms are allowed to verify which parts of your identity and you can revoke that access at any time If a service no longer needs your data it no longer has access This is completely different from today where once you upload a document you lose control forever.
Because Citadel is built on #dusk privacy preserving blockchain it can be audited without becoming a surveillance system Regulators can verify that identity checks are being performed correctly without seeing the private data of millions of users This creates a balance between compliance and privacy that has never existed before.
Dusk’s Citadel is not about avoiding KYC It is about making KYC finally work in a way that respects people By turning identity into something you prove instead of something you hand over Citadel makes it possible to have secure compliant financial systems without turning personal data into a permanent liability This is how Dusk brings trust to Web3 without sacrificing privacy.
