Blockchain-based decentralized oracle network framework for identity management in metaverse environment

Managing identities in metaverse environment is challenging due to the conflicting requirements of ensuring user privacy while enforcing accountability. Users may participate in the metaverse through multiple virtual identities or avatars for different applications/scenarios. Thus, virtual identities must be continuously generated and mapped with real identities. Further, user privacy needs to be protected while not ensuring blanket anonymity to indulge in objectionable or unlawful conduct. Ensuring privacy for the metaverse while still being able to pinpoint users for their actions in the metaverse is a significant research issue. Solving the aforementioned issue, we propose a third-party identity management solution for the metaverse based on creating a decentralized oracle network (DON) providing identity authentication and mapping service. The proposed identity management framework is metaverse platform agnostic, ensuring users' privacy on the platform while still being able to uncover their real identities if warranted. The proposed framework is viable as evidenced by experimental results of DON and blockchain implementation. The DON based framework leverage the benefits of blockchain technology and introduces immutability, transparency, and traceability into the the metaverse environment. This ensures data integrity and minimizes the frequency of cyber attacks in the metaverse ecosystem.