[blobster]

This sounds very reasonable. Some of the replies in this thread are misinterpreting what I said. I didn't say the government should run the APIs etc, just that we already have identity in the real world and it generally works, so we can use that (but maybe not necessarily only that, there could be other options too). I should be able to use my Gov ID to get a Layer 0 verification from some provider, which then integrates with higher level providers, etc.

And again, it would be opt in, just like verifying with Facebook / Twitter etc is opt in. And for people who are concerned about government surveillance, they can already do that if you verify your social media account via your credit card, that's kind of the point there, that the credit card ties a social media account to a real world person.