Nuggets and Self-Sovereign Identity

Self-Sovereign Identity in a world of little trust and no dipping sauce.

By Chris Davis 24/10/2025

I am going to put a disclaimer here: outside of this reference, there will be no further mention of dino nuggets (nuggies for those of you in the know). I understand if you stop reading here. I, too, am disappointed.

Instead, we are going to talk about Nuggets (website: Nuggets.Life)and their claim to provide a decentralised self-sovereign identity (SSI) platform giving you control over your data and providing businesses — and by extension — yourself peace of mind with data security. (More info here: Nuggets White Paper).

What is Decentralised Self-Sovereign Identity?

I promise we won’t go too deep into the nerd talk, but essentially, SSI is a digital identity model that puts you in control and ownership of your personal data. (If you do want a bit more nerd talk, look here: Your Guide to Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI)). SSI is one of the core components of decentralised identity. Decentralised identity is a framework that aims to give you back control of your information from central agencies like banks, businesses and government agencies. (For a deeper dive into decentralised identity, look here: What Is Decentralized Identity?) This is a sea change to the current traditional centralised model where your data is stored on servers that are managed by companies, government agencies, social media sites and other organisations.

With SSI, your credentials (driver’s licence, credit cards, university degree, etc.) are stored in a secure digital wallet (for more on digital wallets, look here: Digital ID Wallet) on your physical device (like your mobile phone). You probably already have experience with some types of digital wallets if you use Apple Pay, Google Pay, or customer reward cards that are stored on your phone.

Through your digital wallet, in this case through the Nuggets platform, you provide only the information with a person, business, or government agency that you allow without granting access to any extra personal information. This information is shared through what are called transactions in what is called the “Trust Triangle”.

In simple terms, the SSI relies on the Trust Triangle, which is built on a holder (you), the issuer (the one who provides the credential), and the verifier (who is requesting proof of your credential).

An easy way to visualise this may be like this: you’ve just graduated from university (congratulations, enjoy your student debt), and you’ve just applied for a job with company A. Through the SSI model, you (the holder) would provide your credentials, in this case your degree, to Company A. Company A (the verifier), while doing their due diligence, wants to verify your degree is real. The degree gets verified by the university (the issuer). Company A trusts the university and trusts the degree you have provided without getting any other information that it does not require.

Where Does the Trust Come From in SSI?

In the traditional world, trust often comes from reputation — like assuming a degree from a well-known university is legitimate because we trust the institution. But in the digital world, especially with SSI, trust is established differently.

Instead of relying on what people believe, trust in SSI is built on digital transactions. In this case, a “transaction” isn’t just about buying or selling something — it also means any exchange or verification of data or information.

What sets decentralised identity and SSI apart is that these transactions bypass centralised entities such as banks, government agencies, or large corporations. Instead, they happen directly between individuals and organisations, also known as peer-to-peer, using blockchain technology.

What the Heck are Blockchains

A network of computers (also referred to as nodes) maintains a blockchain, which is a digital ledger. Each time a transaction occurs, it is grouped with other transactions into a block. As these blocks fill up, they are linked together in chronological order, forming a chain. This blockchain removes the need for a central authority to verify a transaction because that verification occurs across many decentralised nodes. (For more on blockchain, look here: What Is Blockchain? Explained In Simple Words)

Once added to the chain, the information of the transaction cannot be changed or deleted. This makes it reliable and tamper-proof. Public blockchains are viewable by anyone, which provides transparency in all transactions and is fundamental to building trust in the system. However, this transparency does not mean someone can see what you bought or what you requested. Pseudonymity (hiding real information with artificial information) and encryption (where you change the data using cryptographic algorithms) are often used to protect your and everyone else’s privacy in the blockchain. (More on Pseudonymity and Encryption: Pseudonymization vs Encryption)

The Nuggets platform uses the Ethereum blockchain as the backbone for the platform. Ethereum is a well-established blockchain that has been around since July 2015 and is the home to the Ether cryptocurrency. Ethereum is built on smart contracts, which, while sounding very fancy, are neither very smart nor are they all contracts.

Smart Contracts are computer code on the blockchain that work on “if/when…then” coding principles to ensure that if/when a condition is met, then an action occurs. Going back to you just graduating from university, it would look like this: if/when you earn enough credits to graduate, then you are awarded your diploma. (For more on Smart Contracts).

What Nuggets provides is a gateway (there are many) to the Ethereum blockchain for storage, but one of the issues with storage on the blockchain is that storage can get very large, and blockchain is inefficient in storing files. As additional files are stored on the blockchain, every node must have enough storage capacity to store the entire blockchain for validation purposes. Blockchains also suffer from known latency issues. You know those 15 seconds of pure anger and rage you get when you try to open a document from a centralised server? Well, on blockchain, it can be much longer, which makes file storage and recall impractical on a large scale.

Now the Main Course, Nuggets

Nuggets is looking to bring decentralised identity principles to the mainstream market in what they call decentralised self-sovereign identity (DSSI). Nuggets is offering a platform that enables both businesses and individuals to use decentralised identity and SSI in everyday scenarios such as onboarding, file management access, or online shopping.

While it all sounds like the next great leap forward (and indeed it may be), even Nuggets admits that it is very ambitious, admitting in their own white paper that the Nuggets' vision may never be realised or at least fully realised to the extent they wish to achieve. (Page 23 of Nuggets-White-Paper.pdf)

The Nuggets Platform

The Nuggets platform is a digital application (personally, I installed it on my phone through the Apple App Store) that, once you’ve completed the sign-up (get ready to scan your passport), logs you into the Nuggets network. From here, you can make purchases and upload your credit cards, important credentials, or documents into your Nuggets digital wallet. Your Nuggets wallet comes with a Universal Unique Identifier number, which is how Nuggets would contact you if they needed to, as they claim they do not have access to your personal information that you provided while signing up. (More on that later).

Once signed in, you can upload your credit cards, driver’s licence, or other important documents into your Nuggets digital wallet. On the Nuggets website, they state that they are available in over 150 countries, but as it turns out, that’s not quite the case. The app’s Privacy Policy specifies that it is only available in the UK, EEA, and Australia. Seeing as I live in New Zealand, I’m fresh out of luck. (For the record, I did reach out to the Nuggets team, and they emailed back stating that they work on a B2B2C model and don’t include the full marketplace experience for retail users. They did state that Nuggets could support any New Zealand business.)

Screenshots of Nuggets’ home and menu screens by Chris Davis

Nuggets and Your Data

Nuggets’ core offering is to provide a self-sovereign identity platform for people to be able to safely store and share their data.

What Nuggets provides is a gateway (there are many) to the Ethereum blockchain for storage, but one of the issues with storage on the blockchain is that storage can get very large, and blockchain is inefficient in storing files. As additional files are stored on the blockchain, every node must have enough storage capacity to store the entire blockchain for validation purposes. Blockchains also suffer from known latency issues. You know those 15 seconds of pure anger and rage you get when you try to open a document from a centralised server? Well, on blockchain it can be much longer, which makes file storage and recall impractical on a large scale.

So, are the Nuggets truly a decentralised self-sovereign identity?

Yes, it is… But also no, it’s not (I know what an unsatisfying answer after all that). Nuggets’ core offering is to provide a self-sovereign identity platform for people to be able to safely store and share their data.

In the Nuggets' Privacy terms on their app, they define what Personal Data is and how they use it, or don’t use it. Your data, like your name, your photo ID, and your biometrics (fingerprint, face scan), are stored on the blockchain and (get ready for this one) InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) to achieve zero-knowledge proofs. IPFS is a decentralised network of nodes used for file sharing (for a deeper dive, click IPFS). This is different than using a centralised server to do searches where all the “knowledge” is stored in one place. With IPFS, the “knowledge” is stored on multiple nodes. Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) are a cryptographic technique where the prover (you) can send your credentials as a true statement instead of the credential itself to the verifier (Nuggets in this case) without having to reveal any details about the statement itself (for more info, click ZKP)

Once again, using the university scenario: Company A asks if you have graduated from university; you could provide a true statement that you have a degree without having to disclose that you graduated with a basketweaving degree. (No offence to basket weavers; keep up the great work). This is decentralised identity and self-sovereign identity. You can choose to share a copy of your degree with Company A, or you can choose to just share that yes, you have a degree, or you could decide not to share with Company A at all. (Probably not a good choice for your prospects for getting hired, but the choice is yours.)

For the individual shopping, in theory, through the Nuggets app, this means no, you don’t have to supply your email address or mailing address to the merchant. In this case, you would provide your information to the courier company responsible for collecting your purchase, eliminating the need for your data to be stored on the merchant’s centralised server. You also cut out the bank for both you and the merchant and lower the costs with the removal of banking fees since the transaction is straight between yourself and the merchant through the Nuggets app.

Now, about that “no”.

Nuggets is not truly and fully decentralised. To be fair, no one truly is yet due to blockchain and self-sovereign identity being relatively new technologies and models. I am sure some blockchain aficionado will argue that point, but as compared to centralised storage and third-party mediators of data storage, blockchain is still quite the emerging technology. In Nuggets’ Privacy Policy found on the mobile app, Nuggets states that they use blockchain and IPFS to store your data with zero-knowledge ideology. Later in Section 7 of Nuggets’ Privacy Policy (if you are reading along), they state that the IPFS is private and permissioned. I can hear you all ask collectively, ‘So?’ With Nuggets IPFS being private (closed off except for those with permission) and permissioned (somebody or more likely multiple people being allowed to view the data), it means that Nuggets isn’t truly a pure SSI-based system because the SSI model states you control who can or cannot view your data. They will be required to have this access due to legal reasons like Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 (Privacy Act 2020), or the Australian Privacy Act (Privacy Act 1988)

The Nuggets Privacy Policy does state in the next section that they have strict policies and procedures in place to protect against unauthorised use or disclosure. Most companies with centralised storage will state something similar, especially those in countries with tighter privacy laws, but it comes down to trust in either scenario. Nuggets also admits that there is no 100% secure storage system (centralised or decentralised) and there are no guarantees that the data you transmit, or the data Nuggets has stored, can ever be considered completely safe. Ultimately, trust forms the foundation of data security and privacy. You trust the bank is doing everything it can to keep your data safe, and maybe they are; the issue is you don’t know, and they aren’t going to tell you. Also, as the bank is using a centralised storage method, they are a prime target for cyberattacks, and your data is just sitting there in one place. With Nuggets, they are telling you how your data will be kept as safe as possible by them through decentralisation. Does it work? Well, that is what we are waiting to see.

What comes next?

It is still unclear if decentralised identity and platforms like Nuggets will ever become the mainstream norm for how we conduct our digital lives. The most important part is that they are asking how we should think about our online privacy and how we can protect ourselves better from the growing cases of cybercrime and identity theft. Digital Identity New Zealand’s 2023 study found that 90% of Kiwis didn’t think it was easy to keep their internet information safe. (Digital Identity in Aotearoa Report). I think the numbers would be approximately the same across the world if I had to guess. People are starting to realise that the current centralised model is not the best way to guarantee privacy and data sovereignty in the long run; it’s just what we have right now. It’s how we’ve always done things, or as they say in New Zealand, “She’ll be right.” But systems like Nuggets might be leading us to a safer, more decentralised future where I can choose to share my name with you but not my dino nuggies.