CIVIC (CVC) (Founded in 2015) is an Ethereum-based Decentralized platform that aims to prevent online fraud reduction. It is an Identity Management solution that gives individuals and businesses the tools they need to control and protect personal identifiable information. Using the digital identification platform, the user can create his / her own virtual identity and store it together with personal information on the device.

Civic believes identity should be convenient, safe, and secure, and put users in control. Civic allows people to control the use of their identity information. They use cutting-edge identity verification technology to secure and protect personal information transfer.

Civic provides on-demand, secure and low-cost access to identity verification services using Blockchain technology.

They also notify users when their data is used by an entity affiliated with Civic, allowing users to make sure the use of this information is legitimate.

CVC is the native token of the Civic infrastructure which is built on Ethereum’s Blockchain as it is an ERC20 token.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

Company

Civic Technologies, Inc is an identity management service company that allows one to protect and authorize the use of their identity in real-time. The company was founded in 2015 by Vinny Lingham, They Specialize in Blockchain technology, Blockchain identity verification, Blockchain identity, and Cryptocurrency wallet.

The company is currently headquartered in San Francisco Bay Area, West Coast, Western US, California. It consists of a range of 11-50 employees who Specialize in various Identity verification Services.^[6][7]

Funding$:

Civic has raised a total of $35.8M in funding over 6 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Sep 21, 2017, from a Seed round.

Civic is funded by 19 investors. Plug and Play and Genesis One Capital are the most recent investors.

Civic has a post-money valuation in the range of $1M to $10M as of Jan 27, 2016, according to PrivCo. Sign up for a free trial to view exact valuation and search companies with similar valuations.^[8]

History & Team

Civic was started by Vinny Lingham, a South African entrepreneur with a simple vision that a person’s identity should be held by the person themselves. He stated, “You own it, you don’t get it from your Government”.

Civic began integrating with partner sites and developing its first set of Smart contracts in Q3 of 2017. Their platform went into an Alpha phase in Q4, providing KYC services including document verification and the ability for Validator to confirm identities to earn CVC tokens.

Q1 in 2018 saw CVC progress to Beta version 1, expanding CVC token transaction capabilities amongst partners and Identity providers.

As of today, Civics product is available on the web and mobile app. They’re currently doing open enrollment for service providers and inviting users to submit the information that can be validated on the network.

Vinny’s previous ventures include being the founder of a digital gift card platform, gyft, which was acquired by First Data in 2014). He brings over a decade of experience from the E-commerce space, which makes him very familiar with KYC and other identity authentication processes.^[9][10]

Vinny and the rest of the executive team are based in San Francisco:

Civic Team Members:

Overview

Civic was co-founded in 2015 by Vinny Lingham and Jonathan Smith. The Civic project is currently headquartered in San Francisco, CA. It is a Blockchain-based Identity management solution that gives individuals and businesses the tools they need to control and protect Personal identity information.

The platform is designed to change the way users think about Identity verification services by giving users more control over their personal data while allowing them to access a wide range of services without needing to fork over excessive amounts of personal information.

Civic's identity verification solution uses distributed ledger technology to authorize identity usage in real-time and is used to sparingly share information with Civic partners after authorization by the user. Unlike some other identity management services, Civic users store all their sensitive data on their mobile devices. Users are able to authorize the sharing of specific personal data by providing a Biometrics signature through the Civic app.

Civic is a Blockchain-based solution that provides each user with more control over his/her private data in a secure manner.

Civic provides a mobile application that is available in the App Store and Google Play. With a juicy slogan, Picture a wallet, only better, Civic app is a comprehensive and modern way to store your essentials verified by a Blockchain-based ecosystem. Users can keep their Digital assets (BTC for now and ETH, USDC, CVC in the future) in just one place and manage them whenever they want. In case users lose access to their Cryptocurrency (lost phone, Civic failure, etc.), they will be protected by Civic’s $1 million Cryptocurrency Protection Guarantee.

What is more, Civic enables Blockchain-stored identity verification. One can verify his/her identity once and share this piece of information with trustable companies. This means the KYC/AML procedure will no longer take too much time. Civic’s model allows for on-demand, secure, and lower-cost access to identity verification via the Blockchain. Background and personal information verification checks may no longer need to be undertaken from the ground up every time a new institution or application requires one. Civic already has a working identity verification product that is available worldwide. Civic has won the Best New Startup award at the K(NO)W Identity Conference 2017.^[21][22]

Example of use:

A company offers a free sale of goods, which is only suitable for us citizens. The company collaborates with Civic and provides a QR code (or something like that) that verifies whether the giveaway participants are US citizens. Participants who have account Civic can verify the information using their civic account without providing the documents evidencing that he is a citizen of the United States.^[23]

Civic Features

1. Cut out scammers and bots:

Thanks to Biometrics comparisons, Liveness checks, and document verification, scammers and spoofers don’t stand a chance. Civic is not just AI-powered, they are human-powered too.

2. Provide fast, low-friction onboarding:

Users get verified in minutes from their mobile devices. The support team guides users who don’t automatically pass verification. Civic maximize user's identity verification success rate.

3. Privacy:

When it comes to a user’s PII, an attestation of that verification, not the actual data, is stored on a Blockchain and not in a centralized Database.

4. Compliance:

Civic complies with international data privacy regulations including GDPR and CCPA.

5. Data security:

Communication between the device and other services uses Advanced Encryption Standard-256 encryption and TLS protocol.^[24]

Advantages of Civic (CVC)

• Doesn't require a 3rd party Authenticator, Physical tokens, or username/password.

• All information sits on the user device and no one has access to it.

• Partnered with TransUnion to get real-time alerts.

How Civic Works

Similar to how the Bitcoin Blockchain.io stores a Public Ledger of payments, Civic stores a public ledger of verified identities. The platform categorizes 3 types of participants – Users, validators, and service providers.

Users

Through the Civic ‘Secure Identity’ app, users input their personal information (name, address, tax ID or social security number, passport number, driver’s license, etc) and secure it using Biometrics fingerprint scanning. No username or password is required.

All personal information is stored on the user's phone and encrypted so it can’t be seen directly by the Civic platform. Civic instead stores ‘attestations’ or references to your data on the public Blockchain.

Validators

Validators are 3rd party entities whose job it is to confirm that the information users put in is correct. These entities in most cases are also service providers (Financial institutions, Governments, Utility companies, etc).

These individuals/entities are incentivized with CVC tokens to cross-check the user's information with public and financial records to make sure it is accurate. Once Validators verify the information, they sign off on it and can begin selling the encrypted versions of user's data to Service providers on the Civic marketplace.

Service Providers

Service providers/requesters are businesses or institutions (Hotels, exchanges, Banks, etc) that register with the CivicApp in order to identify their customers more efficiently.

Traditionally, Service providers would have to pay millions of dollars to use Identity verification service in order to comply with legally required KYC (know your customer) processes. In 2016, the average bank was reported to spend $55 million on KYC compliance.

Civic helps service providers save significant time and money on these services, by simply purchasing the ‘access rights’ to users’ information using CVC tokens (the currency of the CIVIC ecosystem).

The more service providers have access to the encrypted references to a user's data, the more seamlessly the users can engage with each of these service providers.

The CVC tokens paid out by Service providers go to both the Validator and the user. The transfer of funds between one party to the next is automatically initiated through Smart Contracts.^[25][26]

Civic (CVC) token

At its core, the CVC coin is an ERC20 token. It is an Ethereum-based token that is used by service providers to obtain information about the user. Therefore, organizations use the CVC token as a means of payment. The system of Smart contracts further provides for the transfer of funds from service providers to validators and owners of individuals (users).

Civic CVC tokens will be used to perform transactions in services associated with IDV. CVC paid by the transaction is distributed to the Validator and the user as a reward for sharing information. The more use for CVC, the more valuable the tokens are.

It may also be used to incentivize community members to contribute to the ecosystem. Users can earn CVC tokens for completing a variety of tasks, such as signing up for a service through the platform or introducing new users, while validators can earn CVCs for validating documents for service providers. Finally, the CVC coin will be used as a payment option for purchasing services directly from the Civic.^[27]

Uses of the Civic token:

• Validators receive CVCs when other participants utilize their attestations to prove identities

• Users receive CVCs for providing their data more securely and privately through the ecosystem

• All categories of participants can utilize CVCs for identity-related products and services provided by Civic and third parties through the ecosystem.

Token Sale Terms/Allocation:

As of late December 2020, there are exactly 670 million CVC tokens in circulation, representing 67% of the maximum 1 billion CVC total supply. The current circulating supply can be found in the right data panel.

As per the Civic token sale, a total of 1 billion CVC were minted, of which:

• 33% sold in the token sale

• 33% retained by Civic

• 33% allocated for distribution to incentivize participation in the ecosystem

• 1% to cover token sale costs.

As of December 2020, the 330 million tokens allocated to Civic remain untouched. It is currently being held in a multi-signature Ethereum Wallet.

ICO & Token Performance:

Having raised $33million in less than a month with little to no marketing, Civic stands out as a successful ICO story that did things "the right way".

They managed to rally support from the Cryptocurrency community by first launching a product, engaging in Telegram group chats, and posting great thought pieces on popular tech blogging sites like Medium.com.

The token launched in July 2017 at a price of $0.16. The token has had 2 major peaks since launching, once on August 11th when it went to $0.64 per token, and again on January 3rd, when it hit $1.37.

What Makes the Civic network Unique/Products

Civic is built to make it easy for users to verify their identity with service providers, while still retaining full control over their personal information. It allows businesses to onboard users faster using its AI-powered verification system, which when combined with human review helps businesses cut down on fraud and stay compliant with AML regulations and OFAC rules.

As of December 2020, Civic has two main products: the Civic wallet and Health Key.

Civic Wallet: The Civic wallet is a mobile Cryptocurrency wallet that can be used to store a handful of popular cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and USD Coin (USDC). The app doubles as a digital identity management solution, and benefits from a $1 million Bitcoin insurance plan provided by Coincover. It offers an accessible gateway to financial products on the Blockchain for everyone. Civic offers the ability to transition flexibly between traditional currencies and crypto, manage money and identity more easily with a friendlier user interface, and meet security requirements with our compliance wrapper for partners.^[28]

Health Key is Civic’s newest product. This is an app that allows employers to securely verify the health status of employees, to ensure they are healthy enough to return to the workplace after infection with COVID19 — such as if they test positive for Antibody or have been vaccinated. This is achieved without compromising the privacy of the employee.^[29]

How Is the Civic Network Secured?

As an ERC20 token, CVC is backed by the Ethereu Blockchain — which is widely regarded to be of the most Decentralized and secure Proof-of-work system (POW) networks in current usage.

Over time, Ethereum will gradually transition to Proof-of-stake (POS) with the roll-out of Ethereum 2.0. Once complete, the CVC token and associated transactions will be secured by a network of Validator nodes.

Digital identities secured through the Civic app are protected by the user’s own device, which customers use to control access to their data.^[30]

Civic (CVC) Listed Exchanges

The CVC token is highly liquid and can be traded on dozens of exchange platforms, including:

• Binance^[31]
• Coinbase Pro^[32]
• Huobi^[33]

It is most commonly traded against Tether (USDT), the Korean won (KRW), and Bitcoin (BTC).

Civic Partners

This includes Featured organizations and partners that work with Civic.

Automated Retail:

• Aaeon (a leading manufacturer of advanced industrial and embedded computing)

• Anheuser-Busch InBev (Known as AB InBev is a multinational drink and brewing company based in Leuven, Belgium)

• Remedy AR System

• Vendo

• The Venders

• Invenda

• Fastcorp

KYC:

• BitGo

• Brave

• Coincover

• Facetec

• Johnson Controls

• Onfido

• Makers Place

• Redeem

• Tyco^[34]

Countries Restricted from using Civic

Civic currently supports 4,500+ identity documents across 195 countries, they do not currently support identity verification for nationals and residents of the following countries due to Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) restrictions: Cuba, Iran, North Korea, South Sudan, Sudan, and Crimea region of Ukraine.^[35]

Civic Pros and Cons

Pros

• Civic aims to prevent identity fraud, which is a massive issue as outlined in Civics white paper; in 2016; 15.4 million U.S adult victims. Losses amounting to $16 billion

• Service providers could save billions of dollars annually on KYC compliance

• Users get to save time by not repeatedly verifying their identity for each new service provider they interact with. Users in underdeveloped countries will benefit by having a digital identity that they can use to access basic health and financial services, as well as the ability to vote

Cons

In order to verify user's personal information, Validators need access to the unencrypted version of that information. They are expected to use the same traditional methods of verification (such as cross-referencing with public records and other KYC-compliant processes) that Civics app is supposed to be eliminating.

This means validators will still need to pay the costs of identity authentication, with the hope that they can recoup their losses by earning CVC tokens. However, Civic’s white paper indicates that costs of identity verification under traditional methods are only getting more expensive. This may pose problems down the road for validators looking to profit from verifying user identification.

This leads to another issue, where incentives may not be strong enough to prevent malicious validators from leaking user's personal information to parties outside of the Civic ecosystem. If these parties are willing to pay more than what validators can earn in CVC tokens, there’s no guarantee that bad actors won’t take advantage of the situation.^[36]