---
id: "kerione-decentralized-identity-as-a-meta-platform-how"
type: "paper"
type_label: "Papers and paper collections"
title: "Decentralized Identity as a Meta-platform: How Cooperation Beats Aggregation"
maintainer: "Michael Shea; Samuel M. Smith; Carsten Stöcker; Juan Caballero (editor); Matt G. Condon"
authors:
  - "Michael Shea"
  - "Samuel M. Smith"
  - "Carsten Stöcker"
  - "Juan Caballero (editor)"
  - "Matt G. Condon"
date: "2019-11-19"
year: 2019
reading_level: "intro"
reading_level_label: "Introductory"
reading_level_meaning: "no prior knowledge of the suite"
evidence: "informative"
evidence_meaning: "an author's paper, deck, tutorial or post explaining the suite"
status: "quiet"
status_meaning: "no change in six to eighteen months; still correct"
access: "public"
access_meaning: "anyone with the link"
topics:
  - "theory"
  - "governance"
roles:
  - "standards-policy"
  - "researcher"
source_url: "https://github.com/SmithSamuelM/Papers/blob/master/whitepapers/CooperationBeatsAggregation.pdf"
source_license: null
source_license_note: null
found_on: "keri-one-resources"
kerisse_credit: false
abstract_license: "CC BY 4.0"
abstract_license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
abstract_attribution: "KSKB, the KERISuite Knowledge Base (https://kskb.dev/)"
last_checked: "2026-10-14"
kskb_url: "https://kskb.dev/cards/kerione-decentralized-identity-as-a-meta-platform-how/"
kskb_app_url: "https://kskb.dev/#item/kerione-decentralized-identity-as-a-meta-platform-how"
kskb_record_url: "https://kskb.dev/data/kskb/resources/kerione-decentralized-identity-as-a-meta-platform-how"
kskb_markdown_url: "https://kskb.dev/export/cards/kerione-decentralized-identity-as-a-meta-platform-how.md"
---

# Decentralized Identity as a Meta-platform: How Cooperation Beats Aggregation

A Rebooting the Web of Trust IX white paper arguing that an open decentralized identity framework can act as a meta-platform whose cooperating networks gain more value than competing, aggregating platforms. It covers network scaling laws, trust as a transaction cost, competition at the edge of a meta-platform, and identity for things in a circular economy. An economic argument for business and policy readers; it does not discuss KERI by name.

Labels: reading level Introductory; evidence informative (an author's paper, deck, tutorial or post explaining the suite).
Source: https://github.com/SmithSamuelM/Papers/blob/master/whitepapers/CooperationBeatsAggregation.pdf (license not recorded).
The abstract is KSKB's own text under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/; credit KSKB, the KERISuite Knowledge Base (https://kskb.dev/).