IDChain is a project that may be deserving of funds from Bright DAO, but first we should consider whether IDChain should even exist.
When chains are moving towards shards, rollups, and L1 settlement chains (i.e. Ethereum mainnet), does IDChain serve an important purpose?
What is IDChain?
According to the governance doc, these are the features of IDChain that set it apart:
Gas is given out as a universal dividend to unique humans.
All other chains I know of expect apps to pay for users (or users to pay their own gas). IDChain supports large-scale apps that make no revenue and will always support them, because users can pay their own way with gas dividends. Only apps with above average usages per user have to pay for gas, which they can buy from people who don’t need their entire dividend.
Gas fees are burned.
Block producers are in no way incentivized to prioritize transactions based on gas fees. Gas is fixed at 10 Eidi gwei. Blocks can safely grow very large because using high-powered hardware for block producers isn’t a problem. If apps are mostly like BrightID and use IDChain for message passing and don’t touch the EVM, this also adds to scalability. If resource limits for block producers are eventually reached, the universal gas dividend can be lowered, and a second IDChain can be created to support other large scale non-profit apps (freeing the original IDChain to primarily support BrightID).
Capital isn’t needed to stake.
In traditional proof-of-stake, most of the cost validators and block producers need to recoup isn’t for hardware; it’s related to the opportunity cost of tying up capital to be a staker.
In IDChain, BrightID accounts are staked. If a validator fails to perform perfectly, then an accompanying BrightID account is permanently banned from service. Slashing isn’t measured in tokenized capital, but in BrightID accounts.
The default delegation of an account is to the first app that sponsors its user. Validation power of a delegate is equal to square root of the number of sponsored users. Any user can reclaim their delegation from the app that sponsored them (and receive delegations from others).
BrightID consensus
BrightID itself can use many of several methods for reaching consensus between nodes on the state of the graph. It really just needs message passing (currently as input data on IDChain transactions–it doesn’t use the EVM at all) and ordering (which blockchains do a fine job of).
Also needed is a way to decide who can participate in the network. Using a separate layer for message passing and ordering (currently IDChain) allows BrightID itself to be an open network. IDChain currently uses clique to decide who can participate in the message-passing network, with an eye towards a democratic governance (defaulting to a delegative democracy, with the option for individuals to represent themselves).
I believe the democratic model of IDChain is a valuable piece of BrightID. Most of the consensus algorithms I’ve worked with in my career lend themselves most readily to a centralization of power; none of these solutions can be used as-is for the goals of BrightID. Regardless of the consensus algorithm or whether blockchain is used, I’m proud of the democratic participation model laid out in the IDChain governance doc and would like to strive to build it.
Does the world need IDChain?
Should IDChain exist, or will there always be another cost-effect solution for large public goods apps that don’t generate revenue (like BrightID). Should we give IDChain the funds to thrive and reach its full potential as laid out in the governance doc? What do you think?
By the way, we can rename “IDChain” if you can think of something better 
.