DID Alliance Attends Hong Kong Web3 Carnival Art Digital Asset Session: Digital Identity Empowers Art Assetization

“Digitizing artworks as digital assets is not a technical showcase, but an upgrade of identity and systems.”

Hong Kong Kowloon, an industry dialogue focusing on digital assets of artworks

On April 22, 2026, the “Artworks Digital Asset Session” at the 2026 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival was held at the Marco Polo Hongkong Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong. The event was co-hosted by the China Social Economy and Culture Exchange Association (Hong Kong), China Digital Cultural Identity Certification Service Co., Ltd., and Hong Kong Art Real Asset Co., Ltd., with the Hong Kong Institute of Finance and CITIC International Auction Co., Ltd. as co-organizers. During the same period, the event also featured the release of the Lirenxing Scroll Coin, the launch of the Chinese Ancient Art and Culture MA Code Global Certification, and other activities.

Eugene Xiao, Chairman of the Global Digital Identity Alliance (DID Alliance), was invited to attend and delivered a keynote speech titled “Deep Integration of DID Digital Identity and Artworks Digital Assets.”

Eugene Xiao: Digital Assetization of Artworks Cannot Avoid the Barrier of Identity

In his speech, Eugene straightforwardly pointed out that the core obstacle faced by the current digital assetization of artworks is not whether technology can be on-chain, but three unresolved underlying issues:

Unverifiable Identity. There is a lack of a unified identity anchor among artists, issuing institutions, collectors, and licensors, and conflicts between on-chain anonymity and off-chain real-name systems make access and review difficult to implement.

Uncertain Ownership. The authenticity, source chain, copyright ownership, and holding relationships of artworks are difficult to map uniformly, and risks of repeated authorization and ambiguous ownership always exist.

Cross-border Compliance. Rules vary greatly across different platforms and jurisdictions, and there is a lack of unified standards for cross-border circulation and rights realization.

“Trustworthy identity is the key to scaling digital assets of artworks, establishing clear ownership, and cross-border compliance,” Eugene said. “Without an identity infrastructure, digital assets of artworks are just rootless trees.”

How DID Intervenes in the Artworks Digital Asset Scene

Eugene then introduced the specific approach of the DID Alliance in the field of artworks digital assets. He defined the role of DID as “a pathway connecting people, works, and systems.” The core logic is to establish a verifiable, controllable, and interoperable digital identity system for artists, institutions, collectors, and platforms, while mapping artwork copyrights, membership rights, licensing, and revenue sharing onto the blockchain, forming a transferable and governable digital asset expression.

Technologically, Eugene described a three-layer architecture: the identity mapping layer, based on W3C DID/VC standards, achieves trustworthy mapping between off-chain identities and artwork rights; the privacy protection layer uses zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) and other technologies to realize “data available but invisible”; the compliance verification layer employs programmable identity contracts to automatically verify permissions rules across different platforms and jurisdictions.

At the application level, he emphasized three core capabilities: first, asset ownership verification and identity mapping, binding personal DID with real-name information, creation history, and binding artwork DID with source chain, copyright status, and holding credentials to achieve consistency tracking on and off the chain; second, compliance and permission governance, encoding identity attributes and permission rules into smart contracts to automate access review, transaction limits, and regional restrictions; third, privacy protection and trust minimization, using selective disclosure and secure multi-party computation to protect user sovereignty while reducing compliance costs.

From “On-Chain Assets” to “Operational Assets”

In the latter half of his speech, Eugene shifted his perspective from technology to industry development logic. He believes that digital assets of artworks are undergoing three stages of evolution: the first stage is on-chain artworks, focusing on display, issuance, and trading; the second stage is operational artworks, forming a closed loop around ownership verification, governance, licensing, and revenue sharing; the third stage is DID becoming a universal global identity protocol for digital collaboration of artworks.

He pointed out that DID endows digital assets of artworks not only with a compliance gateway but also with four operational attributes—verifiable, transferable, governable, and accountable. “Author, artwork, source chain, and copyright status can be continuously verified; transaction history is immutable; issuance, licensing, trading, and cross-platform collaboration can be realized 24/7; holders, platforms, and institutions can participate in governance around rules and profit sharing; clear responsibility subjects are traceable, making legal frameworks and dispute resolution easier to align.”

In other words, digital assets of artworks are no longer just static digital certificates but can be dynamically scheduled and collaboratively operated as value units within the global digital economy.

DID Alliance: A Maturing Global Collaboration Network

According to Eugene, the DID Global Digital Identity Alliance was initiated by top funds and industry organizations worldwide, headquartered in Silicon Valley, with regional hubs in Dubai and Kuala Lumpur. Relying on the three core forces of the DID Strategic Development Fund, DID Laboratory, and DID DAO, it aims to build an open digital identity infrastructure.

In terms of standards and compliance, the alliance is deeply aligning with international standards such as eIDAS 2.0, W3C DID, and GDPR, promoting global recognition and compliant circulation of identities. In the scene of artworks digital assets, the alliance can serve creators, institutions, platforms, and collectors worldwide, with the goal of constructing cross-border identity networks covering Asia-Pacific, North America, and the Middle East.

Final Words

This special session at the Hong Kong Web3 Carnival advanced the discussion of DID digital identity and artworks digital assetization to a more concrete level—no longer just debating “whether to put on-chain,” but directly addressing the practical issues of “how to verify ownership after on-chain, how to ensure compliance, and how to facilitate circulation.”

As Eugene concluded his speech: “Decentralization does not mean no identity; the essence of decentralization is the return of identity sovereignty. DID is the global passport for artworks entering the digital world.”

About the DID Global Digital Identity Alliance

The DID Global Digital Identity Alliance was initiated by top funds and industry organizations worldwide, headquartered in Silicon Valley, with regional hubs in Dubai and Kuala Lumpur. It is dedicated to building a trusted, verifiable, and interoperable global universal identity layer for Web3. The alliance connects eIDAS 2.0, W3C DID, ERC-3643, and other international standards through the three core forces of the DID Strategic Development Fund, DID Laboratory, and DID DAO, promoting cross-chain, cross-domain, and cross-judicial jurisdiction free flow of identities, assets, and systems.