Right to Transact Lens

Can You Participate Without Platform or Government Permission?

1. Territory / Focus Summary

Core Insight: Digital identity participation is a constitutional and human rights issue, not merely a technical or commercial question. Freedom of assembly (First Amendment US, Universal Declaration Article 20) extends to digital identity ecosystems—the right to peaceful assembly includes forming credential networks, issuing community attestations, and participating in peer verification. Freedom of association protects forming groups and credentialing organizations without permission. Anti-discrimination protections prevent exclusion based on protected characteristics or lawful associations. And a right to transact enables peers to exchange value or credentials without requiring intermediary approval—much like cash transactions that do not depend on bank permission. These are not new entitlements, but established constitutional and human-rights principles applied to digital identity participation.

Participation in digital identity should not be a platform privilege or a commercial offering—it is an extension of constitutional freedoms of assembly and association.

Three categories of interference historically have threatened these participation rights:

Platform blocking—wallet bans, verification-network exclusion, and credential-type censorship by private intermediaries;
Government restrictions—mandatory centralized ID, prohibitions on peer-to-peer credential exchange, and licensing requirements only large institutions can meet;
Economic exclusion through infrastructure control—network effects creating de facto mandatory platforms where “choice” is technically voluntary but practically coerced.

These categories often overlap in practice—many states combine platform mandates, identity-bound payment systems, and infrastructure controls into a single integrated regime—but the underlying forms of interference remain consistent.

This is a global issue, not a localized one. States around the world employ identity-bound payment systems, centralized real-name financial infrastructure, blacklist-driven account freezes, and category- or location-based spending limits to shape or restrict participation in economic and civic life. These mechanisms are frequently deployed in response to political dissent, cross-border activity, minority status, or affiliation with disfavored groups. Taken together, they demonstrate that transactional gatekeeping is a widespread governance tactic rather than an isolated aberration.

A related global trend is the move toward cashless economies. When cash is restricted or eliminated—as seen in countries that have rapidly shifted to digital-only payments—individuals lose the last universally accessible, permissionless transaction channel. Sweden’s experience illustrates the risks: older adults, rural communities, migrants, and people with limited digital access faced exclusion; small businesses lost autonomy over how to transact; and emergency resilience weakened when digital systems went down. Removing cash effectively converts every transaction into an identity-bound, intermediary-mediated event, magnifying the participation risks described above.

This lens does not claim that transactional rights are absolute. Legitimate regulatory interests—such as preventing fraud, money laundering, or harm to others—remain essential in every jurisdiction. The concern addressed here is not the existence of regulation, but the use of transactional gatekeeping as a tool of exclusion, discrimination, or compelled platform dependence. Protecting the ability to participate does not eliminate the need for oversight; rather, it ensures that oversight is applied narrowly, proportionately, and without transforming intermediaries into de facto identity gatekeepers.

Example – Operation Choke Point 2.0: U.S. regulators pressured banks to treat legal cryptocurrency businesses as “risky.” Banks, seeking to avoid scrutiny, closed accounts without due process or appeal. Pattern: regulators pressure intermediaries → intermediaries over-comply → individuals and businesses are excluded with no recourse. SSI faces the same risk: wallet providers could exclude “risky” users (activists, journalists, politically disfavored groups) under regulatory or reputational pressure. When a wallet provider bans a user, the user loses all credentials stored there—not just a service, but their operational digital identity. When a wallet becomes the primary interface to identity, the power to exclude becomes the power to erase. Network effects make alternatives impractical. De-platforming from a dominant wallet or verification network becomes economic exclusion without constitutional protection.

If you can be prevented from participating, none of the other SSI principles matter. This lens asserts participation rights to prevent that outcome.

2. Relationship to Other Lenses

This lens addresses a threshold question—can individuals and communities participate at all?—before any duties, commitments, or governance structures become relevant.

Principal Authority: Addresses duties WHEN you delegate. This lens asks prior question: Can you participate in credential systems without being blocked? Participation rights must exist before delegation duties matter—can’t delegate if excluded from participating.
Binding Commitments: Addresses credible commitments enabling trust. This lens asks: Can you join commitment systems (chamas, mutual aid networks) without needing permission? Freedom of association protects forming commitment groups; right to transact enables peer exchange within groups.
Multi-Scalar Sovereignty: Addresses sovereignty at multiple scales. This lens provides constitutional grounding: freedom of assembly/association protect forming groups at any scale without permission.
Relational Autonomy: Provides relationship-aware architecture for community credentials. This lens establishes constitutional right to form communities and issue credentials without permission; Relational Autonomy provides technical mechanisms (bilateral consent, edge identifiers, community attestations) enabling those community credentials. Example: Freedom of association protects forming chamas, but without relationship primitives, chamas can’t issue membership credentials proving trustworthiness. Together: participation rights (this lens) + relationship architecture (Relational Autonomy) = community credential issuance becomes technically and legally viable.

Together: This lens establishes you CAN participate (rights), Principal Authority establishes duties WHEN you delegate, Binding Commitments enables productive constraint AFTER joining, Multi-Scalar Sovereignty addresses power AT all scales.

Across all lenses, participation is the prerequisite; without it, delegation, commitments, and governance lose meaning.

3. Why This Lens Matters for SSI

Section 1 describes the constitutional and structural foundations of participation. This section expands on the concrete risks that arise when those foundations are absent.

A note of caution is warranted: arguments for a “right to transact” are sometimes framed in overly absolute terms, suggesting a freedom that would preclude all forms of oversight. That is not the claim of this lens. Legitimate regulatory interests—such as preventing fraud, money laundering, or harm to others—remain essential. The concern here is not regulation itself, but when transactional controls become tools of exclusion, discrimination, or coerced platform dependence. Participation rights set limits on how far such controls may reach without undermining other fundamental freedoms.

Platform exclusion mechanisms: Wallet providers ban users based on political viewpoint, associations, or “risky” behavior regardless of legality. Verification networks refuse community-issued credentials lacking institutional backing. De-platforming eliminates economic participation—lose wallet, lose credentials, lose livelihood. Network effects make alternatives impractical even when technically available. Technical decentralization alone does not guarantee participation rights. Even in “decentralized” architectures, dominant wallet apps or verification hubs can function as gatekeepers, turning optional participation into economic necessity through network effects. A system can be technically decentralized yet practically centralized by market concentration.

Government restrictions: Mandatory centralized ID eliminates peer alternatives, making state sole identity arbiter. Prohibition of peer-to-peer credential exchange forces transactions through approved intermediaries subject to surveillance. Licensing requirements for credential issuers only large institutions can meet exclude chamas, mutual aid networks, grassroots organizations. Banning certain credential types (political affiliations, union membership) directly violates freedom of assembly.

Economic coercion through infrastructure: Single platform ecosystems with network effects force “join or be excluded”—technically voluntary but practically coerced. Dominant platforms achieve critical mass making their system de facto requirement for economic participation.

4. Key Harms, Risks, or Questions

Chilling effects on association and participation: When credentials are traceable or visibility is mandatory, lawful associations become risky. Workers avoid joining unions, activists avoid protests, and vulnerable individuals avoid mutual aid groups—not because participation is illegal, but because surveillance makes association punishable in practice. Exclusion arises not only from bans, but from systems that make participation unsafe.
De-platforming from digital economy: Wallet provider bans user, user loses all credentials—not just service but entire digital identity. Major verifiers refusing community-issued credentials marginalizes non-institutional identity, privileging banks/corporations over grassroots organizations. Network effects creating single dominant ecosystem force “join or be excluded.”
Government identity monopolies: Eliminates peer alternatives, makes state sole identity arbiter. China’s social credit system demonstrates: government controls economy access through ID, behavior tracking determines participation rights, no alternatives exist, no exit possible. Pattern SSI could replicate if governments mandate single system with surveillance built in.
Payment network blocking: Payment networks blocking SSI transactions makes participation contingent on platform permission, violating peer-to-peer transaction rights. Financial de-platforming pattern (Operation Choke Point 2.0) could exclude “risky” SSI users.
Licensing requirements excluding community issuers: Requirements only large institutions can meet exclude chamas, mutual aid networks, community trust systems. Privileges institutional credentials over grassroots verification.
Network effect monopolies: Technically decentralized but market concentration creates gatekeepers. Dominant wallet/verification networks achieve critical mass, alternatives become impractical. “Voluntary” participation coerced by necessity.
Credential type censorship: Platforms refusing certain credential types—political affiliations, union membership, particular associations—violates freedom of assembly. Surveillance mandates requiring all credentials traceable to “real identity” eliminate privacy-preserving credentials, chill participation in sensitive associations.

5. Constructive Directions

These constructive directions respond directly to the three categories of interference outlined in Section 1, aiming to preserve participation without undermining legitimate regulatory aims.

These aren’t comprehensive solutions—they’re provocations for exploration:

Constitutional Protection for Digital Assembly: Freedom of assembly extends to digital identity ecosystems. Forming credential networks, issuing community attestations, participating in peer verification are protected activities. Platforms cannot exclude based on viewpoint, associations, or participation in lawful groups.
Peer-to-Peer Transaction Rights: Like cash transactions that don’t need bank permission, credential exchange occurs peer-to-peer without intermediary approval. No platform can block legitimate credential presentation/verification between consenting parties.
Multiple Independent Paths to Participation: Access requires more than theoretical permissionlessness. Individuals must have multiple independent ways to participate—self-hosted wallets, community-run verifiers, peer-to-peer protocols, and alternative credential issuers—so that no single platform becomes a chokepoint.
Anti-Discrimination for Community Issuers: Verifiers cannot refuse credentials solely because issuer is community-based rather than institutional. Chamas, mutual aid networks, grassroots organizations have equal standing with banks and corporations.

6. How This Lens Might Inform the 2026 SSI Principles

Participation rights form the baseline principle upon which all other SSI rights and duties depend.

Core Principle Proposal:

Digital identity participation is constitutional right, not platform privilege. Freedom of assembly and association extend to credential ecosystems—individuals and communities can form networks, issue attestations, and participate in peer verification without platform or government permission. No platform can exclude based on viewpoint, lawful associations, or community membership. No government can mandate centralized systems eliminating peer alternatives or prohibit peer-to-peer credential exchange. Right to transact enables exchanging credentials peer-to-peer without requiring intermediary approval. Community issuers (chamas, mutual aid networks, grassroots organizations) have equal standing with institutional issuers. Network effects cannot transform technically voluntary systems into de facto mandatory platforms requiring participation for economic survival.

Rationale: Operation Choke Point 2.0 demonstrates financial de-platforming pattern: regulatory pressure → intermediary compliance → individual exclusion without recourse. SSI faces identical risk if wallet providers/verification networks can exclude “risky” users. Freedom of assembly (First Amendment US, Universal Declaration Article 20) protects forming credential networks. Freedom of association protects forming groups without permission. Right to transact (established in cryptocurrency/cash transaction contexts) enables peer exchange without intermediary approval. Constitutional protections prevent platform/government gatekeeping.

Integration: Works with [Principal Authority(..principal-authority/) (establishes duties WHEN you delegate), Binding Commitments (enables productive constraint AFTER joining), Multi-Scalar Sovereignty (addresses sovereignty AT all scales). Together: participation rights (this lens) + delegation duties + productive commitments + multi-scalar governance = comprehensive framework.

7. Selected Resources

The Reality Behind the Crypto Banking Crackdown: ‘Operation Choke Point 2.0’ Is Here (2023). [article]. Carter, Nic. CoinDesk. Retrieved 2023-03-22 from: https://www.coindesk.com/opinion/2023/03/22/the-reality-behind-the-crypto-banking-crackdown-operation-choke-point-20-is-here.

SHORT ABSTRACT: Nic Carter documents the systematic de-banking of cryptocurrency companies through coordinated regulatory pressure on financial institutions. Federal regulators pressured banks to “pause” crypto-related activities, leading to widespread denial of banking services to legal businesses. The pattern mirrors the original Operation Choke Point targeting legal industries through intermediary pressure. Evidence later confirmed through FDIC letters obtained via FOIA requests, with Paul Grewal (Coinbase CLO) characterizing it as “not just some crypto conspiracy theory.”

WHY THIS MATTERS: Documents the de-platforming pattern—regulators pressure intermediaries → intermediaries over-comply → legal users excluded without recourse. Warning for SSI: wallet providers could exclude “risky” users (activists, journalists, politically disfavored) through similar mechanisms.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). [treaty]. United Nations General Assembly. Resolution 217 A (III), adopted December 10, 1948, Paris. Retrieved 2025-11-27 from: https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights. PDF: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/eng.pdf.

SHORT ABSTRACT: The UDHR, adopted by UN General Assembly in 1948, establishes that all human beings are “born free and equal in dignity and rights” (Article 1). Its 30 articles enumerate fundamental rights including life, liberty, security, equality before law, privacy, freedom of thought and expression, and economic participation. Dignity precedes rights as the foundation—humans possess rights precisely because each has intrinsic worth. Translated into 562+ languages; inspired 70+ human rights treaties.

WHY THIS MATTERS: Article 20 (freedom of peaceful assembly and association) grounds digital identity participation rights internationally. Forming credential networks, issuing community attestations, and participating in peer verification are protected assembly/association activities—not privileges platforms or governments may revoke at will.
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010). [case]. Supreme Court of the United States. Decided January 21, 2010. Opinion by Justice Kennedy. Retrieved 2025-11-27 from: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/558/310/. Cornell: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-205.ZS.html.

SHORT ABSTRACT: In Citizens United, the Supreme Court struck down BCRA provisions banning corporate independent expenditures as unconstitutional restrictions on political speech. Justice Kennedy’s majority held that First Amendment protections don’t diminish when speakers organize as corporations, and government cannot discriminate among speaker classes. The ruling overturned Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, enabling unlimited corporate and union election spending and paving the way for super PACs.

WHY THIS MATTERS: Establishes that freedom of association protects forming organizations and participating in collective activities without government permission. For SSI: forming chamas, mutual aid networks, and grassroots credentialing organizations are protected activities. Government cannot mandate centralized ID that eliminates peer alternatives without implicating association rights.
Crypto’s “Freedom to Transact” May Actually Threaten Human Rights (2022). [article]. Renieris, Elizabeth M. Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), March 15, 2022. Retrieved 2025-11-27 from: https://www.cigionline.org/articles/cryptos-freedom-to-transact-may-actually-threaten-human-rights/.

SHORT ABSTRACT: Renieris challenges crypto advocates’ claims that “freedom to transact” is a fundamental right. Writing after the Canadian truckers’ protest and Russia sanctions debates, she notes this freedom appears in no binding human rights treaty or national constitution. She argues crypto-libertarian “transactional absolutism” prioritizing negative freedom over collective interests mirrors distorted free speech absolutism, undermining society’s ability to respond to crises and thereby endangering all other rights.

WHY THIS MATTERS: Essential counterpoint—this lens does NOT claim an absolute “right to transact” that precludes all oversight. Renieris’s critique distinguishes proportionate regulation from exclusionary gatekeeping, reinforcing this lens’s focus: preventing transactional controls from being weaponized to restrict participation, not precluding all regulation.

8. Open Questions & Questions for the Broader Community

Open Questions

Essential Infrastructure Test: When does a wallet, verification network, or credential system become “essential infrastructure” triggering heightened participation protections? Is market share sufficient (80%? 50%?), or must we assess switching costs, network effects, and availability of genuine alternatives?
Legitimate Restrictions Framework: Where is the line between legitimate regulatory oversight (preventing fraud, money laundering, protecting minors) and exclusionary gatekeeping that violates participation rights? What procedural safeguards—due process, appeal rights, proportionality review—should constrain restrictions?

Questions for the Broader Community

Community Issuer Standards: What standards should community credential issuers (chamas, mutual aid networks, grassroots organizations) meet to achieve standing equal to institutional issuers? How do we avoid recreating hierarchical certification systems while ensuring verifiers can assess community issuer legitimacy?
Platform Accountability Mechanisms: What accountability structures should apply when wallet providers or verification networks exclude users? Should there be mandatory appeal processes, independent oversight, transparency requirements, or penalties for discriminatory exclusion?
International Framework Variation: Participation rights frameworks differ across jurisdictions—constitutional protections vary, regulatory approaches diverge, cultural expectations about state vs. market roles differ. Can we develop internationally applicable SSI participation principles, or must frameworks be jurisdiction-specific?