ID.me as National Identity Infrastructure

The real bet is that identity proofing shifts from a one time compliance check into a shared rail that many institutions keep reusing. ID.me already sells this way in practice. Agencies and health systems pay to create a verified wallet once, then other organizations can accept that credential for logins, eligibility checks, age gates, and data sharing. That makes the wallet look less like an app and more like a common trust layer that gets stronger as more parties plug in.1 2 3 4

• The product is built around reuse, not just verification. A user completes document, selfie, and liveness checks once, then carries verified attribute cards like age, veteran, student, or nurse status across 20 federal agencies, 45 states, about 70 healthcare organizations, and 600 plus brands.1 2
• The economic model also looks infrastructure like. Government buyers fund wallet creation through per verification contracts, then commercial buyers pay to accept those credentials for discounts, fraud reduction, or gated access. As of August 2025, revenue was estimated at $200M ARR, supported by 409 million authenticated logins in 2024 and 20.4 million new wallets added that year.1 2
• The closest substitutes are OS level wallets from Apple and Google, which are turning phones into native ID containers. But those systems depend on state issuers and device ecosystems, while ID.me is positioned as a neutral layer that can work across agencies, health systems, and merchants. CMS selecting ID.me for Medicare.gov in early 2026 shows institutions still buying that independent trust layer.1 5 6 7

If digital identity keeps moving into regulated workflows, value will concentrate around whoever becomes the default acceptance layer for verified attributes. That points ID.me toward a role closer to payments infrastructure than login software, where each new agency, hospital, or merchant makes the network harder to replace and broadens the set of actions a verified wallet can unlock.1 3 4