Walt.id – New Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) tools for the Ocean Ecosystem

OceanDAO Round 12
#1

Part 1 - Proposal Submission (*Mandatory)

Name of Project:

walt.id – New Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) tools for the Ocean Ecosystem.

Proposal in one sentence:

New open source tools for developers that further facilitate the use/integration of Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) with OCEAN projects - aligned with latest developments with Gaia-X.

Description of the project and what problem is it solving: (You can give more details in “proposal details” section farther down.)

With this project we will make it easier to use Self-Sovereign Identity via a variety of tools such as a wallet, Issuer & Verifier Portals, new Credentials types, support for custom data verification policies.

Grant Deliverables: (Target deliverables for the funding provided.)

  • Set-up & publication of custodial, web-based wallet (incl. user interface)
  • Set-up & publication of Issuer & Verifier Portals
  • Definition of VC catalog (data modeling) and implementation of typesafe VCs
  • Definition & implementation of custom verification policies
  • Writing and publication of a technical documentation (via docs.walt.id)

Which category best describes your project? Pick one.

  • X Build / improve applications or integrations to Ocean

What is the final product?

(1-2 paragraphs)

After the integration of the SSI KIT with the OCEAN data marketplace (via the CLI Tool and APIs), we proposed to take the integration of our open source identity infrastructure with OCEAN implementations to the next level:

  1. Wallet integration: Delivery of a custodial wallet (incl. user interface) that enables people to connect to the marketplace.

  2. Issuer & Verifier Portals: Delivery of portals that enable users to

  3. request the issuance of data (Verifiable Credentials) from the OCEAN marketplace into their wallet

  4. present data (Verifiable Presentations) from the wallet to the OCEAN marketplace

  5. Credentials: Definition and implementation of selected Verifiable Credential types, including their publication in our “VC Lib” (library of typesafe credentials), e.g.:

  6. KYC/B Credentials: Identification of individuals and legal entities (Know Your Customer / Business)

  7. Membership Credentials (e.g. Gaia-X)

  8. Data Service Provider Credentials (Provider Description)

  9. Data Service Offering Credentials (Application Description)

  10. Data Consortium / DAO Credentials (Dataspace X, DAO Y)

  11. Data Security Credentials (ISO 27001)

  12. Verification Policies: Definition and implementation of custom verification policies (aligned with the “Credentials”) for customizable and granular access control.

All of these deliverables will be published under the permissive Apache 2 license in our GitHub library: https://github.com/walt-id.

Here are possible “value add” criteria. A question will follow.

  1. Usage of Ocean — how well might the project drive usage of Ocean. Measure with e.g. Data Consume Volume, # assets published, TVL, Network Revenue, # active users, # funded projects.
  2. Viability — what is the chance of success of the project
  3. Community active-ness — how active is the team in the community
  4. Adding value to the overall community — how well does the outcome of the project add value to the Ocean community / ecosystem

**Question on “value add” criteria: which one or more of the criteria will your project focus on? Why do you believe your team will do well on those criteria? **

This project is very much aligned with the value created for the OCEAN ecosystem by our last project, which was to enable the use of Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) for developers within the OCEAN ecosystem.

The main difference is that this project provides tools which facilitate the use of SSI for developers even further (custodial wallet for consumers, issuer and verifier portals for OCEAN implementations, typesafe credentials for OCEAN use cases) as well as enable more potent functionality (custom verification policies).

(For more details see our last application.)

Considering that this project is an extension of the last project, its ROI can be measured with the same metrics:

  • SSI and VC integration are essential requirements in Gaia-X. Our integration will strengthen Ocean Protocol within the Gaia-X architecture.
  • SSI and VC integration will drive adoption of Ocean Protocol for enterprises and organizations.
  • Open source software and the (hosted) SSI Kit will enable new projects to build on top of OCEAN.

With the above-mentioned metrics and evaluations our ROI calculation is as follows:

  • Bang - Traction within the Gaia-X AISBL and its members: We expect two additional third-party portals (Ocean Market implementations) to be developed because of our solution.
  • Buck - 10,000 USD requested
  • Chance of success - 75%

Expected ROI = bang / buck * (% chance of success)

We assume that these features will help with regulatory clarity. As policy makers are very interested in the identities of users this proposal is an important next step towards regulatory compliance. It will support the Ocean Protocol stack in the long run. Eventually this leads to more enterprises engaging and running their custom markets. Let’s further assume we can win 50 new publishers next year and each of these publishers leads to a TVL of 30,000 $Ocean over a year. This results in 1,500,000 $Ocean. This does not even consider the network revenue that is generated by trade volume.

Expected ROI = 1,500,000 USD / 10,000 USD * 0.75 = 112,5

Funding Requested: (Amount of USD your team is requesting - see the available funding levels here)

10.000 (ten thousand)

Proposal Wallet Address: (must have minimum 500 OCEAN in wallet to be eligible. This wallet is where you will receive the grant amount if selected).

0xa4c6c2013810661a6750443aEF86cFeAc983e07f

Have you previously received an OceanDAO Grant? If yes, please specify what round(s) and how much was granted each round.

Y (Round 10)

Team Website (if applicable):

Twitter Handle (if applicable):

@walt_id

Project lead email:

dominik@walt.id

Country of Residence:

Austria

Part 2 - Team

IMPORTANT: See Criterion (4). One Project/One proposal on communicating “Core Team” versus “Advisor”. You may be ineligible if not correctly updated.

2.1 Core Team

For each team member, give their name, role and background. An example is below.

Dominik Beron

Role: CEO

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominikberon

Email: dominik@walt.id

Background: Serial entrepreneur with business and legal backgrounds.

Identity expert to the EU Commission and co-author of new EU identity standards (EBSI, ESSIF).

Philipp Potisk

Role: CTO

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philipp-potisk

GitHub: https://github.com/philpotisk

Email: phil@walt.id

Background: Serial entrepreneur and experienced technical leader.

Over 15 years of experience in security and identity including biometric passports.

Severin Stampler

Role: Chief Architect & Engineer | Technical leader and developer.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/severin-stampler-714605140

GitHub: https://github.com/severinstampler

Email: severin@walt.id

Background: Over 15 years of experience in computer science, software design and development (security, big data, AI/ML, …).

2.2 Advisors

For each Advisor, give their name, role and background. Use the same format as in “Core Team”.

deltaDAO AG

Website: https://delta-dao.com

LinkedIn: https://de.linkedin.com/company/deltadao

GitHub: https://github.com/deltaDAO

deltaDAO AG will assist with onboarding into the Ocean and Gaia-X communities as well as any questions regarding the Ocean Tech Stack. deltaDAO AG will not receive any of the fundings raised within this proposal.

Part 3 - Proposal Details (*Recommended)

3.1 Details

Details of the proposal:

3.2 If in Category “Build / improve applications or integration to Ocean”:

Is the software open-source?

Y

**If open-source, please specify the license. If no, please specify why not open-source. **

Apache 2

Project software can be found at:

3.7 If the project includes software:

Are there any mockups or designs to date? If yes, please share details / links.

N

**Please given an overview of the technology stack. **

For details on the technology stack, please consult our knowledge base and documentation: https://docs.walt.id/

3.9 Project Deliverables - Roadmap

Any prior work completed thus far? Details?

Yes. See deliverables of our last proposal (Round 10)

What is the project roadmap? That is: what are key milestones, and the target date for each milestone. Please make sure that one milestone is about publishing your results, e.g. as a medium blog post.

12/2021:

  • Set-up & publication of Issuer & Verifier Portals

01/2022:

  • Set-up & publication of custodial, web-based wallet (incl. user interface)
  • Definition of VC catalog (data modeling) and implementation of typesafe VCs
  • Definition & implementation of custom verification policies
  • Writing and publication of the results via our technical documentation (via docs.walt.id)

What is the team’s future plans and intentions? Is there maintenance? Possible extensions to the work?

This project extends our core open source product: the SSI Kit. The product is already used by governments across Europe and businesses across industries. Also, we are constantly growing our developer community. Consequently, we will continue to maintain our open source software / libs and continue to add features as well as new products.

1 Like
#2

Is there a pull request for the Ocean Protocol marketplace to include your additions created in the last proposal?
It was mentioned by the founder of Ocean Protocol here that a proper integration into the Ocean tech stack is important.
Did you take that into consideration?

I can’t see any deliverable about the inclusion of the tech proposed here or in the last proposal into the Ocean Protocol tech stack, which would make it usable for the OceanDAO ecosystem.

#3

Hi @Robin, the results have been demonstrated in the DAO townhall today, the last DAO townhall and during the Gaia-X hackathon. I think you missed these presentations and have a valid point, the documentation links and repos should be placed here (walt team will add this).

The tutorial and repos can be found here:

You will find, following the tutorials and repos, that the SSI Kit now includes the necessary templates to imclude ETH addresses as part of VCs/VPs for service providers and data service offerings which is mandatory on the way towards Gaia-X Trust & Identity compliance, see Gaia-X Publications (Architecture Document 21.09., Labels and Gaia-X Federation Services).

On top of the SSI Kit which is now widely used in the Gaia-X Builder community, thanks to OceanDAO, API integration into the Ocean Portals has now been enabled, as you can see here https://portal.minimal-gaia-x.eu/asset/did:op:b9D7177e3726c728B8C608201737E04164b7f3f0

Credentials, the cornerstone of Trust & Identity can now be verified in real-time, by any participant in a truly decentralized way, which has not been possible before.

You can learn all about the Federation Service with regard to the MVG Demonstrator here: Minimal Viable Gaia-X - SSI - YouTube

The overall impact is: This makes Ocean Protocol Portals Gaia-X ready, increases trust and compliance and is 100% open-sourced under Apache 2 and everybody can run it fully decentralized. This explains why this is important: https://gataca.io/blog/ssi-essentials-everything-you-need-to-know-about-decentralized-identity & Introduction | walt.id Docs .

There are more and even deeper integrations coming, if funded, that will drive Ocean Protocol adoption even more, until we finally integrate into access control. But first things first.

“SSI can provide this sector with a layer of trust for users, providers, and regulators in the form of eKYC for crypto/ICOs and instant, compliant, and secure onboarding into crypto/DeFi platforms, without compromising its decentralization principles.” … exactly this is happening here and it is of vital importance.

#4

Hi @kaimeinke,

no, I saw the presentations - but what you are posting here is something that benefits Gaia-X a multi-million Euro project and the software that deltaDAO is building for that project.

The benefit for the larger Ocean Protocol ecosystem are not clear to me. Everyone except deltaDAO is using Ocean Protocol’s marketplace on GitHub. So it seems to me that this is a proposal to save either deltaDAO or Gaia-X money in their budget but does not benefit the “normal” participants of the Ocean Protocol ecosystem.

If there would be a pull request into the Ocean Protocol marketplace to enable this SSI solution in it, then it would benefit the larger ecosystem. As it is right now I don’t see that.

#5

Hi Robin,

in a collaborative game with many stakeholders and open-source communities it does not really matter “where” a codebase is located imho. What matters is if it is “ready”, “available”, “used” and by whom it is used. This is what it takes to achieve global and enterprise adoption. And helping each other out and growing a common software stack that is interoperable is the long-term game. This is not about silos and “I am better than you” … this is all about cooperation and common vision and goals.

Community members now state publicly that Ocean Protocol and walt are now leaders among in the Identity & Trust domain, a domain that has formerly not associated with the software stack from the perspective of enterprises. We deliver what the market wants, product to market fit, with each iteration and delivery. While this might not be the path for everyonem we think that decentralized identities and the SSI/VC stack can’t be missed if you want to be relevant on global scale. In fact, it is mandatory.

This project contributes a lot to this and we hope that many more open source solutions and communities join to achieve interoperability with the Ocean Protocol stack. This is what makes a solution stronger.

Best
Kai

#6

Its nice to see that walt.id is providing open source solutions which can help other community members benefit from your expertise. We look forward to test your web-based wallet module.

2 Likes
#7

Hi there,

For transparency, starting R12, all proposals will have to be funded within 2 weeks of winning a grant.

The funding deadline is December 27th 23:59 GMT.

You can read our wiki and how to submit a funding request to learn more.

#8

Deliverable Checklist

Build / improve applications or integrations to Ocean

[X] Set-up & publication of custodial, web-based wallet (incl. user interface)
[X] Set-up & publication of Issuer & Verifier Portals
[X] Definition of VC catalog (data modeling) and implementation of typesafe VCs
[X] Definition & implementation of custom verification policies
[X] Writing and publication of a technical documentation (via docs.walt.id)

In more detail:

[X] Wallet integration: Delivery of a custodial wallet (incl. user interface) that enables people to connect to the marketplace.
[X] Issuer & Verifier Portals: Delivery of portals that enable users to request the issuance of data (Verifiable Credentials) from the OCEAN marketplace into their wallet present data (Verifiable Presentations) from the wallet to the OCEAN marketplace
[X] Credentials: Definition and implementation of selected Verifiable Credential types, including their publication in our “VC Lib” (library of typesafe credentials), e.g.:

  • KYC/B Credentials: Identification of individuals and legal entities (Know Your Customer / Business) including
  • Membership Credentials (e.g. Gaia-X)
  • Data Service Provider Credentials (Provider Description)
  • Data Service Offering Credentials (Application Description)
  • Data Consortium / DAO Credentials (Dataspace X, DAO Y)
  • Data Security Credentials (ISO 27001)
    [X] Verification Policies: Definition and implementation of custom verification policies (aligned with the “Credentials”) for customizable and granular access control.

All of these deliverables are published under the permissive Apache 2 license in our GitHub library: https://github.com/walt-id. The implementations with GaiaX specific extensions can be found in this GitHub library: https://github.com/gaiax-waltid/gaiax-portal. You can find more information in our public documentation as well as this additional documentation we prepared specifically for this project https://github.com/gaiax-waltid/gaiax-waltid-docs. Also, a demo and elaboration video about the integration can be found here: https://youtu.be/kXsUhzFIksU

Outreach / community / spread awareness

[X] Blog Post / Case Study about our efforts for Ocean DAO and GaiaX with DeltaDAO
[X] Calls with members of the Gaia-X Community

2 Likes
#9

Hey @walt_id,

awesome work! SSI is such an important tool for the Ocean Ecosystem. Thank you for working on a solution for it.

Could you point me to the pull request for the OCEAN marketplace (https://github.com/oceanprotocol/market) where this is completed and merged into the code?

Thanks!

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#10

Good point @Robin , I guess we should improve the docs regarding the integration of the SSI stack. As a matter of fact the credential Issuer and Verifier are deployed as backend-service and do not require a tight integration in the portal-code. The API can be found here https://gaiax-portal.walt.id/api/swagge , but can be easily deployed via Docker/Kubernetes elsewhere.

The JavaScript integration-code is published here https://github.com/gaiax-waltid/gaiax-portal. It shows how to connect any portal/marketplace to the SSI components.

1 Like
#11

I found this one here which is where the SSI verification is merged into the MVG portal by deltaDAO:

deltaDAO uses a fork of the Ocean marketplace, so that would be the closest to what you were looking for.

1 Like
#12

Hi @walt_id, I have updated Airtable with your Grant Deliverables and your proposal is now in a Complete State. All the best in R14!

2 Likes
#13

There is no pull request right now as the software is maintained in another repository and will be developed further. The full integration in the core stack is a larger decision, right now infrastructure options are added and they are optional. Further Documentation and adding all the repos here should be enough for now. Once deeply integrated and in line with evolving eIDAS and Gaia-X specs the Ocean team can decide to add the forked repositories, but it would be too early to do so. Ocean code needs to be production ready and we still got one-two more steps to do to achieve smart contract level interaction to be able to be considered core tech here.

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