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Dominik Beron
Dominik Beron

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Decentralized Identity & Payments β€” Grant Report #2

Project Update

Over the course of this project we conducted technical and market research as well as talked to thought leaders and companies in different industries. What we found is that the payments and financial incentives will not only be a crucial enabler of decentralized and self-sovereign identity, but that (in many cases) they will even be (legally) necessary, such as in the context of applying decentralized identity to AML regulated industries.
In a nutshell, the insights we got from our research show that the proposed project is even more relevant than we initially thought it would be.
Today, we submit our final report to complete our project.

Progress on objectives

While the timeline between different milestones shifted a bit (e.g. we included external experts earlier than anticipated relative to other milestones such as the finalization of the architecture) and the overall deadline was extended, we completed all the milestones as proposed.

  • Project kick-off
  • Onboarding of project staff
  • Research (technical, legal, market)
  • Conceptualized architecture
  • Start compiling / writing the white paper
  • Get external feedback
  • Create and finalize the technical architecture and specifications
  • Finalize and publish two whitepapers

Note that, we extended the scope of the project and published not only one whitepaper, but two whitepapers:
Decentralized Identity and Data Monetization - Explains data monetization approaches for decentralized identity; written for technical and non-technical readers.
Decentralized Identity and Interledger Protocol - Explains how the Interledger Protocol can be combined with SSI (and data exchange protocols like OpenID Connect) to implement peer-to-peer data monetization; written for technical readers.

Key activities

Aligned with the objectives / milestones outlined in the last section we conducted the following activities:

  • Kick-off and onboarding of the project staff (incl. new hires, advisors)
  • We conducted online research as well as talked to individuals (e.g. thought leaders from the identity and payments space, people involved in new regulatory processes like the EU’s new eID and AMLR regulations) and companies (e.g. partners and clients from different industries including banking and financial services). The research approach is quite holistic considering technology (e.g. web monetization / interledger protocol, existing data monetization frameworks, SSI, …) as well as market and legal research (e.g. role of new regulations for data monetization e.g. in the field of anti money laundering/AML)
  • We conceptualized different monetization approaches and (high-level) architectures (incl. protocol design) that could support these approaches.
  • We wrote and published the whitepapers.

In addition, we also have ongoing projects with clients (e.g. open banking) in which we explore different approaches to monetize data (or more concretely the issuance and life cycle management of Verifiable Credentials).

Communications and marketing

Over the coming days/weeks we will publish the white papers via various channels like our website, social media (LinkedIn, Twitter), newsletter among others.

What’s next?

We will continue to work on data monetization and explore different approaches with clients and partners across industries, particularly in banking/financial services and web3/DeFi.

What community support would benefit your project?

None.

Additional comments

None.

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