Cardano and GLEIF vLEI identity network

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Lance Byrd

[GENERAL] Are you delivering this project as an individual or as an entity (whether formally incorporated or not)

Entity (Incorporated)

[GENERAL] Co-proposers and additional applicants

Alexandre Kech

CEO - GLEIF

Alexandre Kech was appointed by the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) Board of Directors as the CEO of GLEIF, effective June 26, 2024.

Prior to joining GLEIF, Alexandre Kech was Head Digital Securities at the SIX Digital Exchange. As a member of the Executive Board, Alex had full executive responsibility for the Digital Securities business vertical, including relationship management, product and blockchain-based service development, as well as ecosystem expansion.

Karla McKenna

Managing Director GLEIF Americas

Head of Standards - GLEIF

Karla McKenna has pioneered several ISO standards, including ISO 17442 which defines the LEI and which recently added support for the vLEI. She has shepherded the LEI towards 2.5M active LEIs and the vLEI identity network from concept to production in 2022. Her leadership is driving adoption of the vLEI across several GLEIF vLEI customer use-cases. Her background in regulatory requirements in the finance industry has prepared the vLEI to support organizational identity in several regulated industries including; banking, supply-chain, and beyond.

[GENERAL] Please specify how many months you expect your project to last (from 2-12 months)

6

[GENERAL] Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated into English from another language

No

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem (200-character limit including spaces)

GLEIF and RootsID will connect the Cardano/KERI ecosystem with the GLEIF vLEI identity network by growing the open source web/mobile/api-service offerings created by the Cardano Foundation and RootsID

[GENERAL] Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?

No

[GENERAL] If YES, please describe what the dependency is and why you believe it is essential for your project’s delivery. If NO, please write “No dependencies.”

No dependencies

[GENERAL] Will your project’s output/s be fully open source?

Yes

[GENERAL] Please provide here more information on the open source status of your project outputs

All software built in this proposal will be open source. We will be contributing to the Cardano/KERI ecosystem by providing GLEIF vLEI integrations to several existing open source projects including:

• The Cardano Foundation identity wallet
• The GLEIF vLEI verifier service
• The GLEIF regulatory pilot testing tools
• The WebOfTrust suite of KERI related repos including the Secure KERI Browser Extension

We will also implement the first on-chain Cardano/KERI validator script (smart contract) in support of vLEI identifiers.

[METADATA] Horizons

Identity & Verification

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution

GLEIF and RootsID will connect the Cardano/KERI ecosystem with the GLEIF vLEI identity network by expanding the web, mobile, and api-services already offered by the Cardano Foundation and RootsID as well as those offered by GLEIF for the vLEI. We will also introduce the first ever Cardano/KERI validation script (smart contract) to begin the integration with KERI identifiers. This validation script provides support for future verification of GLEIF vLEI identifiers on-chain.

We will do this by demonstrating the new Cardano/KERI integrations, to both communities. Specifically we will augment the existing GLEIF regulatory pilot test app. The integration demonstration is an end-to-end demonstration. It will show the integration of Cardano/KERI mobile, web, api-services, and the first ever Cardano/KERI validator script (smart contract). Because it is open source, the Cardano community will be able to see the integration code, documentation, and run the demonstration on their own. This will act as a spring-board for businesses and developers who are looking to reach customers who need/require secure identity solutions that are paired with a global identity network in finance, supply-chain, land rights, and more.

During the demonstration the user will see:

• How to connect to their vLEI agent; on the web with a secure browser extension, and on mobile from the Cardano Foundation KERI identity app.
• How to Login with their vLEI to a web portal
• How to submit a test regulatory filing, that has been digitally signed by their vLEI identifier keys
• How to delegate their off-chain vLEI identifier, to an on-chain vLEI identifier
• How to validate the key state events for the on-chain vLEI identifier, using the first ever KERI validator script (smart contract)

This integration and corresponding demonstration addresses the need for Cardano projects to have a globally recognized, portable, and secure identity network. Cardano needs this identity network to expand its total addressable market to legacy and regulated industry like finance, supply chain, land rights, etc

GLEIF is an exceptionally well-recognized leader in the global organizational identity industry supporting over 2.5M active LEIs (Legal Entity Identifiers) used by banks, corporations, and other organizations across the globe. GLEIF is super-charging this identity network with a stack of cryptographically verifiable protocols and software that serves our customers needs of cross-border, cross-platform, and cross-chain global identity.

Through this integration GLEIF and RootsID will market the exceptional properties of the Cardano blockchain in support of the GLEIF vLEI identity network. Namely, Cardano is a leading blockchain providing:

• Security
• Decentralization
• Reliability
• Distributed Consensus
• Auditability
• Timestamping
• Transparency
• Immutability
• Governance
• Programmability

Cardano Foundation and RootsID have already established a growing Cardano/KERI identity ecosystem. That previous work has paved the way for the GLEIF vLEI identity network on Cardano.

[IMPACT] Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community

This proposal will make Cardano the first 4th Generation global blockchain, namely a blockchain capable of providing solutions that require a fully global and portable identity network by using the GLEIF vLEI identity network. This work will fuel the fly-wheels of innovation and ignite a premium R&D project that benefits Cardano users with a global identity network that expands the Cardano total addressable market, into legacy and regulated industries.

Cardano and GLEIF, through development by RootsID, are building on the pre-existing Cardano/KERI ecosystem, which is now ready to take the next step to anchor vLEI identities on Cardano. This opportunity is made possible by:

• The impressive Cardano community which has established Cardano as a front-runner blockchain to support the GLEIF vLEI.
• GLEIF and the vLEI industry partners who continue to invest in a portable and open source vLEI software ecosystem that can scale on the web and utilize established blockchains.
• RootsID who has delivered on several Catalyst funded proposals to establish the Cardano/KERI ecosystem.
• Cardano Foundation has contributed several open source projects to establish the Cardano/KERI ecosystem.

Through this work, the Cardano community and the GLEIF vLEI will both expand their their total addressable market:

• Cardano expanding it's total addressable market into regulated industries which requires a secure and standard identity network in order to support finance, supply chain, property rights, and more.
• GLEIF vLEI expanding it's total addressable market to take advantage of its cross-chain design. The GLEIF vLEI community needs decentralized utilities, services, and apps to provide to customers, regulators, corporations, vendors. This is necessary in order to expand the globally accessible ecosystem across a variety of platforms and use cases.

It is also important to note that both communities are filled with first-principled software developers who develop applications that rely on security, cryptography, decentralization, portability, scalability, reliability, and more to provide real-world solutions that will stand the test of time.

Our core metric is the ability to market the Cardano/KERI ecosystem as a bridge between the GLEIF vLEI identity network and the Cardano blockchain. We will do this by demonstrating the new Cardano/KERI integrations, to the community, by augmenting the existing GLEIF vLEI regulatory pilot test app. The integration demonstration is end-to-end, demonstrating support using mobile, web, and api-services as well as the first ever Cardano/KERI smart contract. Because it is open source, the Cardano community will be able to see the integration code, documentation, and demonstration. This provides a spring-board for businesses and developers who are looking to reach customers who need/require secure identity solutions that are paired with a global identity network in finance, supply-chain, land rights, and more.

[CAPABILITY & FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

We believe our success is highly realistic.

Cardano Foundation and RootsID have already established a growing open source Cardano/KERI identity ecosystem. This work has provide the perfect opportunity to introduce the GLEIF vLEI identity network to Cardano.

Most of the technical work is made of contributions to pre-existing open source repositories. We don't have to start the momentum, instead we can focus this R&D on the optimal way to anchor vLEI identities on-chain and on prioritizing the work to best continue the momentum of both the Cardano/KERI ecosystem and the GLEIF vLEI ecosystem for this partnership.

The demonstration will also utilize the pre-existing GLEIF vLEI regulatory pilot test app. This will show the work in action by performing a real regulatory use-case. It is an excellent way to show businesses and developers how to augment existing web 2.0 apps with Cardano/KERI web, mobile, and api-services, to provide a complete global identity solution, supported by Cardano, for their customers.

We will also develop the first ever Cardano/KERI validator script (smart contract) will perform a simple validation of KEL events based on their schema, to support on-chain GLEIF vLEI delegated identifiers. We have planned this work based on feedback from Cardano/KERI developers and believe the implementation is a predictable step toward identity based validator scripts (smart contracts).

All software built in this proposal will be open source. RootsID will be contributing to the Cardano/KERI ecosystem and GLEIF vLEI integrations that it has been helping build for years. The existing open source projects include:

• The Cardano Foundation identity wallet
• The GLEIF vLEI verifier service
• The GLEIF regulatory pilot testing tools
• The WebOfTrust suite of KERI related repos including the Secure KERI Browser Extension

We are also confident that this integration will make marketing the solution to Cardano and vLEI customers far easier. We will be able to compliment our verbal and visual descriptions, with hands-on demonstration.

[PROJECT MILESTONES] What are the key milestones you need to achieve in order to complete your project successfully?

Planning, architecture and design documents for the new features and integrations.

Milestone Outputs:

In this first milestone we will produce and deliver the following:

1. The architecture design of the end-to-end regulatory demo.
2. UI: we will provide a technical design of the UI components as it should be developed. It will include a list of features and functionalities that the UI will provide.
3. Flow of operation: we will provide a document and diagram on how users interact with the Cardano enabled KERI secure browser extension.
4. Project planning and task allocation: based on items 1 and 2, we will define and plan each individual development and operational task using an Agile methodology and will be published in the GitHub repository issue tracker and project management tool.

Acceptance criteria:

The milestone should be accepted when all deliverables defined above are completed. The goal is to have clearly defined:

• what is going to be developed. That is the architecture design of the system
• how users will interact with the demonstration web-app, the KERI secure browser extension, and the smart contract validation. That is the flow of operation
• how we are going to implement in terms of developer resources allocation. That is the project planning per se

Item 1 and 2 will be more technical, however an overall review should be enough to understand the architecture at a high level. Item 3 is just the detailed planning of task for the next milestones.

Evidence of milestone completion:

• For the first output, a document of the project describing the design of the integration with the KERI secure browser extension functionalities, etc.
• For the second one, a document of the project with a flow diagram that explains how interactions with other systems will be handled.
• For the last output, the creation of individual GitHub issues defining each development activity created in the repository and organized in milestones that can be easily tracked.

All the evidence will be provided to the above documents will be provided to the reviewers.

Development of the Initial UI integration with the KERI secure browser extension.

Milestone Outputs:

In this milestones we will be developing changes to the GLEIF regulatory test webapp to integrate the Cardano related changes to the KERI secure browser extension based on the design produced in the first milestone. The prototype should allow the user to interact with the KERI secure browser extension features based in the operational flows defined. As a first prototype, the added features shouldn't be considered an MVP.

Acceptance criteria:

The prototype delivered in this milestone should be able to demo at least 70% of the UI features defined in milestone 1. As a first prototype, it's not expected to be production ready and running and demoing may require manual procedures. The goal is to validate the initial design and a final product can be delivered a later milestone.

The prototype delivered should be considered as the first iteration of a product, that will be improved in the next milestone.

Evidence of milestone completion:

The full evidence for completeness is the demo of the integration of the Cardano changes to the KERI secure browser extension with corresponding archive. Since this task may require expertise and knowledge of this technology, the evidence will also consist of a video showing and explaining how the prototypes deliver its functionalities.

Development of ALL prototype UI features needed to complete the Cardano related changes to the KERI secure browser extension ecosystem.

Milestone Outputs:

In this milestones we will be developing the first working prototype of all of the Cardano related changes to the KERI secure browser extension UI based on the design produced in the first milestone. The prototype should allow the user to interact with the KERI secure browser extension features based in the operational flows defined. As a prototype, some of the added features will be MVP; more will be added in milestone 4.

Acceptance criteria:

The prototype delivered in this milestone should be able to demo 100% of the UI features defined in milestone 1. As a first prototype, it's not expected to be production ready and running and demoing may require manual procedures. The goal is to validate the initial design and a final product can be delivered a later milestone.

The prototype delivered should be considered as the first iteration of a product, that will be improved in the next milestone.

Evidence of milestone completion:

The full evidence for completeness is the demo of the Cardano related changes to the KERI secure browser extension, including the corresponding archive. Since this task may require expertise and knowledge of this technology, the evidence will also consist of a video showing and explaining how the prototypes deliver its functionalities.

Development of authentication and authorization prototype integrations between the UI components in the KERI secure browser extension and the Cardano delegated identities:

Milestone Outputs:

The goal of this milestones is to deliver a prototype integration of authentication and authorization of the user based on the design of milestone 1 and the prototype delivered in milestone 2 & 3. This step is an iteration process of improvement of the prototype, where the rest the features defined in milestone 1 should be integrated to identify any issues detected so that integration testing can be mostly stable.

Acceptance criteria:

The prototype delivered in this milestone should be able to demo 100% of the UI integrations related to authentication and authorization of a user as defined in milestone 1. As a first prototype, it's not expected to be production ready and running and demoing may require manual procedures. The goal is to validate the initial design and a finalized prototype can be delivered in a later milestone.

The prototype delivered should be considered as the first iteration of a product, that will be improved towards our final concept in the next milestone.

Evidence of milestone completion:

Since this task may require expertise and knowledge of this technology, the evidence will consist of a demo video showing and explaining how the authentication and authorization deliver its functionalities.

Development of prototype integrations between the Cardano KERI identities and the Cardano/KERI smart contract on Cardano:

Milestone Outputs:

The goal of this milestones is to deliver a prototype integration that bridges to the Cardano/KERI ecosystem. Based on the design of milestone 1 and the features delivered in milestone 2, 3, and 4. This step is an iteration process of improvement of the other prototype developments and integrations, where the rest the features defined in milestone 1 should be integrated to identify any issues detected so that integration testing can be demonstrated.

Acceptance criteria:

The prototype delivered in this milestone should be able to demo the use of the on-chain Cardano/KERI smart contract with the on-chain Cardano delegated identifiers. As a first prototype, it's not expected to be production ready and running and demoing may require manual procedures. The goal is to validate the initial design and a finalized prototype can be delivered in a later proposal.

The prototype delivered should be considered as the first iteration of a product, that will be improved towards our final concept in the next milestone.

Evidence of milestone completion:

Since this task may require expertise and knowledge of this technology, the evidence will consist of a video showing and explaining how the feature works with the Cardano/KERI ecosystem.

Final development and deployment of the GLEIF regulatory test webapp, mobile integration, api service integration, on-chain KERI delegated identifier, and the on-chain validator script (smart contract) showing the full-prototype features completed.

Presentations of the prototype features to the community and stakeholders

Final Milestone outputs:

A recording of the app being demonstrated to the Cardano, KERI, and vLEI communities.

Final milestone acceptance criteria:

• The prototype repository changes have been opened to the public
• The Cardano and vLEI communities have been briefed on this impressive innovation

Final milestone evidence of milestone completion:

• The URL for the prototype features is available
• A final report including the community meeting recording is provided.

[RESOURCES] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

GLEIF Partners

Alexandre Kech

CEO - GLEIF

Alexandre Kech was appointed by the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) Board of Directors as the CEO of GLEIF, effective June 26, 2024.

Prior to joining GLEIF, Alexandre Kech was Head Digital Securities at the SIX Digital Exchange. As a member of the Executive Board, Alex had full executive responsibility for the Digital Securities business vertical, including relationship management, product and blockchain-based service development, as well as ecosystem expansion.

Karla McKenna

Managing Director GLEIF Americas

Head of Standards - GLEIF

Karla McKenna has pioneered several ISO standards, including ISO 17442 which defines the LEI and which recently added support for the vLEI. She has shepherded the LEI towards 2.5M active LEIs and the vLEI identity network from concept to production in 2022. Her leadership is driving adoption of the vLEI across several GLEIF vLEI customer use-cases. Her background in regulatory requirements in the finance industry has prepared the vLEI to support organizational identity in several regulated industries including; banking, supply-chain, and beyond.

RootsID developers

Rodolfo Miranda is a co-founder of RootsID and contributor on several of our projects, including the Cardano/KERI Backer. 

His background includes a MS EE degree at Stanford University and more than 25 years of successful work experience in both large multinational companies and owned startup projects. His main activities involve architecting, developing, and implementing large scale software solutions for the Telecommunication Industry. Lately, he was engaged in blockchain technologies and became an enthusiast of Self Sovereign Identity. He’s an active contributor in the Aries, DIDComm, KERI and Anoncreds Working Groups.

He’s also involved in the Cardano Community, participating as a veteran Proposal Advisor, member of the LATAM Cardano Community, and the Cardano Community SSI Alliance.

LinkedIn

Lance Byrd is a co-founder of RootsID, a group of decentralized identity specialists building open source software for digital identity. Several of their projects have been funded by Catalyst. He is primarily focused on vLEI software development.

His background includes a BS in Computer Science (UMBC) and MS in Information Assurance (Capitol College) and more than 23 years of software development as a consultant. He has developed massive scale data analytics and visualizations, machine learning analysis pipelines, and worked with University researchers to bring their work to market. He has also built and taught technical certification courses for several different topics in data analysis, big data, and compliance.

He completed the first cohort of the Atala Prism Pioneer program and is now part of the Atala Prism Astros program.

Linkedin

Hunain Bin Sajid is the lead-UI developer for the KERI secure browser extension and related webapps.

LinkedIn

Lance Byrd will be leading the Cardano/KERI tool integration with Rodolfo and RootsID staff providing supporting development, testing, and deployment of our Cardano and KERI technologies.

Since we are participating in multiple proposals we have carefully planned our time allocation for each of us. We defined our individual commitment per week as if all of the proposals are funded including extra activities. Based on that, we defined the allocation per proposal for each of us needed to deliver the proposal in time.

[BUDGET & COSTS] Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources

Budget

The budget is composed of UI, service development, integration, testing, devops, marketing, and presentation hours at an Ada/hour ratio of ₳400/hr, and will include related costs. Based on the activities defined above the requested breakdown budget is:

Design: 40hr = ₳16.000

Documentation: 40hr = ₳16.000

Project Plan: 40hr = ₳16.000

UI development: 150hr = ₳60.000

Service development: 600hr = ₳240.000

Integration development: 500hr = ₳200.000

DevOps tasks: 300hr= ₳120.000

Test and improvement iterations: 200hr = ₳80.000

Yearly AWS instance = ₳8.000

Domain name + SSL = ₳100

Travel hours and presentation related expenses = ₳40.000

Marketing related expenses = ₳20.000

TOTAL BUDGET = ₳816.100

[VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

RootsID is able to provide this low-cost high-value software by leveraging millions of US dollars of open source software, some of which was funded by Catalyst and integrating that software with a growing Cardano/KERI ecosystem, including open source software written and maintained by Cardano Foundation, etc.

RootsID has been funded and delivered over 15 Catalyst proposals and several grants and are highly confident that our plan, budget, and team are an excellent combination for this proposal.

Our costs are based on all of our work at RootsID, our collaborations in the Cardano/KERI ecosystem, and our delivery of GLEIF vLEI tools over the last 3 years. We have optimized those costs to provide the maximum value while giving us a strong chance for success. We have not raised our costs over the last 15 funded Catalyst proposals. Those previous proposals can be leveraged to reduce costs for our future Catalyst work.

We are charging the lowest rates to the Catalyst community than any other customer. Catalyst was the first RootsID customer and benefits from having funded us over 15+ proposals.

The Cardano ecosystem is still looking for its first significant identity app success. And at the same time the Cardano community want to show the power of Cardano applied to real human challenges. This proposal represents an excellent opportunity to satisfy both, and can establish Cardano as a blockchain ecosystem capable of standing up to the most stringent regulatory requirements. This work will advance the maturity and funding to support production identity solutions on Cardano.