ErinOCon
commented
1 year ago Hi @BenVae, thank you for your patience with our review. Unfortunately, we will not be moving forward with a grant at this time. Wishing you all the best as you continue to build!
Open Grant Proposal: Verifiable physically backed NFTs
Name of Project: Verifiable physically backed NFTs
Proposal Category:
app-devandresearchProposer:
BenVaeDo you agree to open source all work you do on behalf of this RFP and dual-license under MIT, APACHE2, or GPL licenses?:
noProject Description
TL;DR: The value proposition of this project is the development of a system that allows trustless proof of ownership over physical goods. It uses the unique surface structure as fingerprints that are verifiably linked to NFTs. This technology opens up new business areas, as we lay out below.
Solutions for physically backed NFTs exist but are far from functioning trustless and are not accessible to everyone due to high costs and complex installation processes. We at OriginStamp and DynamicElement aim to provide a solution that leverages macro cameras of modern smartphones and surface detection algorithms for verifiable interlinking physical objects with NFTs. This way, the NFT can prove ownership over the material good and verify its authenticity.
The project utilizes the proprietary and patented MDDI (Multi-Dimensional-Dynamic Identity) technology of DynamicElement, which can uniquely identify physical goods using macro cameras and surface detection algorithms. This technology is already productively used in several projects, like the Crypto Stamp of the Philatelie Liechtenstein and SmartStamp, for proofing the authenticity of fine art. Additionally, the technology is backed by academic research in cooperation with the University of Applied Sciences Ravensburg-Weingarten, where CTO of DynamicElement, Jörg Eberhard, is professor for 3D camera technology and machine vision. Furthermore, the CEO OriginStamp & DynamicElement, Friedrich Kisters, holds numerous international Patents in the field of counterfeit protection.
By being able to differentiate physical objects by scanning their surface, we can easily map them to an NFT, just like a digital twin. This mapping can be achieved by saving the output of the surface scan on IPFS and providing the Content ID to the NFT Metadata for comparison with future scans. Unlike typical methods for linking the physical world to digital tokens, our approach eliminates the need for an artificial, external label (e.g. QR-Code, RFID/NFC Chips) attached to the material good. As MDDI is a proprietary solution, we will, for now, have the fingerprint saved on a private server and provide the information to access it in place of the fingerprint to IPFS.
The project aims to implement a solution that presents these processes:
Register:The surface structure is extracted from the physical good and is saved with a freshly minted NFT.Claim:By scanning the features of a previously registered good, one can claim the corresponding NFT. This registers the person as the owner of the physical asset.Verify Ownership:Scanning the features and comparing them with those saved by the NFT will prove ownership over the physical good.You can find a more detailed explanation of the particular processes here.
A device with a macro camera is required to register and authenticate already registered physical2digital (P2D) interlinked assets. This limits the number of users that can currently profit from this development. Luckily, the macro camera technology in mobile devices is becoming cheaper and more broadly available in the consumer market. Especially since the two big players, Apple and Samsung released their flagship phones (iPhone 13 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra) in 2021 with effective macro cameras. These two companies have further strengthened their commitment to the macro camera technology by incorporating it into the successor models, iPhone 14 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S22. Since then, many smartphone manufacturers have integrated macro cameras into their models. With this mobile device market movement, we expect broad-width inter-device recognition to be possible soon. We recognize this as an opportunity for new business cases, especially in P2D.
As not all devices provide the same quality of surface structure capturing, our current approach for reliable results is registering physical objects with an industrial macro camera and verifying it on a mobile device. However, with the constantly evolving software and hardware on mobile devices, it will soon be possible to register consistently on smartphones.
What we plan to build
With this grant, we want to build a prototype that shows the power of our technology. The system will cover the processes mentioned above of registering, claiming and verifying ownership.
This system diagram should give a rough overview of the components included in the software.
Furthermore, a concept is provided that shows how trustlessness can be achieved for the system.
Value
Benefits to getting this right
We at OriginStamp believe that providing a system to create variable links between physical objects and NFTs will be beneficial in a number of ways. Example use cases for such a system can be, but are not limited to:
Deliverables
We divide the work into four milestones. The milestones will result in the following artifacts:
Milestone 1: Registering
Milestone 1 will provide the code for the process, from scanning the surface structure with the proprietary MDDI technology to minting the corresponding NFT. This milestone will also bootstrap the foundation for the subsequent milestones.
The resulting code will be available at the OriginStamp Timestamping GitHub.
Milestone 2: Claiming
Milestone 2 will build on milestone 2 and add the source code for claiming previously registered NFTs via scanning the physical good.
Milestone 3: Proof of Ownership
Milestone 3 will ship the functionality for proving ownership over the physical object by scanning its surface and comparing the fingerprint information with the one saved with the NFT.
Milestone 4: Concept for a decentralized solution
Milestone 4 will deliver a concept for decentralizing the system. We will show how the system can be adjusted to work without any intermediate in a decentralized manner.
The concept will live in a markdown file in the repository alongside the source code.
Development Roadmap
Milestone 1
Requested Budget $6000
Timeline: 2 Months
Milestone 2
Requested Budget $6000
Timeline: 2 Months
Milestone 3
Requested Budget $3000
Timeline: 1 Months
Milestone 4
Requested Budget $3000
Timeline: 1 Months
Total Budget Requested
The budget is required for: 1 Developer / 6 Months → $3000/month = $18000
Maintenance and Upgrade Plans
We at OriginStamp see very high potential in this technology and think that it is in the interest of everyone involved in the project that an actual product evolves from the PoC.
In March, 2023, OriginStamp, DynamicElement and the Philately Liechtenstein will release the NFT Stamp in close collaboration on the occasion of 100 years of customs treaty Switzerland Liechtenstein. Originally, we planned to leverage the Filecoin Virtual Machine & nft.storage as the underlying platform to mint and store the NFTs, but FVM was not yet available for the release. All parties involved are highly motivated to release more NFT stamps in the future. We would be glad to colaborate on this behalf with Protocol Labs / Filecoin. This would allow us to store the NFT Stamps as Liechtenstein's cultural heritage amonst humanity's most important information permanently.
Team
Team Members
Team Member LinkedIn Profiles
Team Website
https://originstamp.com/
Relevant Experience
OriginStamp timestamping was spun off from a university research group a few years ago. Our goal is to make the benefits of blockchain technology more accessible to companies and individuals. In the last years, we have continuously worked on improving the base technology and building various products. With SwiDOC we provide a document storage for account books that conforms with swiss law (unlike all existing approaches). Furthermore, in a project with the Philately Liechtenstein, we brought to life the CryptoStamp with the mission to connect the old and new generations of collectors. Another notable project is SmartStamp, where we use the MDDI technology to prove the authenticity of physical artwork.
Team code repositories
Additional Information
We learned about the Open Grants Program from Dennis Trautwein, a former OriginStamp AG employee who now works full-time for Protocol Labs as a Research Engineer.
During the unveiling ceremony of the Romero Britto painting for Philately Liechtenstein's NFT stamp on December 19th, 2022, our CIO Philip Ehret discussed this soon-to-be pending grant proposal with David Dias, Research Director @ Protocol Labs.
For any inquiries, please get in touch with our directly responsible person, Benjamin Väthjunker: benjamin.vaethjunker@originstamp.com