Grant application | walt.id

[dombrn]

NFT infrastructure for Flow

Grant category

• Developer tools / services

Description

• Goal: Offer the easiest and fastest way for developers to use NFTs on Flow via holistic open source (Apache 2) infrastructure and dev tooling. • Project idea: This project will make NFTs on Flow available to developers and businesses across industries and around the globe. We will do so by building an open source NFT layer for Flow. Technically speaking, we will extend our existing NFT infrastructure with an “integration” for the Flow ecosystem. • Our motivation: We are building an identity and NFT abstraction layer for enterprises. Consequently, we are adding support for more and more blockchains / web3 ecosystems and FLOW is one of the most relevant web3 ecosystems.

Problem statement

• Target audience: • Our “users” are developers, who use our open source infrastructure (libraries, APIs) to build d/apps. • Our “customers” are typically enterprises with a need for support contracts or a managed cloud service.
• Evidence for the need NFTs are becoming a core technology to enable digital ownership of any type of asset. At the end of the day, we believe that every asset will be tokenized and NFTs are a way of doing this. As a result, we see a growing need for solutions that make it easy for developers and businesses to build products with NFTs - in particular we see a need to realize the utility functions of NFTs such as in the context of access management. Recent projects by global brands like Starbucks (“Odyssey”) reveal that the market is hungry for new applications of NFT that go beyond the simple tokenization of things.

Proposed solution

We plan to build a holistic open source NFT infrastructure for FLOW that covers the full-lifecycle of NFTs:

1. Mint NFTs: Developers will be able to mint and distribute NFTs with ease.
2. Manage NFTs (Wallets): Developers will be able to integrate NFTs into their existing d/apps (e.g. ability to view/manage NFTs).
3. Verify NFTs: Developers will be able to verify NFT ownership, metadata (among other things) against flexible and customizable policies (e.g. based on REGO and the Open Policy Agent).
4. Utility & web2 Bridges: Developers will be able to build NFT utility functions (like access management) into their existing applications (like KeyCloak, Discord, Wordpress, Shopify, …)

Considering that a growing number of players that are already building dev tools for minting NFTs (see “1.”), we propose to focus on enabling “NFT utility” (see “2.-4.”) in this grant by delivering the following solutions: • Wallet Kit: Implementation of a wallet infrastructure solution that enables developers to easily integrate NFTs from the FLOW ecosystem in any app (e.g. web3, banking, consumer products, marketplaces, …). In other words: Developers will be able to extend their existing apps with the ability to view, manage and utilize NFTs (e.g. for trading or access management). • NFT Kit: Implementation of an NFT infrastructure solution that enables developers to build holistic applications and end-to-end use cases based on FLOW. In this first proposal we focus on enabling “utility” use cases (e.g. ticketing, loyalty, vouchers, access). Therefore, the NFT Kit will enable the verification of NFTs across multiple dimensions (e.g. ownership, meta data) and against customizable verification policies (based on the Open Policy Agent). • IDP Kit: Implementation of an “IDP” (Identity Provider; OpenID Connect) that enables NFT-based authentication and access management for web2 apps. Backwards compatibility is enabled by transforming NFT verification results into tokens (e.g. JWT) that can be handled by potentially any web2 app (e.g. identity/access tools, messengers, website builders, eCommerce frameworks, CRM tools).

You can find more technical information on the “Wallet Kit”, “NFT Kit” and “IDP Kit” in our docs or on GitHub.

Impact

1. Dev Tooling: Developers will get new and powerful open source dev tools which will enable them to build new types of d/apps and services using NFTs on Flow. (This will be useful for d/apps from DeFi to marketplaces.)
2. Traction: All our users/customers (public and private sector) will automatically be able to utilize the Flow ecosystem. In other words, we will funnel developers and business clients to the FLOW ecosystem by making it accessible via our open source NFT infrastructure.
3. Bridges to the “old world”: In the short-term, the project includes a component that enables backwards compatibility with today’s (web2) enterprise infrastructure like identity and access management tools (C/IAM; e.g. KeyCloak).
4. Fueling adoption (Marketing): walt.id is a top tier VC-backed startup that plans on fast growth (7-digits round, closure in Q4 2022/Q1 2023). Flow will strongly benefit from our marketing activities by participating at ecosystem events as well as our commercial enterprise activities.

Milestones and funding

Milestone	Deliverables	Timeline	Risks	USD proposal
1 - Concept	Architecture document	2 weeks	-	2000
2 - Wallet Kit	Open source implementation of an infrastructure for NFT wallets	1-2 months	-	6000
3 - NFT Kit	Open source implementation of an infrastructure for NFT verification and utility use cases	1-2 months	-	6000
4 - IDP Kit	Open source implementation of and Identity Provider to “bridge” web2 and web3	1-2 months	-	6000
5 - Docs	Holistic developer documentation, tutorials, examples	2 weeks	-	2000
6 - Distribution	Promotion of project results via our marketing channels, webinars, etc.	2 weeks	-	2000
7 - Maintenance	Resolving issuing and fixing bugs	12 months	-	6000
8 - Adoption	Developer adoption (250 visits to GitHub repo form docs)	3-6 months	-	5000

Total funding proposed: 30.500 USD consisting of (1) 25.500 USD for milestones 1-7 (incl. estimated costs: 30.000 USD minus 15% good will discount) plus (2) 5.000 USD for milestone 8.

Team

Name	Role	Bio	Contact
Dom	business lead	founder/CEO of walt.id; serial entrepreneur; web3/identity advisor to governments, enterprises and top-tier consulting firms; co-authored EU’s digital identity/wallet standards (EBSI, ESSIF)	dominik@walt.id
Phil	Tech lead/Full-Stack Engineer	founder/CTO of walt.id; serial entrepreneur; +15y in security, identity, cloud; built large-scale software-solutions for companies like Verisign, Telekom Austria, Infineon, Siemens etc.	phil@walt.id
Severin	Chief Architect/Full-Stack Engineer	former head of engineering of a startup that has been acquired; +15y in security, AI/ML, cloud; built large-scale distributed systems in the field of AI/ML, big data, data processing, analysis, and retrieval	severin@walt.id
Kevin	Full-Stack Engineer	+5y in engineering; +3 years in identity/web3	severin@walt.id
Mike	Full-Stack Engineer	+8y in engineering;	mike@walt.id
Walid	Full-Stack Engineer	+5y in engineering; +2 years in web3	walid@walt.id
Tamino	Product/Dev Advocacy	+3y in engineering/dev advocacy	tamino@walt.id
Fatima	Ops/Scrum	former founder/COO; former Deloitte; 30 under 30 (Forbes US)	fatima@walt.id

You can find more information about us on our website, docs, GitHub or in the slides attached. Slides by walt.id | Identity and NFT infrastructure for developers and enterprises.pdf

[chrisackermann]

Hi @dombrn, thanks again for this grant proposal! Looking forward to discussing next week in more detail.

[chrisackermann]

Hi @dombrn! We just wanted to let you know that this proposal has been approved and we'll be reaching out directly on next steps. Thanks!