Grant Application: Verida Network's decentralized identities, SSO, messaging and private data storage for Polkadot

[ysam21]

Project Abstract

The Polkadot ecosystem enables a variety of application specific blockchains to provide decentralized computation capabilities. While this is enormously beneficial for building the next generation of Web3 applications, there are additional technical capabilities required to build applications capable of replacing existing Web2 incumbents.

The Verida network provides this missing Web3 infrastructure for developers and end users. Verida will bring single-sign on, decentralized identities, messaging and private data storage to the Polkadot ecosystem.

This is Verida’s first proposal to the W3F Grants program.

For which grant level are you applying?

• Level 1: Up to $10,000, 2 approvals
• Level 2: Up to $50,000, 3 approvals
• Level 3: Unlimited, 5 approvals (for > $100k Web3 Foundation Council approval)

Application Checklist

• The application template has been copied, renamed ( project_name.md) and updated.
• A BTC or Ethereum (DAI/USDT) address for the payment of the milestones is provided inside the application.
• I have read and acknowledged the terms and conditions.
• The software delivered for this grant will be released under an open-source license specified in the application.
• The initial PR contains only one commit (squash and force-push if needed).
• The grant will only be announced once the first milestone has been accepted.

[CLAassistant]

All committers have signed the CLA.

[Noc2]

Thanks a lot for the application. I have a few questions/comments: First of all Verida Vault seems to be closed source, we only support open source software development via our grants program. This doesn’t necessarily mean everything needs to be open source, but for example your first milestone seems to be highly focused on closed source development and the deliveries don’t seem necessarily helpful for others in our ecosystem. Is this correct? If this is the case, it might make more sense to apply for treasury funding. Additionally deliverables 0a-0d of the template are usually mandatory for all milestones, and deliverable 0e at least for the last one. See https://github.com/w3f/Grants-Program/blob/master/applications/application-template.md Also you currently apply for a level 2 grant, but you are requesting more than 50k for the entire grant. My recommendation would be initially only to apply for one milestone and we can sign a follow-up grant later. Otherwise, we need to get council approval, which usually takes some time.

[ysam21]

Hi @Noc2 , thank you for providing feedback! We've taken all of your points into consideration and have addressed them in the latest revision. To summarise the changes, we have:

• removed development on the Verida Vault (originally Milestone 1) from the grant application. Since Polkadot support in the Vault is necessary to proceed with the next milestone, Verida will complete this work separately as self-funded development.
• removed Milestone 3 so that this initial grant application can stay within the Level 2 amount. We would be keen to revisit this as a follow-up grant.
• added in the remaining 0.x deliverables.

Hopefully these changes address your comments, look forward to hearing back!

[Noc2]

Thanks for the update. I’m happy to support it and share it with the rest of the team.

[ysam21]

Hi @Noc2, does anyone from the team have any questions on the application or need clarifications from us? Happy to set up a call if needed!

[Noc2]

Thanks for chasing us. I will share the application again with everyone. Sorry for the delay. The is currently trying to catch-up with everything.

[gautamdhameja]

Looks good to me

[semuelle]

Thank you for this application, @ysam21. It looks very interesting. I only have one question, since you don't want to provide infrastructure: based on the deliverables I assume that everything you are building as part of the grant will be usable by the end of the grant. So, on top of unit tests, I will be able to test the functionality by following the documentation on submitting requests and data. Correct?

[ysam21]

Thanks for the question @semuelle. Yes absolutely, you'll be able to test using the Verida Vault wallet (which is freely available), developer documentation, and we'll have a number of demo apps to showcase all of the functionality listed in the deliverables.

[github-actions]

Congratulations and welcome to the Web3 Foundation Grants Program! Please refer to our Milestone Delivery repository for instructions on how to submit milestones and invoices, our FAQ for frequently asked questions and the support section of our README for more ways to find answers to your questions.

Before you start, take a moment to read through our announcement guidelines for all communications related to the grant or make them known to the right person in your organisation. In particular, please don't announce the grant publicly before at least the first milestone of your project has been approved. At that point or shortly before, you can get in touch with us at grantsPR@web3.foundation and we'll be happy to collaborate on an announcement about the work you’re doing.

Lastly, please remember to let us know in case you run into any delays or deviate from the deliverables in your application. You can either leave a comment here or directly request to amend your application via PR. We wish you luck with your project! 🚀

[ysam21]

Thank you @semuelle @Noc2 @gautamdhameja for approving our grant application!
We will first complete the self-funded contribution (consider it Milestone 0) which is a prerequisite for Milestone 1.
We look forward to having Verida part of the Polkadot ecosystem!

[alxs]

Hey @ysam21, are you still interested in this? When are you planning to submit?

[alxs]

@ysam21 unless you plan to deliver soon, could you please submit an amendment with an updated timeline? Note that if we don't hear from you within the next two weeks, we'll assume you're no longer interested and terminate the grant.

[ysam21]

Hey @alxs thanks for checking in! I will discuss with engineering on what timeline we're looking at. Cheers

[ysam21]

Hi @alxs, the development timeline still holds i.e. once the self-funded contribution is completed, the expected development time is 2 months. We have had a shift in priorities to focus on decentralization of the testnet and user growth, so that we can strengthen the value of what we bring to the Dotsama ecosystem. We intend to deliver this closer to Q2 2023.

[alxs]

Sounds good @ysam21. In that case, could you please submit an amendment as I mentioned before and include a delivery date? Otherwise, the date the application is accepted is considered the starting date of the first milestone.

[keeganquigley]

Hi @ysam21 I believe the amendment specified that a delivery would be submitted in June, are you able to provide an update? Thanks!

[keeganquigley]

pinging @ysam21

[ysam21]

Hi @keeganquigley, thanks for the checking in! We'd like to align our proposal with the challenges faced by dapp developers, based on the insights we've gained from engaging with the community. Are you open for us to update the grant proposal?

[keeganquigley]

Thanks @ysam21 yes absolutely, feel free to make changes to the original proposal and then submit a pull request. The amendment will simply require 3 approvals from the committee in order to be merged. If necessary, you can extend the timeline as well. Thanks!

[keeganquigley]

pinging @ysam21 for an update.

[semuelle]

One last ping before we cancel this grant: @ysam21, @nick-verida, @tahpot