# TCT-12: IOTA & Shimmer Identity Wallet

## Approved with Conditions

:::success
The Tangle Community Treasury has agreed to approve Impierce Technologies and support this grant proposal with the condition of only funding the first Milestone for 80,000 USDT.
:::

## 📈 Summary

The committee spent three weeks deliberating about whether we should fund this Identity grant. It was the most challenging grant to review and had the committee split down the middle.

The committee investigated Identity applications and how they can support the growth of the IOTA ecosystem. We researched and contacted community builders to ask how an Identity wallet and further developed Identity application can support their projects. Many projects greatly look forward to having a wallet with a good user experience that can be white-labeled or, at a minimum, can see some positive benefits to their projects, which they can incorporate. Not a single project stated that such a wallet was useless. As Defi is in the limelight with the recent launch of EVM, we welcomed hearing that Defi project builders see Identity as a future next step with some Defi platforms.

We also quickly understood that Identity has some very passionate players in the space. This grant initiated some public discussions surrounding this grant. As a transparent treasury built by the community for the community, we believe that open discussions only help the community as a whole find a shared vision and work together to expand the ecosystem. The committee did not get involved with such discussions but certainly gained insights and supported our thought process. The priority, above all, is and will be a transparent process.

## 🤔 Committee Considerations

The committee focused on specific questions to investigate and gain clarity on.

### 1. Why do we need a wallet if there are currently open-source applications available?
We discussed with an industry project team who has been building DiD applications on the Tangle for several years. We were interested to learn that this individual project lead stated they had tried the available open-source project wallets but needed help finding something that fits. They specifically said they required a finalized working product that could be white-labeled.
### 2. Why fund just one part of the Identity stack?

This question made us consider the Treasury's role in ecosystem building. The Treasury only approves open-source development. Impierce Technologies submitted a proposal to build a go-to-market Identity wallet that will be open-sourced and can also be white-labeled for the Chrysalis code base. However, aside from the wallet needing to be Stardust-compatible, it made the committee consider the Treasury's role in ecosystem building. The major question we asked ourselves was whether we should fund a project that may leave out a major piece of the puzzle concerning the market. This Identity grant taught us the missing puzzle piece; issuing and verifying verifiable credentials. After discussing the matter, the committee agreed that its purpose is to grow the ecosystem through ignition and ignite market pieces that bring other completion building.

Projects in our space will only become self-sustainable by building working business models. To support this, community Treasuries can fund projects that create an all-encompassing product that completes a market in an open-source manner; however, this would lead to the need for more profitable business models. Projects in our space will only become self-sustainable with a working business model. These successful projects will grow the market and thus show how valuable those final puzzle pieces are.

### 3. Why build a wallet on Chrysalis when Stardust is coming SOoooON!?!?

We are talking about the IOTA Foundation here :Carlos:!!! Joking aside, we do not know when Stardust will come to the main net, and having a working Identity implementation will support the already-built MVPs on Chrysalis. More importantly, that work in milestone one carries over to milestone two.

We also looked at the ability to skip milestone one and move to milestone two, which is the stardust implementation. Feedback from Impierce explained how only 5% of milestone one builds on Chrysalis, whereas 95% of milestone one is outsourcing the UX, creating the dedicated repositories for implementing SIOPv2, OpenID4VP, OpenID4VCI in Rust, Open-ID repository, and a SIOP – IODC bridge. This 95% production of milestone one is the foundational building blocks for milestone two. Milestone two builds upon one by bringing the Stardust integration, maturing the wallet, and integrating the wallet with community projects.

### 4. Why not use Walt Id's wallet, which may be used with EBSI? Or one of the European frameworks provided.

We asked this question to projects building identity applications, and the response surrounded the idea that this wallet doesn't support their needs. The project's primary business models don't focus on providing an Identity wallet yet applications that can use a wallet. So using a framework and building a wallet creates a sunk cost.

## :100: Conclusions

The committee always believed that the Impierce Technologies team could complete their proposed deliverables. Not only did the committee think they could, but also several community projects mentioned their confidence in Jelle and Impierce as identity experts. During this review, the committee's main focus was, "Does the ecosystem need this, and once built, will pieces be lacking within the ecosystem that will deter growth? We decided to fund the first milestone with 80,000 USDT first. We want to support Impierce Technologies and allow their team to show themselves. Given the non-confirmation of milestones two and three, we understand that maintaining quality will require a more extended schedule.

We look forward to seeing their deliverable as a first step in supporting the Identity ecosystem growth.

We still support the development of an Identity wallet with a Stardust integration, which will help the growth of Identity applications on the Shimmer staging network. Thus, while Impierce Technologies completes the first milestone, the committee will continue researching Identity, evaluate the deliverables, and decide whether to fund milestone two.

The committee is also committed to seeing a full Identity stack for the ecosystem. We continue to support and seek grant submissions that fill gaps or provide the missing puzzle pieces the ecosystem needs. Our goal is always to keep the positive growth of the IOTA & Shimmer ecosystem.