KILT AMA : 07/20

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Mr.Business(M)：We welcome the team from KILT!Hi @ingoruebe.Ingo - please tell us a little about your background.

Ingo(I)：sure. I'm a computer scientist from Germany. Had my first startup in the last century and worked in some big corporations as CTO for decades.then I quit and and went fulltime into blockchain.then I quit and and went fulltime into blockchain.working for KILT ever since...

Ｍ：Great to see a founder actually have a tech background! Tell us - why is digital identity important?

I：No one really thinks about their digital identity. People just click on buttons like “Log-in with Facebook,” not thinking about what happens to their data. Other people make money with your identity without you even knowing this happens. We think that we have to put the identity back into the hands of the people.

M：What motivated you to build KILT - what problem does KILT solve?

I：We think identity is really broken in Web2. The reason for that is missing technology and standardisation. With blockchains coming up and also standardisation emerging from organisations like the Decentralised Identity Foundation, it was the right time to combine the two and start building.KILT is a blockchain based implementation of decentralized identifiers and verifiable credentials. This allows businesses to build solutions, using digital identities without building data silos. done.

M：Digital Identity is a big societal issue now, as you mentioned with the issues presented by Facebook.We have a right to our privacy!How is a digital identity created?

I：An identity consists of an identifier and many credentials. Think of your face or your name or your fingerprint as an identifier. Then you add credentials to this, describing abilities, rights or other properties that are yours.Think of your library card, your passport, or your university degree. They all reference your identifier (name, picture of face) and build up your identity. The challenge is to transport this concept into the digital world. And this is exactly what KILT solves.

M：What role do credentials play in the KILT Protocol?

I：Quite a fundamental one. We implement digital credentials in a way, that a person or a thing or a service can contact a trusted entity and ask for a special kind of credential.

The trusted entity checks if the claimer should actually receive this credential. If yes, the trusted entity issues the credential, signs it and sends it to the claimer. The claimer can now use this credential for any purpose he wants to, without the trusted entity ever finding out when, where and for which purpose it was used. This prevents the trusted entity from tracking the users.

The blockchain is used for recording the validity of a credential, so that trusted entities are able to revoke credentials in case the claimer behaves in a way making this necessary.

M：This is amazing and takes privacy to a whole new level. Essentially on a need to know basis which is what we have always wanted.How does trust work in the real world vs. the digital world?

I：great question!

What we’re doing in blockchain is we produce a trustless system. What does a trustless system mean? Trustless means basically, we exchange trust with the mathematical truth.

So if I have a Bitcoin and I see a Bitcoin on my balance, this is mathematically calculated. I can be sure this is my Bitcoin. Right? So this is truth.

When I have a dollar in the bank, I can see my balance there, but I have to trust the bank that their database is actually working well and that they give me the dollar back in cash or whatever. So this is trust.

M：In the end no one can beat the blockchain!

Why did you choose Polkadot over Ethereum or other protocols?
What are the benefits to being part of Polkadot ecosystem?

I：We made this decision very early - 2018, we were one of the first projects to build on Substrate.
Why? We talked to industry partners re: what we want to build. These corporates basically
demand two things from blockchain:

1) They love the permissionless, trustless, decentralized concept.
2) They asked how much would it cost to store an attestation on chain, on Ethereum?

Our answer, unfortunately, was “we don't know” - and if a company wants to build on an industrial scale, they absolutely need to know production cost

So - Ethereum was therefore not an option. Instead we went in the Substrate / Kusama / Polkadot direction. Because we had to solve this dilemma - we needed a permissionless system, and shared security - but also the ability to define your gas price and keep it stable.Substrate is getting more popular by the day. Everyone who learns about it immediately wants to build using it!

so basically industry demand moved us into the Polakdot ecosystem.yeay. It's surely more compicated than building on ethereum, but you get your own blockchain instead of just a smart contract running on someone elses blockchain.

Christine(C)：Ingo,
don’t forget the second part to the question :)
What are the benefits to being part of Polkadot ecosystem?

M：Other than ofcourse Polkadot being a game changer

I：ah ok. sorry. t is a small, friendly community right now. It is still easy to call a project CEO and easily start collaborations with other projects. This makes it a really great community. All are very intelligent and want to build something cool and bring value to the market. This is a small ecosystem striving to do something better, and (right now) are not competitive with each other

M：100% - I love how even projects within the ecosystem support and root for each other

I：yes. thats amazing to see. Hope it stays like this for a long time...

M：Lets talk about actual adoption.

Who will use KILT? Which industries could benefit?Can KILT be used for KYC and DeFi

I：Yes. We partner with and are speaking with a number of KYC providers who would incorporate KILT credentials into their customer onboarding flow.

And users can get verified in a truly decentralised manner... they will be free to choose and control what private data they want to share. Which is a real step forward for the DeFi industry.

So - we don't replace KYC, it's still necessary in many ways.

And new mechanisms for KYC will become increasingly important, as more jurisdictions introduce regulatory guidelines for decentralized exchanges.

M：Where are you on your roadmap?

Elisa：

I：Here’s where we are:

2018: In our first year. we were doing research and joining working groups.
2019-2020: We were heads down dev phases, setting up test net and building SDK so ppl can use it, connecting w/tech from Polkadot.
2021: We are ramping up for go-live, which is happening soon, right after we secure the Kusama parachain auction slot

i'd might add: We are currently in the parachain auction phase. We just posted a blogpost with our updated parachain plans and how we will proceed further. We decided to go for slot 6-10. After we successfully secure a slot we will launch our mainnet and go fully decentralised. This year we will also launch our wallet Sporran and a new service which we call SocialKYC.

M：Here is what lets me know you guys are serious -You were accumulating KSM on your own so you could be self funded.

I：well, that gives more independence to the project long term, we believe.

M：And it seems you are now going to allow a small % to be raised via crowd loans, correct?

I：that might happen. and its actually a small percentage of the total amount of KILT coins. Which baically equals the rewards that other projects plan as infaltion for a lease period

M：Awesome!What will KILT launch with?

I：

a) Staking
b) Our initial Token Economy

So - this means staking will be possible on KILT from genesis. To enable this, we selected and set up the first group of collators who are being onboarded now. We are thrilled by their commitment to KILT and enthusiasm for the protocol at this early stage

We are finalising our tokenomics now, and will be publishing an update to the Token Economy (from our whitepaper) very soon.

M：I saw you mention Sporran.
What is the Sporran ? Where does the name come from?

I：Kilts in the real world show which clan you are from without revealing personal details. This was the inspiration for the name KILT, and the purse that is worn with a kilt is a “Sporran” – that’s where our wallet got its name.

and the KILT wallet is a bit deifferent to other Crypto Wallets. Besides coins t also holds Credentials (like from SocialKYC) and show them to 3rd parties. So it'S much more like a real life wallet than a crypto wallet

M：Speaking of SocialKYC - How can companies integrate it?

I：Companies can use it by requesting SocialKYC credentials from the user. The user in turn can disclose the credentials using the Sporran wallet. There are many possible opportunities here.

Applications may require one or many SocialKYC credentials to authenticate, prove that users are not a bot, confirm ownership of social account(s) etc. It makes the value of social account ownership truly portable.

For example, suppose there's a developer bounty program. Companies could leverage SocialKYC to trust that the person claiming the bounty is also the person who owns the github account and did the work.

M：Seems like KILT has its own huge ecosystems itself!Lets talk revenue - How does KILT make money?

I：KILT is an open source protocol. We provide an SDK so entrepreneurs can get started right away. In addition we are developing services like SocialKYC that will grow the adoption of the protocol. Similar to other open source projects, we also provide consultation

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Can you explain about SPORRAN?
is the wallet specifically for $KILT only or all types of tokens?
do I have to KYC to join?

↬hi Isabella. In general Polkadot ecosystem addresses can be used for different coins. But Sporran only shows your KILT balance and your credentials. It's easy to use the Polkadot apps and extension for everything.

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Can you explain about CTYPE and the concept behind CTYPE? Also what are the benefits of using CTYPE?

↬Hi Leo, CTYPES are the JSON schme which decribe the fields in a Credential Type, hence the the name. There would be one CTYPE for passports, one for drivers licenses, one for library cards and one for confirmation of your email address or your BTC wallet address. Anyone can produce CTYPES.

What are the next main steps for the project after having successfully secured a $KSM parachain slot?

↬After securing a slot we will immediatly go live with our mainnet. We will then onboard the collators, add more functionality and governance and than hand the network over to the community. Of course the Sporran will go live at the same time as the main net. After we handed over the network to the community we will continue working on the adoption of KILT add subsequently add new features.

In your website i saw revocable credentials so What are revocable credentials and why are they important?

↬Digital Credentials have a problem: they are just numbers. They can not effectively be taken away from the owner, because the owner can always keep a copy. This is why we store the validity of the credentials on the KILT blockchain. This way the issuer may revoke a credential. If then later the claimer uses the revoked credential, the verifier can look up the validity of the credential on the blockchain and see: it's invalid.

How about Nested Credentials ? Do you have any plan to allow including data from one credential in another ?

↬KILT Credentials can be nested. This is very practical. E.g. you can use a credential with some information like street address over and over again inside the customer credentials you receive from delivery services.

What type of Dapps do you see as most suited for KILT?
and how do you promote KILT as the preferred platform for developers creating these Dapps?

↬Most dapps have a core service but they also have to manage trust. Any dapp, app or service that wants to decouple trust management from their application is an opportunity. For example a dapp for job matching based on skills. Currently to do this the dapp developer would need to find a way to verify both the experience of the employee and legitimacy of the hiring organization. With KILT, attestment can be abstracted allowing the dapp developer to focus on being the best at their core service.

The only way for the blockchain industry to expand and develop is for us to have users who can easily use the product. What unique features of KILT can help attract more users and developers to use it?

↬Great question! First of all, KILT exposes an easy to use JavaScript SDK, which allows developers to write successful applications very quickly. Of course we also build some cool examples ourselves, like SocialKYC, which are very consumer oriented. Also there's many opportunities for attesters and builders inside our system, which will hopefully grow mass adoption rather quickly-.

has your project been audited? how about the system, is Kilt safe from hacker and cheater?

↬We are undergoing one audit now, and then will begin our second audit. We are using the same external firms that have conducted security audits for Kusama and Polkadot. So we are investing resources and time to build the most secure protocol that we can.