w3f · web3-energy · Dec 23, 2025
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+# W3CP Core: Polkadot-Anchored Device Identity for Real-World Energy Infrastructure
+
+- **Team Name:** Web3 Energy Ltd.
+- **Contact Email:** [email protected]
+- **Level:** 2
+- **Total Costs:** 30,000 USD
+- **Payment Address (DOT, the address is Asset Hub):** 16LwjL7KKPXaSGgiPYA4qdYfGv2dsUU4Zb81SzUJRmmFTkxd 
+- **Payment Address (USDC, again Asset Hub):** 16LwjL7KKPXaSGgiPYA4qdYfGv2dsUU4Zb81SzUJRmmFTkxd
+
+---
+
+## Project Overview :page_facing_up:
+
+### Overview
+
+**Tagline:**
+Polkadot-anchored decentralized identities for charge points, vehicles, and energy infrastructure.
+
+**Brief Description:**
+Web3 Energy Ltd. is building W3CP (Web3 Charging Protocol), an identity-first protocol for EV charging and energy infrastructure.
+
+This proposal requests a Level 2 grant to deliver a Polkadot-anchored device identity verification core that enables real-world infrastructure devices to authenticate without centralized allowlists or pre-registration.
+
+---
+
+### Motivation & Real-World Context
+
+Electric vehicles and charging infrastructure are transitioning from closed ecosystems to **open, heterogeneous networks** involving multiple manufacturers, operators, and jurisdictions.
+
+In this environment:
+
+- Charge points must authenticate without fragile backend allowlists
+- Vehicles must identify themselves across vendors and borders
+- Infrastructure lifecycles span 10–20+ years
+- Regulatory and security requirements continue to increase
+
+**Identity is the missing layer across the entire charging stack — from vehicles and charge points down to embedded meters that must cryptographically sign and attest measured values — while backend systems remain verifiers, not trust anchors.**
+
+Web3 Energy’s core belief is:
+
+- Cars need identities
+- Charge points need identities
+- Independent meters inside charge points need identities to sign and attest measured values
+- Infrastructure needs verifiable, long-lived identities
+- Backends should not be the root of trust
+
+Polkadot provides a uniquely suitable foundation:
+
+- **Native, addressable runtime storage**, enabling deterministic, constant-time verification of identity and attestation state without block scanning or external indexers
+- **Long-term governance and upgradeability**, allowing trust and attestation models to evolve over time without breaking deployed infrastructure
+- **Neutral, non-vendor-controlled trust**, suitable for multi-operator and multi-jurisdiction infrastructure
+- **Strong cryptographic and economic guarantees**, aligned with long-lived physical devices
+
+This foundation allows the project to start with a minimal, production-ready verification model, while enabling more advanced governance-based trust and attester models to be introduced in later phases.
+
+---
+
+### Current State & Proof of Concept
+
+Web3 Energy already operates a **working proof-of-concept**, including:
+
+- A **publicly accessible backend** implementing the W3CP protocol
+- A **user-facing UI** (public access via Gmail login)
+- A **public charge-point simulator / reference firmware**, implementing the W3CP device handshake
+- A **public W3CP protocol specification**
+- An initial **Polkadot-based identity proof-of-concept deployed on the Westend testnet**, which will be **open-sourced as part of this grant**
+
+In the current PoC:
+- Device identities are available to the backend at connection time
+- Polkadot is used experimentally to anchor and validate identity data
+- Verification logic demonstrates feasibility, but is not yet production-grade
+
+This grant focuses on **strengthening this PoC**, formalizing the identity model, and upgrading it to a **real DID-based verification flow** suitable for mainnet usage.
+
+---
+
+## Project Details
+
+### Core Concept
+
+The project delivers a **verified connection flow** where:
+
+- A device connects to a backend **without being pre-registered**
+- The backend **does not store a static device allowlist**
+- The device presents a decentralized identity (DID)
+- The backend verifies the DID **in real time against Polkadot**
+- The connection is upgraded to **VERIFIED** only after successful proof
+- Invalid or unknown identities are **explicitly rejected**
+
+Compared to the existing PoC, this grant introduces:
+- A formal DID model
+- Real-time attestation checks
+- Clear separation between backend logic and identity verification
+- A migration path from Westend to Polkadot mainnet
+
+This pattern is applicable beyond EV charging:
+- IoT
+- DePIN
+- Energy infrastructure
+- Industrial systems
+
+---
+
+### Attesters & Trust Assumptions (Scope Clarification)
+
+For the scope of this grant, **device attestations are assumed to be issued by a small, known set of bootstrap attesters**.
+
+- Attesters are represented by cryptographic keys whose public identifiers are **anchored on Polkadot**
+- The identity sidecar verifies:
+    - the device’s cryptographic proof of key ownership
+    - the validity of the attestation
+    - the presence of the attester reference in on-chain state
+- The backend itself does **not** maintain issuer or device allowlists and derives trust exclusively from on-chain verification results
+
+**Governance mechanisms for permissionless attester admission, registrar workflows, deposits, slashing, or reputation systems are intentionally out of scope for this grant** and are planned as future work once the core verification flow is production-ready.
+
+---
+
+
+### Architecture (High-Level)
+
+- **Device / Simulator:** Implements W3CP handshake and cryptographic proof
+- **Polkadot Identity Sidecar (Open-Source):**
+    - Resolves device DIDs
+    - Verifies signatures
+    - Validates attestations in real time against Polkadot
+- **Backend (Reference Integration):**
+    - Performs live verification
+    - Does not maintain a device registry
+- **Demo UI:** Visualizes verified vs rejected connections
+
+The backend trusts **on-chain state**, not its own database.
+
+![W3CP Polkadot-Anchored Device Identity Verification Flow](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/web3-energy/polkadot/main/polkadot-trust.svg)
+
+---
+
+### Technology Stack
+
+- **Backend:** Java (Quarkus)
+- **CP-Firmware** Java, open-source 
+- **Identity Sidecar:** Node.js, open-source
+- **Frontend:** Web UI (Vue.js, hosted on AWS CloudFront; publicly accessible, Google Auth)
+- **Infrastructure:** AWS
+- **Blockchain:** Polkadot (Westend for proof-of-concept, mainnet-ready design)
+- **Cryptography:** Standard public-key signatures, challenge–response authentication, and cryptographic hashes
+
+No proprietary cryptographic primitives are introduced.
+
+
+---
+
+## Ecosystem Fit
+
+### Why This Matters to Polkadot
+
+- Demonstrates **real-world device identity usage** in production-like environments
+- Aligns with **DePIN, IoT, and decentralized identity** verticals
+- Creates **tangible Polkadot usage** through on-chain identity anchoring
+- Positions Polkadot as an **invisible but critical infrastructure layer** for physical systems
+- Provides a **practical reference implementation** that can be evaluated, tested, and reused by the foundation and the broader ecosystem
+
+This project is designed to be **actively used, tested, and extended**, not merely demonstrated.
+
+
+---
+
+## Scope & Deliverables
+
+### Milestone 1 — Polkadot Device Identity Verification Core
+**Duration:** ~6 weeks
+**Cost:** ~$15,000 USD
+
+**Deliverables:**
+- Extension of the existing PoC into a **formal DID-based identity model**
+- Polkadot identity sidecar (open-source reference attester)
+- Real-time on-chain verification and attestation checks
+- Verified connection flow (unauthenticated → verified / rejected)
+- Charge-point simulator implementing the upgraded W3CP identity handshake
+- Protocol documentation and trust-model explanation
+
+---
+
+### Milestone 2 — Demo, Documentation & Developer Experience
+**Duration:** ~6 weeks
+**Cost:** ~$15,000 USD
+
+**Deliverables:**
+- **Public Demo UI**
+    - Visualizes device connection attempts
+    - Shows real-time identity verification outcomes
+    - Allows anyone to experiment end-to-end
+
+- **Public HOW-TO Documentation**
+    - How the **W3CP protocol** works
+    - How devices perform DID-based identity handshakes
+    - How the Polkadot identity sidecar verifies identities and attestations
+    - How to migrate from testnet-based PoCs to mainnet-ready setups
+
+- **Open-Source Components**
+    - Charge-point firmware simulator / reference implementation
+    - Polkadot identity sidecar
+        - Stateless
+        - Unauthenticated
+        - Backend-agnostic
+        - Reusable by other projects
+
+The backend itself is **publicly accessible and testable**, but its internal implementation is **not part of the open-source deliverables**.
+It serves as a **reference integration of the W3CP protocol**, demonstrating how decentralized identity verification can be embedded into real backend systems.
+
+---
+
+## Explicitly Out of Scope (Context & Rationale)
+
+The following activities are **intentionally out of scope for this grant**, but are **actively ongoing and financed through other means**:
+
+- Commercial backend and frontend product development
+- Integration and pilot discussions with charge-point vendors
+- Integration and pilot discussions with vehicle manufacturers
+- Secure hardware modules, certifications, and manufacturing
+- OCPP protocol extensions
+- Payments, wallets, and settlement logic
+
+These activities are **essential for real-world adoption** and are being pursued in parallel.
+This grant **explicitly focuses on the Polkadot-based identity layer**, which must remain **open, reusable, and ecosystem-facing**.
+
+---
+
+## Why This Split Is Intentional
+
+Real-world infrastructure adoption requires **both**:
+
+1. **Open, neutral infrastructure primitives**
+   (Polkadot-anchored decentralized identity)
+
+2. **Commercial execution and market integration**
+   (vendors, pilots, operations, compliance)
+
+This grant funds **(1)**, while **(2)** ensures that the work leads to **real-world usage** rather than isolated experiments.
+
+This reflects how infrastructure is built and adopted in practice.
+
+---
+
+## Team :busts_in_silhouette:
+
+**Web3 Energy Ltd.** is a company focused on building real-world energy and EV charging infrastructure software.
+The team combines backend engineering, protocol design, and deep domain knowledge of charging systems and identity.
+
+- **Contact Name:** Y. Boev
+- **Operations Contact:** V. Tsenova
+- **Email:** [email protected]
+- **Company Website:** https://web3-energy.com
+- **GitHub Organization:** https://github.com/web3-energy
+
+We are happy to provide live demos, walkthroughs, or additional context in a call if helpful during the review process.
+
+
+## Final Note
+
+This project is intentionally pragmatic.
+
+It does not attempt to solve everything at once.
+It demonstrates how Polkadot’s decentralized identity stack can be applied to real-world infrastructure, connecting on-chain identity with physical devices in a concrete, testable, and extensible manner.
+