Web3 Projects Join Major Enterprises in a €20m+ European Initiative for The Future of Mobility

An array of leading Web3 projects join forces within the Gaia-X moveID consortium with an overall size of more than €20 million. As part of the collaboration, Chainstep, peaq, Datarella, 51nodes, Ocean Protocol, Fetch.ai, and deltaDAO will work to develop the framework for a decentralized digital backbone powering the future of mobility.

Through billions-worth acquisitions, Web2 tech giants assert themselves in more and more sectors, from healthcare to Internet of Things appliances, prompting concerns of pervasive user surveillance. This expansion provides for more centralized control over an increasing number of aspects of users’ daily lives, oftentimes unbeknownst to the users themselves.

Rising as an alternative to centralized platforms, Gaia-X is a pan-European cross-sector consortia group for a more open and democratic data infrastructure, bringing together more than 300 companies and organizations, including top industry names such as Bosch, Continental, and Airbus. Gaia-X’s 19-member moveID consortium is focused on innovative solutions for decentralized digital identity and decentralized data sharing – real-world mobility use cases for blockchain technology, placing it at the foundations of real-world services and processes. Secure and verifiable digital IDs are a crucial foundational feature that will enable all mobility participants – humans or machines – to identify each other, transact, and interact between themselves without mediation from centralized third parties and the associated fees and privacy concerns.

As part of the collaboration, the participating Web3 projects will take on the following roles to put decentralization and openness at the core of the digital infrastructure of the future:

• Chainstep, one of the leading deep tech companies for enterprise implementation and connection of DLT, IoT, and Machine Learning, will develop connectors to build the link between the digital and physical world. The company is developing a solution for connecting Edge IoT (V2X) devices securely to the Gaia-X cloud platform. Self-sovereign identities (SSIs) work as the basis for decentralized integration security, allowing removal of the single point of failure in relying on a centralized authorization provider.

Konstantin Graf, CEO Chainstep, says: “We need easy-to-use applications with high value in the real world and everyday life. A Web3 infrastructure is very important for Europe. I believe in ecosystems and cooperation as the only way European companies will stay competitive.”

• peaq, the Web3 network powering the Economy of Things, will conduct intense research and development within the project. peaq will further build up its layer-one blockchain in line with the co-created requirements and standards, aiming to grant Gaia-X’s moveID the perfect infrastructure for decentralized mobility applications. peaq will also provide its core functions: peaq ID – Self-Sovereign Machine Identities (SSMIs), peaq access, and peaq pay. peaq is built using Substrate and will soon be live on both Kusama as well as Polkadot. It is working on enabling collaboration and interoperability with the Ethereum and Cosmos ecosystems for other Web3 consortia collaborators in Gaia-X.

Siddharth Singhal, Director of Enterprise at Parity Technologies, says: “Web3-enabled platforms will play a crucial infrastructure role as we build the future of the IoT industry. We are proud to see Polkadot playing a crucial role serving pan-EU citizens via moveID partners and expect greater Web3 adoption in this vast industry.”

• Datarella, a Web3 company builder, will co-develop the infrastructure for decentralized digital identities and data sharing, leveraging SSI components and Autonomous Agents. To ensure a future market acceptance of applications based on moveID, Datarella also contributes its experience in Web3 mobility applications, such as MOBIX.

Michael Reuter, CEO and Founder of Datarella, says: "Europe needs a resilient, sustainable Web3 infrastructure that allows for privacy-preserving, autonomous applications serving all European citizens. The moveID partners are committed to make this possible."

• 51nodes, a Web3 developing and integration company, brings to the project its experience with SSI architecture and implementation in the context of decentralized mobility infrastructure. In addition to the development and integration of various SSI technologies, the focus of work will be on SSI interoperability challenges.

Jochen Kaßberger, CEO/Co-Founder of 51nodes, says: "At moveID, we are working together with great partners on digital infrastructure for V2X use cases using decentralized digital technology. We are excited to be part of the integration of digital mobility in Europe.”

• Through BigchainDB, Ocean Protocol – the Web3 platform to unlock data services for AI and business innovation – is providing technical infrastructure for moveID to expedite the development of a decentralized digital identity infrastructure for European mobility. Essential components of Ocean’s decentralized data marketplace technology, Compute-to-Data, and data pricing mechanisms are being leveraged to build a system architecture that ensures a seamless exchange of information between providers and customers of mobility applications.

Bruce Pon, Ocean Protocol Founder, says: “Secure data processing is critical to the future of mobility. Via BigchainDB, Ocean is proud to support the moveID initiative with the technical elements needed for building digital identity infrastructure and help enable an inclusive Data Economy."

• Fetch.ai is developing the infrastructure and tooling for creating Web2 and Web3 AI applications. Fetch-ai Network has a Cosmos SDK based self-sovereign blockchain ledger and the supporting tools for developing DApps on the network and also the modular Autonomous Economic Agents (AEAs) and the Digital Twin Platforms that can efficiently and securely communicate peer-to-peer and provide interconnectivity with multiple networks.

In the context of Gaia-X’s moveID, the AEAs and the Agent framework enables decentralized identities (SSI), and can run on edge devices in a decentralized microservice architecture. All the products support cross-chain interoperability which will help achieve Gaia-X’s vision to support many new multi-stakeholder mobility applications.

Humayun Sheikh, Fetch.ai Founder and CEO, says: “We are excited to support Gaia-X’s moveID project that has the potential to reshape the future of mobility. We look forward to working with other technology and industry partners who share our belief in Web3 technology’s potential to unlock innovative and new collaborative business models.”

• deltaDAO AG, a web3 software development, integration and consulting company, will co-develop decentralized data infrastructure and federation services in the context of the broader Gaia-X ecosystem. deltaDAO AG contributes its extensive knowledge regarding Gaia-X compliance, interoperability, and integration.

Frederic Schwill, deltaDAO AG Co-Founder, says: “We believe that Europe needs a more sovereign, resilient, and sustainable data infrastructure, enabling value creation and new sustainable mobility business models. We are thrilled to be joining the moveID project and build, together with our partners, towards the future of decentralized mobility.

"Web3 technologies offer a promising digital foundation for future mobility solutions,” says Peter Busch, Product Owner for Distributed Ledger Technologies (Mobility) at Bosch. “With MoveID, we are setting the foundation for a hyper connected mobility infrastructure by leveraging self-sovereign device identities and decentralized data sharing to enable hundreds of potential use cases. We are thrilled to be exploring this exciting prospect side by side with some of the leading projects in the decentralized space such as Fetch-ai Network, peaq, Ocean Protocol, Datarella, 51nodes, deltaDAO, and Chainstep."