🔥 The Beta Cohort 2 DIF Labs: Show & Tell absolutely killed it! We are very proud of them. With this round now closed, here’s a recap of the groundbreaking work presented.
Over the past three months (June 24 – Sept 23, 2025), three projects refined and pushed forward bold proposals in decentralized identity. The Show & Tell was the culmination—live demos, thoughtful storytelling, and demonstrable progress.
🎥 Watch the recording:
Zoom Recording of DIF Labs Beta Cohort 2 Show & Tell
Featured Projects
| Project | Description & Highlights | Leads | Tags | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anonymous Multi-Signature Verifiable Credentials (ZKMPA) | Protocol for issuing Verifiable Credentials with m-of-n multi-party approval, while keeping individual signers anonymous. Built using Semaphore, it combines cryptographic membership proofs, nullifiers to prevent duplicate votes, and W3C VCDM 2.0 compatibility. Live demo illustrated a DAO issuing credentials anonymously, enabling privacy-preserving governance. | Seohee Park, Lukas Han | Verifiable Credentials, Multi-Signature, Semaphore, Privacy, Cryptography | May 20 – September 23, 2025 |
| Privacy-Preserving Revocation Mechanisms | Comparative study of revocation strategies for W3C VCs, covering status lists, accumulators, zk-SNARK proofs, and short-term credentials. Produced a taxonomy and a reference implementation benchmarking costs for issuers, holders, and verifiers. Strong focus on accumulator-based methods and collaboration with Ethereum Foundation on Merkle-tree revocation. | Kai Otsuki, Ken Watanabe | Verifiable Credentials, Revocation, Privacy, Cryptography, zk-SNARK | May 20 – September 23, 2025 |
| Legally-Binding Proof of Personhood via QES (QVC) | Schema that binds W3C VCs to Qualified Electronic Signatures (QES) under EU eIDAS regulation. QES signatures carry the same legal weight as handwritten signatures, bringing non-repudiable legal identity into decentralized credentials. Explored pseudonymous QES, privacy-preserving wrapping, and compliance with ETSI standards. Use cases: contracts, academic degrees, healthcare, financial agreements. | Jon Bauer, Roberto Carvajal | Verifiable Credentials, QES, Legal Framework, eIDAS, KYC | May 31 – September 23, 2025 |
Highlights & Participation
- Global reach: Teams joined live from Korea, Japan, Europe, and the U.S. (with late-night calls for some).
- Strong polish: Working demos, clear storytelling, and thoughtful framing of both technical and regulatory challenges.
- Community energy: Mentors, chairs, and attendees actively engaged in Q&A and contributed Roses 🌹 / Buds 🌱 / Thorns 🥀 feedback.
- Special shoutout: Thank you to Seohee Park, Lukas Han, Kai Otsuki, Ken Watanabe, Jon Bauer, and Roberto Carvajal for their outstanding work and for sharing it with the community.
👏 We also thank everyone who attended, asked tough questions, and provided live feedback—including voices from Arlington, VA to Tokyo, from Comply.Land to Privado ID.
Feedback Framework
We used the Roses / Buds / Thorns model to structure feedback:
- 🌹 Roses: What worked well and stood out.
- 🌱 Buds: Growth opportunities and next directions.
- 🥀 Thorns: Gaps, risks, or issues to address.
Participants contributed through live discussion and sticky-note exercises on tldraw.
Project Feedback & Next Steps
Anonymous Multi-Signature Verifiable Credentials (ZKMPA)
🌹 Roses
- Impressive working demo for a lab project.
- Strong technical use of Semaphore with nullifiers for privacy.
- Clear DAO governance use case resonated.
🌱 Buds
- Sharpen business case beyond DAOs (e.g., procurement approvals, committee authorizations).
- Map roles and visibility—issuer, voter, auditor, verifier—what each sees.
- Consider ISO DAO standards as contribution path.
🥀 Thorns
- Risk of ambiguity in approval semantics (threshold vs. weighted votes).
- Coercion / vote-selling mitigation not yet addressed.
Potential Next Steps
- Publish roles/visibility matrix with sequence diagrams.
- Ship a configurable reference policy pack for approvals.
- Add a second non-DAO demo to test adoption breadth.
Privacy-Preserving Revocation Mechanisms
🌹 Roses
- First real taxonomy + benchmark study of revocation methods.
- Solid reference implementation with comparative performance data.
- Engagement with Ethereum Foundation on Merkle-tree revocation.
🌱 Buds
- Expand taxonomy to short-term credentials and hybrid strategies.
- Analyze frequent update costs for high-churn scenarios.
- Produce deployment recipes (offline verification, constrained devices).
🥀 Thorns
- Practical/regulatory revocation needs (e.g., police needing real-time checks) not yet integrated.
- Regional cryptographic constraints (e.g., EU bans on BBS+).
Potential Next Steps
- Publish a decision tree to select revocation methods by use case.
- Release benchmark artifacts with reproducible configs.
- Add issuer-only and verifier-only revocation flows to analysis.
Legally-Binding Proof of Personhood via QES (QVC)
🌹 Roses
- Clear articulation of gap: VCs lack legal non-repudiation, QES provides it.
- Solid “binding credential” model preserves original VC.
- Real-world doc-signing use case anchored the work.
🌱 Buds
- Align schema explicitly with ETSI standards (TS 119 472-1, 479-3, EN 319 102).
- Explore pseudonymous QES flows with controlled unmasking.
- Broaden examples: degrees, healthcare, finance.
🥀 Thorns
- Some assumptions about QES identity disclosure corrected during Q&A.
- Standards alignment needed for portability and adoption.
- Terminology clarification: “Advanced vs Qualified” instead of “high assurance.”
Potential Next Steps
- Produce an ETSI conformance matrix for QVC flows.
- Draft pseudonymous QES demo with identity escrow.
- Publish reference validation flow (VC verify → QES artifact → eIDAS trust chain).
Thank You 🙏
Special thanks to our cohort chairs (Ankur Banerjee, Daniel Thompson-Yvetot), our mentors directory, and leaders Kim Hamilton Duffy and Juan Caballero for enabling this work under the Decentralized Identity Foundation.
And above all: thank you to the projects themselves for showing what’s possible when passion, open-source collaboration, and decentralized identity meet.
👉 Explore more at labs.identity.foundation
👉 Share your thoughts: Feedback Form
🚀 With Beta Cohort 2 wrapped, it’s clear: the future of decentralized identity is being built—openly, rigorously, and with community at the center.