Delaware, United States, August 16, 2024, Chainwire
The round was led by Finality Capital and Paper Ventures, with participation from Arrington Capital, Draper Dragon, Lightshift and others.
Holonym Foundation, an organization building next-generation digital identity security for the decentralized web, announced the successful closing of a $5.5 million seed funding round. The round was led by Finality Capital and Paper Ventures, with participation from a number of notable funds including Draper Dragon, Arrington Capital, Lightshift, Zero Knowledge Ventures, and Zero DAO.
“We are building people-first principles into the technology we send out into the world,” said Shady El Damaty, co-founder of Holonym. “Our goal is to build a global open-source layer that uses cryptography to provide fundamental access to digital identity and empower every citizen.”
“Without self-sovereign identity, financial assets cannot be self-sovereignly managed. The Holonym Foundation is building critical middleware and applications that will be the envy of Web2 users by giving Web3 users the power to own, manage and selectively share their data with strong privacy and security guarantees. Holonym will be part of the solution that brings the next trillion dollars of assets to the blockchain,” said Kamal Mokedem, GP at Finality Capital.
Cryptographic keys, or private keys, run the web and secure every digital interaction on the internet. But what if private keys could be constructed in a different, more elegant way? Human Keys completely changes how private keys are derived. Instead of creating private keys from random phrases, Human Keys makes humans the keys. With this new paradigm, ownership of digital assets shifts from the holder of a random seed to humans who can uniquely attest to their biometric identity. With Human Keys, the ownership layer of the internet it builds on becomes more consumer-friendly, decentralized and secure.
Human Keys includes three protocols built by the Holonym Foundation, all with security and a robust data privacy system as core principles.
Mishti Network is a groundbreaking threshold entropy network that computes an Oblivious Pseudorandom Function (OPRF) over biometric data. This allows humans to derive random, secure keys that are hard to steal, unlocking private homomorphic computations over encrypted data to authenticate users without untrusted third parties seeing the underlying data. It is an Actively Validated Service (AVS) on Eigenlayer with crypto-economic mechanisms that leverage the economic security of the Ethereum network. Zeronym, a zero-knowledge identity protocol, leverages Human Keys to enable anyone in the world to privately attest to facts about their identity. Over 125,000 pseudonymous Zeronym users around the world have already unlocked these rights, attesting to their unique persona, place of residence, and other attributes to curate a rich digital reputation that is owned and controlled only by them. Silk is a simple and elegant wallet user interface for interacting with cryptographic protocols. Silk makes Human Keys available for real-world use to everyday internet users. Silk provides advanced security tools to protect users from hackers, scams, and malware on the decentralized web.
Holonym co-founder Nanak Nihal Singh Khalsa said, “Peoplehood is not just about your face or other biometrics. Peoplehood is what you have, what you know and who you are – your wealth, your memories and your body. In today's centralized web, we give away ownership of our data freely. Web3 must be a space that offers robust data ownership and secure sharing of personhood, so that no one can own your data except you.”
By giving every person on the planet a secure key that only they hold and control, the Holonym Foundation is making strides toward global digital inclusion at a time when advances in artificial intelligence are threatening to leave many people behind.
Holonym co-founder Shady El Damaty said this is just the beginning for the Holonym Foundation: “Human Keys will redefine how citizens interact with the internet by limiting the excesses of power and strengthening individual rights through a resilient decentralized protocol built on Zeronym and the Mishti Network.”
The Holonym Foundation focuses on innovation in applied cryptography that provides solutions to real-world problems.
About the Holonim Foundation
The Holonym Foundation's mission is to democratize Human Keys to improve security and privacy usability in Zero Trust environments. The Holonym Foundation has developed an infrastructure that allows anyone, anywhere to create a Human Key on Mishti Network, easily use it on Silk, and privately attest to facts about their identity on Zeronym.
Holonim Foundation Products
Mishti Network. A threshold network for zero trust human key derivation. It creates high-entropy human keys from private biometrics, passwords, security questions, and other human-memorable data. Mishti also powers Zeronym's programmable privacy for on-chain private banking, payments, and other real-world regulated industries.
Silk. A human-friendly wallet with instant onboarding. Use Human Keys with Zero Trust protocol to store, send payments, access global internet financial protocols, and manage your personal data. Silk is a protected, self-custodian wallet that can be restored even without a trusted guardian.
Zeronym. Proof of persona and private identity. Fast client-side privacy for identity verification, supporting digital credentials in 180 countries. Human Keys allows you to privately prove any fact without exposing any information with zero-knowledge. Businesses can leverage Zeronym for privacy-preserving KYC/AML with programmable privacy for continuous monitoring.
Inquiries and SNS
For PR enquiries please contact (email address protected)
Users can stay connected to the Holonym Foundation and its products.
🌐 holonym.id, mishti.network, silk.sc
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