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Exclusive Interview With SoulCertify (L1X | Hackathon 2025 Participant)
Recorded: March 27, 2025 Duration: 0:22:25Space Recording
Short Summary
In an engaging discussion, the team behind SoulCertify unveils their innovative project aimed at revolutionizing credential verification in the Web3 space. By leveraging soulbound tokens, they tackle the pressing issue of fake degrees and aim to enhance privacy through advanced cryptographic techniques. Their participation in the L1X hackathon signifies a commitment to growth and real-world impact.
Full Transcription
good morning good afternoon good evening wherever you're at in this crypto world my name is cody
and i will be your host today and we've got an exclusive interview with Sol Certified, a participant in the 2025 hackathon for L1X. So, hey guys, how are you?
If you want, just take a second, kind of introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about who you
are, your experience kind of thing, and then we'll kind of jump into the, to digging more into your
guys' project. So, thanks for joining me today.
Thank you for inviting me. I'll start.
I'm Ojas, a second-year computer science student in Southampton, UK.
I've been in the DeFi crypto or just this crypto web free space since the past one and
a half years.
I mostly build on EVM chains and I specialize in smart contracts.
That's about me. And yeah, what about you, Karan?
Hello, hi, Cody. I am Karan. I'm basically from India and currently I'm posting VTech
in computer science. So my specialization is into AI ML and my recent projects are chatbots
and AI powered code reviewers and all.
That's it.
Awesome.
No, that's great.
Great to meet you guys.
And congrats on being on the part of the hackathon.
It's going to be a good one.
They're kind of looking over what you guys shared about your project with a little blurb about it. It does sound pretty cool, but definitely we want to let our community know more about it.
So with that being said,
what is kind of the core idea around SoulCertify
and what specific problems are you guys looking to solve
or maybe overcome in Web3?
Yeah. Do you mind if I share my screen?
I have a brief presentation if that's okay.
Perfect.
Yeah, go for it.
It says you've disabled, can you enable it please?
Yeah, no problem.
All right, you should be good to go.
Give me a second.
Perfect.
I assume you can see my screen now.
Yep. Perfect. So, so it see my screen now? Yep.
Perfect. So, sole certificate is, sorry, my screen is there.
So if you get confused, I'll look that side.
I have two screens. Yeah. Perfect.
So sole certified on-chain verified credentials is certificate.
So what the actual problem is, so as we know, there are many degree duplicates. Degree, as we are talking about, is a college or university degree,
certificates or anything, fake degrees and potential scams against universities.
This makes a big issue.
For example, you're a job recruiter.
You want to hire me for my skill set.
That does somewhere come deep down from my university certificate.
If it's a fake one, it's more likely for me to not do anything and just get the job.
And someone who actually deserved it would just be lacking and would not get anything. So it's the fake one that it's more likely for me to not do anything and just get the job and
someone who actually deserved it would just be lacking and would not get anything so it's the same point again employers and educational institutions struggle to verify
their authenticity and integrity and it's again and the students also face sometimes difficulties
and like um you know just cross-checking if the degree is genuine or not this is why we made we
are planning to make this project
so as we know the traditional certificate insurance progress a process sorry so it's
generally uploaded in the cloud somewhere in the database and as we know the convenient method if
it's like a very old university or college it's probably just in some databases and all students
certificates just don't even get looked it's's just there for no reason. It's very time consuming, costly, and just exposed to many errors.
And there could be so many errors.
So as we know, there's nothing really a standard system.
It doesn't matter on-chain, off-chain.
There is nothing really made for this specific reason to just store certificates.
There isn't anything.
So this is where we introduce our project.
It's called soul certify
so what it basically does is implementation we use sbt's so sbt is an nft you probably know nft
everyone knows nfts it's an nft that cannot be transferred that's the only difference and why
we choose sbt's is because if it's your certificate your degree why would you want to transfer it to
someone else so it makes complete sense right it's yours it belongs your degree, why would you want to transfer it to someone else? So it makes complete sense, right? It's yours.
It belongs to you.
So yeah, how it works is it's a secure and damp proof as it's on-chain.
So once you upload it, it's just there.
No one can take it off, right?
And so certificates are minted on the blockchain, ensuring, you know, they're there and they can't be manipulated.
Obviously, once it's on-chain, it cannot be manipulated or anything.
Once it's on-chain, it cannot be manipulated or anything.
So each token, each SPD token represents a unique and a verifiable certificate,
which every certificate would have its own unique hash and metadata,
which cannot be forced or duplicated.
So how it works is I'll give you a brief walkthrough of a sample demo later,
but I'll just explain to you in theory and in words now.
So how it works is, firstly, as a student, actually, I can just show it to you right now while I wait.
Yeah. Do you see the screen as well, I assume?
Perfect. So this is it. So this was the previous sample demo I made.
I would show you in person, but it doesn't really work at the moment but it doesn't matter i just want to show you how it works first you connect the wallet as how you do
it in every web3 crypto project you connect your wallet okay we move forward you connect your wallet
be it and you want to see this see this dialogue this is sorry i'll just roll back yeah this is
where you i know it's a bit blurry but it's basically for just explaining okay it will make
it all over again.
So how it works is you're going to input the student address.
If you can see this little dialogue here, I'll just zoom in basically.
Yeah.
So yeah, student address.
It could be probably your, if you're a student, you can input your wallet address, be it anything,
thing you're all at the rest and then you're gonna upload a certificate the certificate
your wallet address, and then you're going to upload a certificate.
could be in png jpg or any of the forms that doesn't really matter up to you and then you're
gonna upload your certificate right and it's gonna take a little transaction depends on the chain you
use it's gonna take a minimal fee right now all this the test one was made made on base cipolia
but obviously as we use layer 1x we're gonna
be using layer 1x test net obviously for that so you mint the certificate and then you get a
transaction hash which uh certificate goes on chain and then uh one second and then you switch
your wallet to the admin admin platform admin is basically the university so one second yeah this
is the university it can see all
the certificates of all the students with different wallet addresses and different certificates so
the university will click on so as they can the admin can view the full certificate as well so
you see it's on on chain all on chain and blockchain verification has the hash metadata
and everything so as an admin i can it, approve it as in like,
that is the major purpose for the admin to approve it and say, Oh yes,
this is the genuine certificate. The student is not faking it.
So that is the project as of now. Okay. Back to the presentation.
This is all the points I don't want to read all over again.
So this is a tech stack. Um, so we're going to use,
using react JS, wag me earlier when X folks have never really used there. So this is the tech stack. So we're going to be using React.js, Wagme, or Layer 1x hooks.
I've never really used Layer 1x hooks before,
but I think it will be pretty seamless.
Back in Node.js standard, we can use each scaffold
because it's just easy to use.
Deployment will be on the testnet.
Well, this is the potential additions to the pre-existing idea we have.
We can use ZKIS, NORC, proofs.
We might implement those for external parties to verify.
So not everyone needs to get the whole certificate, right?
If you're a third person, I don't really need to send you the whole thing.
I don't need to show you the whole certificate.
It could be just, you know, how ZK proof works,
just minimum information and just proves that it's there, basically.
And I read as well that Layer 1x supports bridging
and cross-strain simulation,
so we might probably implement this idea.
So then, for example, a student mainstown certificate in Solana
and then verified on Ethereum.
Actually, Bitcoin is a bit complicated,
but Ethereum or probably any other.
Layer 2, Layer 1 doesn't really make a difference.
And yeah, this is too much technical now.
This is the smart contract.
Yeah, this is too much technical.
It just explains what are the functions, major functions. And yeah, so yeah too much technical now. This is the smart contract. If, yeah, this is too much technical, it just explains what are the functions, major functions.
And yes, so yeah, why Layer 1x?
Because while smart contract deployment is pretty easy
and it has its own hooks,
that's probably one of the major advantages to see.
So yeah, pretty much.
And yeah, CAS optimization, Layer 1x would be pretty cheap
for CAS optimization as compared to other layer 2s as well.
Layer 1x is probably one of the cheapest ones for gas.
Yeah, that was a lot of speaking, but this is our project.
No, no, this is really good.
Great presentation.
Karan, do you want to add anything to that?
No, we'll just...
No, it's not good. He's more he's more of technically doesn't like speaking
it is like doing yeah no no i totally get it totally get it so i just want to make sure
everybody's got a chance to kind of hype up their their project as much as possible so
totally get it my friend um yeah no that was a great presentation. I took a couple of different notes. Some things
that, you know, I'm kind of curious about, you know, obviously, one of the things that L1X really
focuses on and has the capabilities with like DID kind of technology is being able to hide a lot of
that data. And I think you had ZKP in there. What kind of things do you guys have planned around ZKP where maybe the certification isn't necessarily fully public for people to view versus having it a little bit more private?
Because people do like to have a sense of a little bit of privacy still when it comes to their information.
a little bit of privacy still when it comes to their information.
They don't want people going out there and building a digital footprint
around a person, especially around identity being stolen, stuff like that.
So that was one of my thoughts.
What's your guys' take on that?
So how are we going to use ZK Proofs?
As a whole, as a certificate, we can train a lot of data
and personal data as well, probably email a certificate, we can train a lot of data and like personal data as well,
probably like email ID, phone numbers.
We obviously don't want to expose that
to every other person.
So we're going to use ZK proofs.
We're going to use some off-chain Oracle.
Could be Lerner or Next, obviously.
So how it will just return a JSON file,
which is three or four major points
like name of university slash college,
student name, date date issued and probably a
credential that's all that we would be inputting if someone uses if someone wants to view the
certificate while as ek proves while using an option oracle gotcha okay okay that makes sense
and then um you know i i love soulbound nfts no hands down i love it for permissions for a lot of different use cases
uh i like how you guys are using it as well what happens with uh if a person accidentally uh
loses their seed phrase or their private key they have to set up a new wallet do they have to go
through the whole process again or would they be able to reach out to like the university that
approved it and have it transferred i know soulbound's a little bit tricky that way but
uh maybe minting a new one but how do how do you go about like stopping people from being able to
falsify say who they are to get access but also stop the duplication of of a lot documents? So there are two ways to go about it.
One way is obviously just redoing the whole process,
which should obviously consume more gas and more time.
So we don't want to do that.
The second way is we have a callback function in the smart contract
so the admin can call back the certificate if something like that happens.
If probably you lose your seed phrase,
the admin as in the university can call back the certificate.
And once you have a new wallet, you just can ask for it again.
So we can revert the NFT, sorry, SBT to you.
So the admin has all the privileges, but as an end user, you don't really have any privileges.
Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. That makes sense.
Are you guys planning on taking this outside of the university certification level?
I can see multiple applications for this.
What's kind of the future hold for you guys?
As of now, it's pretty small scale.
It's mostly the university just for credentials, certificates, awards, and all that.
But as we actually see it as a problem in this real world
scenario, it's just too much duplication of our certificates. And we've heard our college admin
complaining about, you know, there's just how to store certificates. So we thought it would be a
good idea to just make it on a low level first. But if it works out, we'd probably like to
make it more large scale or anything. As of now, it's just very central around universities.
Nice, nice.
Okay, yeah, that's fair enough.
I have an idea.
Can I go?
Yeah, go for it.
Yeah, yeah.
So basically, these certifications,
we can introduce them into the hospitals
and the hospitality sector also.
the hospitality sector also like there are many insurance policies right so what what the basic
There are many insurance policies, right?
default process is like you go to the hospital you claim the insurance you tell your insurance number
the receptionist like goes through all the process the insurance company pays the hospital and like
that is the basic process that happens till date so we can introduce this uh
like uh how can we introduce this idea into the hospitals also that uh the insurance can be uh
stored on chain and like then the hospitals can directly uh access them and the insurance like
we can link all of them we just we could just cut the time
of the convenient the sorry the typical process we can cut a lot of time and efforts if we store
this yeah i don't know how it is in your guys's country but like here in the u.s it is a pain in
the butt for paperwork it seems like every time i go back to the same doctor, I have to fill out the same stupid form every single time.
So if you guys can solve that problem for us here in the US,
I'm pretty sure all the hundreds of millions of people
that live here would greatly appreciate you
and would definitely want to use your guys' product.
So yeah, I mean, you guys kind of talked a little bit
about why you guys want to
use Layer 1x because of the interoperability and some of the hooks and things like that.
Why join and participate in the L1x hackathon? Why not just build?
Well, if building is obviously can happen anytime, but hackathon is like you actually know where you
stand and how much you can compete with others.
And you can probably get a valuable feedback by your team and other people as well and see if the community actually likes the project.
Because in theory, it sounds good.
Like, yeah, it would be used, but would actually anyone use it?
So we can get feedback and valuable, you know, potential points for making it better or, you know, yeah, basically.
Yep. Yep. I'd have to say that's the best answer I've heard from everybody that I've interviewed
so far. So kudos to you guys on that one. Sounds like you've participated in a few hackathons over
the years, but, but yeah, no. So what would be some of your, I mean, you talked about feedback,
you talked about some scene where you lie with the competition, see if it would even be adopted.
But more internally, what kind of goals are you guys looking to achieve
by participating and building on the hackathon specifically?
Is it knowledge?
Is it kind of more like utility?
I mean, what are you guys looking to accomplish?
It's obviously utility. Knowledge just comes hand in hand
with every step in life, but it's utility and actual adoption of the project. We wanted to
actually do something, not just be a project. We wanted to make a change in the world. That's why
we're building. Perfect. Perfect. Great. And so obviously, tell us a little bit about your go to market strategy. I know it's like you with the demo, you said you're still kind of in infancy beta phase kind of thing. Have you kind of started putting thoughts together of how you want to go to market with this?
not a lot about it we have a few competitors but they're not like focusing around this area they're
just about decentralized storage nothing typically university credentials so i don't think we really
need to like think of about that too much so we're mainly focused on building an implementation as of
now because there are a few similar projects but either it's off-chain or either it's just
completely different implementation.
So we're not really worried about that as of now.
Gotcha. Okay. Makes sense.
I think that if you guys do really well in the hackathon competition, a lot of people are going to be asking that question in the upcoming weeks.
So with that being said, I think you guys mentioned that you don't have a website or any socials yet.
I anticipate that those will probably be coming a little bit more into the hackathon itself.
So for you listeners that are interested, definitely keep an eye out.
We've encouraged the team to reach out into the community.
I encourage you guys to get involved in the Twitter
and in our Discord spaces.
Pop in there, join the community, drop updates.
They love, love updates.
Like that little video update you did is perfect, right?
So if you can drop those little nuggets in there,
I'm guaranteeing you'll definitely get a couple of people
that are interested in following you guys
and seeing where you go throughout the hackathon so um other than that i mean you guys
pretty much answered a lot of my questions i i love when that happens i don't have to kind of
walk people through but great presentation uh anything you guys want to share before we sign off
um nor for me do you want to share anything, Karan?
On my side, I want to ask that how layer 1x will help us grow.
Yeah, that's it.
Everyone's idea, our idea, all these changes that people are bringing in the world.
What is Layer 1's vision into this?
Yeah, so I mean, Layer 1X's whole ethos is around uniting all of crypto, right?
From chains to projects to users and being able to provide a lot of the positive type of user experience, the simplicity
like you guys have on your UI interface there. It was very simple, very intuitive, very straightforward.
I think that we've had a lot of added complexity to the Web3 space that doesn't really need to be
there. So we're providing a lot of the tools. We're providing
a lot of the technology that will not only allow you to go interoperable around EVM and non-EVM
chains, but also allow you to basically build a lot of things under the hood, right? So you can
make it super simple, super easy while keeping costs low, without sacrificing speed or decentralization.
And that's how we are making projects grow, right?
It doesn't hurt that we've got a really massive community as well
that is very, very active on all the different channels
and are excited about this hackathon.
I've talked to numerous people as well.
So again, we're doing these kind of interviews.
Not everybody that's participating in the hackathon
is taking advantage of it.
So my hat's off to you guys.
I definitely tip my hat to you for jumping on
and kind of telling the community about your project
because it's these type of projects that are going to be the ones that make the
biggest splash in the hackathon.
Because at the end of the day, right,
they're the ones that are going to be voting for the ones that want to move on
and, and win the whole thing. So get involved.
We'll provide the channels. We'll provide the, the, the access to it.
And all you need to do is provide us with great updates like you just did.
So keep us in the loop and you'll definitely grow.
But I would definitely get social accounts set up sooner rather than later.
That would be my recommendation so that you can get some followers because of our massive community.
I'm pretty sure they'll start following you.
Okay?
We'll look into it for sure.
Perfect.
Sounds great.
So, all right, guys, thanks again for joining me. And thanks to all of our listeners that have tuned in.
We appreciate you guys as well.
If you happen to have any questions,
I am going to be getting their social handles
so that we can throw those out in as well and have you guys contact them directly
if you do happen to have questions. So, and with that being said, hey, thanks guys. Have a great
rest of your day and we'll talk to you guys next time. Okay. See ya. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, please stop
Oh, please stop
Oh, please stop
