Hopae launches $1M digital ID developer challenge

Hopae has thrown down the gauntlet with a challenge to developers worldwide to work on digital identity verification and eID integration — and it comes with a $1 million bounty.

Hopae’s global bounty challenge is designed to push the boundaries of ID technology and with it help to integrate eIDs (electronic IDs) worldwide to create a “more connected and secure” digital identity ecosystem.

Hopae has been expanding its technology to the U.S. as it secured $6.5 million in funding a few months ago, and is focused on open-source building blocks for digital wallets having previously made its name building a national vaccination pass (COOV) during the Covid-19 pandemic. The company believes the current identity verification system is “fundamentally flawed.”

“Right now, identity verification (IDV) is slow, inefficient and fraud-prone,” Hopae’s blog says, introducing the bounty challenge 2025. “Governments worldwide are rolling eIDs to create a more secure digital identity network. Yet businesses still lack a simple way to integrate them.”

And this is where the challenge lies. The $1 million dollar challenge requires participants to sign-up. Developers will build “critical integrations” to connect the world’s eID systems into one unified verification network. Those taking part will need to submit code for Hopae to evaluate and to work with Hopae’s hConnect in mind.

Hopae’s hConnect is the company’s identity verification API. The single API connects eIDs worldwide into one unified verification network, meaning hConnect allows businesses to let users verify their identity “with just one click.” For it to work on a global scale, however, as many eIDs as possible must be integrated into hConnect. So that is the bounty challenge: a global coding competition.

The challenge kicked off on March 14 so it has already begun and there is a prize pool of $1 million in total. There is also a bonus opportunity: until April 31 those who complete their eID integration within five days of their onboarding call with Hopae can unlock the “top reward” of $8,000 per eID. Those interested can sign up on Hopae’s page here.

Hopae will participate in the 40th IIW in April

Hopae is participating in the global unconference, the IIW where industry leaders will explore, develop and advance digital identity solutions. Hopae’s work on OpenSource and eID integration will be laid out as attendees find out more into how it fits into the evolving landscape of identity verification.

The Internet Identity Workshop will take place April 8-10 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. For more information on the event, check out Hopae’s blog post here.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  digital ID  |  e-ID  |  Hopae  |  identity verification  |  Internet Identity Workshop  |  research and development