The Status of the Sovrin Foundation

March 13, 2020

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To the Sovrin Community – 

We would like to share an update from the Sovrin Foundation. The recent economic climate has forced the Foundation to make some changes to our operations. 

Sovrin Network

The Sovrin Network is operational.

• Stewards are operating validator nodes and transactions are being validated and added to the ledger
• Transaction Endorsers are writing credential definitions, public DIDs, and other ledger data on behalf of Transaction Authors
• Credentials are being exchanged and validated. 

The Sovrin Network was designed to operate in a decentralized manner, independent of the Foundation staff and it’s functioning as expected. 

Sovrin Foundation

The Sovrin Foundation is moving to a volunteer staff, but continues to operate. 

• The Board of Trustees is functioning and carrying out their duties. 
• Various self-organizing governing bodies such as the Technical Governance Board, Governance Framework Working Group, and Steward Qualification Committee (SQC) are all functioning and carrying out their duties. 

With a volunteer staff, there are some changes that will need to take place:

• More work will have to be picked up by volunteers. For example, the SQC will not have staff support to collate application material and communicate with applicants. They will have to do that themselves.
• Similarly, operational duties that have been done by staff surrounding Network and open source code maintenance will have to be picked up by volunteers.  This includes onboarding new Stewards, managing downed nodes, and coordinating Network upgrades. Stewards may send queries about the state of the Network to support@sovrin.org. This email address will be supported on a volunteer basis. 
• The Foundation will need to find sufficient funding from the community to continue paying for things like email, Google docs, needed AWS servers, website, etc. 

Sovrin Community

The Sovrin Community comprises volunteers who develop code, staff committees, and working groups, and promote Sovrin. The community is strong, with hundreds of volunteers from around the world promoting the Sovrin Mission. 

Sovrin Token

The token code is operationally ready and being tested publicly (https://sovrin.org/test-sovrin-tokens/). Developers and organizations can develop applications that use the token and test them on the Testnet. 

Launching a token under Reg A+ will require additional funding to file and complete the registration. 

• Filing will require $1-2MM
• Completing the registration will require an additional $1-2MM

Given the current market conditions, we do not anticipate a Reg A+ filing for the Sovrin token in 2020. 

To any extent possible, a few of us will remain on board, on a volunteer basis to assist as we can. We will be transparent in our answers to your questions, as we have always been.

For many of you, with whom we have built good working relationships, this will be difficult news, and we don’t like it any more than you do. We want to thank you for your work in wholeheartedly supporting Sovrin’s mission. We encourage you to keep doing their important work for the good of the Network and future so together we can achieve Identity for All.

Sincerely,

Heather Dahl
Executive Director & CEO
Sovrin Foundation