Tropic Square and filancore partner to deliver next generation self-sovereign identity solutions

Trust through transparency

Decentralized identity anchored in auditable secure silicon

We are excited to announce our new partnership with Tropic Suare and the integration of their TROPIC01 secure element with filancore’s IoT client and SDK, filancore Ankrypt. This collaboration represents a perfect synergy between Tropic Square, a developer of open-architecture secure elements for various applications, and filancore, a leading provider of Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) solutions for IoT ecosystems.

Managing device identity and trust at scale

As IoT adoption grows across industries like logistics, manufacturing, and smart infrastructure, one of the major challenges is managing device identity and trust at scale.

Most solutions today rely on centralized PKI systems. These can be difficult to maintain, costs 5 – 10 times more than decentralized HW rooted digital identity, are slow to adapt, and not well-suited for large, distributed networks. filancore approaches this differently – by building a decentralized identity layer for IoT based on open W3C standards. Each device is assigned a cryptographic identity that can be verified without relying on centralized infrastructure.

Secure identities needs to be anchored in hardware

But secure identity on paper doesn’t solve the full problem. That identity still needs to be anchored in hardware – somewhere tamper-resistant and isolated from the main application. That’s where Tropic Square comes in.

TROPIC01 is Tropic Square’s open architecture secure element that stores cryptographic keys, performs signature operations, and supports attestation directly on the device. Unlike typical secure elements, it’s built on a fully auditable architecture, allowing anyone to independently verify how security is implemented – no NDAs, no hidden components.

Together, filancore and Tropic Square offer a combined solution: decentralized identity software for access management, updates, and data provenance backed by verifiable hardware. The result is a more scalable and trustworthy approach to IoT security – without depending on traditional PKI models.

The TROPIC01 implementation is auditable, allowing engineers to review the design to verify the security implementations and ensure there are no hidden features of backdoors. 

The Ankrypt uses the TROPIC01 secure element as a hardware Root-of-Trust for storing device identity keys. The TROPIC01 chip provides:

• Storage of ECC public keys for verification operation
• Enabling secure provisioning of ECC (verification) keys
• Storing “associated” data (key values and other secrets)

“This integration extends filancore’s Self-Sovereign Identity solutions for IoT all the way down to the hardware level.” said Sven Feuchtmüller, CTO of filancore. “TROPIC01’s open architecture brings full transparency, allowing users and security researchers to independently audit both the design and implementation.” TROPIC01 brings Kerchoff’s principle to secure element chips. This approach follows Kerckhoff’s principle that a cryptosystem should be secure even if everything about it, except the secret key, is known to the attacker: As a result, users no longer have to blindly trust that the secure element is free from vulnerabilities or back doors as they can verify the vendor’s claims.“By combining our decentralized identity stack – built on open standards – with TROPIC01’s auditable hardware, we establish a true end-to-end trust chain: from secure key storage in silicon to verifiable identities at the edge.” 

Markus Soppa, Managing Director at filancore, emphasized the importance of the collaboration: “This partnership marks a major step toward enabling transparent and secure digital identities in various industries like automotive, defense, and supply chain – industries where this need has long been overlooked and remains largely unaddressed by other chip providers. We’re proud that we can now offer a complete solution for end-to-end trust for open IoT ecosystems.”

“filancore’s SSI solution provides a critical building block for securing IoT and WEB3 devices, and we are excited to partner with them to enable secure identity solutions for the next generation of devices“, said Krystof Jelinek, Head of Business Development for Tropic Square. “Secure device identity solutions are now more critical than ever, and filancore’s innovative approach to self-sovereign IDs provides a cost-effective, scalable alternative to traditional PKI solutions.“

About Filancore

filancore is developing next generation user-friendly Identity Management solutions that seamlessly connect machines to machines to people, empowering interactions and collaborative business models. 

About Tropic Square

Tropic Square, a SatoshiLabs company, develops open-architecture secure elements for applications ranging from IoT and crypto wallets to any modern application that prioritizes security. 

By placing transparency at the core of our design philosophy, we invite industry experts and members of the open-source community to test, validate, and strengthen our security implementation. 

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