Fairway 2025: A Year of Alignment
If I try to summarize 2025 for Fairway with one moment, I can’t.
There was no single big breakthrough or dramatic turning point but many of them, too many to count. What I remember instead is a long stretch of steady work and late nights, and sometimes very slow progress.. and a lot of conversations that didn’t immediately lead anywhere. And then, at some point, things started to line up.
This was a year of change for us, but more importantly, it was a year of alignment.
Asking Better Questions
At the start of the year, Fairway was already deep in digital identity and Cardano. We were building our own self-sovereign identity (SSI) wallet, working with verifiable credentials, and contributing to identity infrastructure more broadly. From the outside, everything probably looked fine.
Internally, we kept coming back to the same questions. What are we really building this for? Where does this turn into a sustainable business? And are we being honest with ourselves about where the value actually is?
That’s where working with Anthony Day started to make a real difference.
Anthony joined us toward the end of 2024 and brought a much more strategic perspective into our discussions. At the time he was still working as a head of strategy for Midnight and a lot of our conversations shifted away from features and toward positioning, go-to-market, and long-term direction. His experience, especially around Midnight, helped us see our work in a wider context and challenged some assumptions we had been holding onto.
Looking back, that’s where 2025 really began for us.
Switzerland and Learning Faster
Not long after, we joined the CV Labs Cardano Accelerator in Switzerland.
Spending time in an accelerator environment changes how you think. You’re surrounded by other founders every day, all dealing with similar problems, and there’s very little room to hide behind theory. You quickly learn to explain what you’re building, who it’s for, and why it matters.
Being around teams building real companies on Cardano helped us mature faster. It pushed us to be more concrete about our customers and how Fairway fits into the ecosystem. I’d honestly recommend an accelerator experience to any early-stage startup—it forces clarity.
Better Alignment
Over the course of the year, through discussions with Anthony, accelerator advisors, partners, and a lot of internal debate, we reached a simple conclusion: Fairway didn’t need a new idea. It needed better focus.
Our work around professional identity and SSI was not wasted. It gave us strong foundations to work us in the identity space and around credentials and compliance in Blockchain. But as we listened more closely to feedback, we started reevaluating our achievements and the overall direction of Fairway.
At the same time, we were stepping deeper into the Midnight, first through hackathons and them diving deeper into the whole ecosystem. We experimented with things like identity-backed national stablecoins, privacy-preserving financial credentials, and selective disclosure in real financial flows.
Our newlyfound direction was reinforced through CV Labs and our early work with Cardano DeFi teams like Sundial. The more time we spent discussing with DeFi protocols, the clearer it became that Fairway makes the most sense as a service layer for DeFi supporting protocols rather than trying to be an application itself.
Pressure That Helps You Focus
Later in the year, a big moment came, when we got accepted into the Outlier Ventures x Midnight PETs accelerator.
Outlier pushed us hard on business fundamentals and GTM and what customers and investors really want to see and their experience as an investor and accelerator really shined with our new focus. Accelerator was co-run by Midnight and we were happy to receive all the help we needed directy from the team. As these systems are fairly early, it helps tremendously to learn directly from the development team and understand where the technology is heading in the near future
Through the accelerator our vision cleared even more. Instead of being an identity project that touches DeFi, we became focused on identity that works inside DeFi, especially where institutional requirements are involved. Fairway is not only a feature that gets added but can directly help DeFi to reach maturity required by the institutions.
Institutional Perspective and Real Constraints
Sheldon Hunt joined our advisory board, kinda big deal!
At the same time, we started collaborating with more teams in the Cardano DeFi ecosystem such as FluidTokens, Strike, Sundae, TxPipe and that started to shape our thinking on how do we actually get the level of integration we want to see. Each protocol is different and making the user experience work for the outsiders can become a real challenge. That’s why we believe Fairway can really serve the Cardano ecosystem in unifying the compliant user experience for the new customer base that is soon gonna come in.
Seeing the Ecosystem Up Close
As the year went on, a few events helped us step back and see Fairway more clearly.
At the Cardano Summit in Berlin, the value was mostly in meeting people. We spent time with partners, talked to other builders, and got honest feedback. Seeing familiar teams in person and meeting new ones reinforced that Cardano is still the right ecosystem for what we’re building.
When we meet our partners and friends, we always remember to have fun.
The Midnight Summit in London was great with much more to learn and diving deeper into the collaboration of both ecosystems. Spending focused time with the Midnight team and other builders showed how quickly the ecosystem is coming together. Building on Midnight is definitely the way to go for us!
Devconnect in Buenos Aires served a different purpose. We joined two hackathons, built small test cases, and most of all talked with a ton of teams from the Ethereum ecosystem. The pace and culture are different, and seeing that firsthand was useful. In the end, it didn’t change the direction or fundamentals of Fairway, — but made us more confident about staying focused and going deeper where we already are.
We also visited the IOG office in Buenos Aires, where we met the team who were extremely welcoming and interactive. We had productive discussions, exchanged ideas, and gained valuable insights through open and engaging conversations.
What We Actually Built
Over the past year, Fairway focused on building a privacy-preserving identity and compliance stack designed for DeFi, with a strong emphasis on the Midnight ecosystem.
We became part of the Midnight identity working group and worked closely with the Midnight team on identity and compliance design. This included designing privacy-preserving KYC and eligibility verification logic for Midnight smart contracts, where user data remains off-chain and applications receive only minimal verification outputs.
We implemented and tested verification flows that allow users to prove compliance properties without revealing underlying personal data. These flows form the basis for compliant DeFi interactions on Midnight and are designed to integrate with Cardano-based execution environments.
In parallel, we designed and implemented Fairway’s self-sovereign identity (SSI) wallet architecture based on Identus. The wallet supports decentralized identifiers, verifiable credential issuance, and selective disclosure, and acts as the core identity component across Fairway’s infrastructure.
{
"id": "a411274c7fa118df327ecd678753c376",
"name": "GovernmentID",
"type": "sd-jwt",
"issuedAt": "2025-07-18T11:45:23.018Z",
"sdJwt": "eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.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.CpOf2JZDHCzd3aMorxKXeJRvP930GftnDijPGoqvNxuUUMS3SYzqMeVlo7668nTT_uJwBVIR0LT5qXPHVf44UpLqAfFl6hwuqK1IiBOPwZbbJ1l06iPnUiYkXmjQSZ7vUQloBYu5n4XPjMsd_CWjdCI2h_W9KqXtUmLmDVMuXcq9ifaskAYAxWaPwLqQ84sya7joU1kSe-EQHLfefLoPpT2wdM4jkT1miE0ZE6jTSmtN_-rMKqArg_T4voaB2G1eKYqCj1xmobipyDhPdCEqYnV9W6m-3p3MauNlnswZvsOH6_eLM7biwUCoSqB_tq3pbe8RLDYaEAI4MSOVDooh0w~{"salt":"RrD_fvTS8QmVKf3yeuie_w","claim":{"givenName":"John"}}~{"salt":"fidK7abJdyix2Ve3CczinA","claim":{"familyName":"Doe"}}~{"salt":"FxMJn6TiabuopvksmmXmiA","claim":{"dateOfBirth":"1990-01-01"}}~{"salt":"YN21ooxs5zH2HvmGC9j1Dw","claim":{"nationality":"US"}}~{"salt":"OULAfe-sVz7dvU6rCb_Jgw","claim":{"idNumber":"123456789"}}~{"salt":"TKKgp6YOhTmP2PThorJYDA","claim":{"address":"123 Main St, Anytown, USA"}}~{"salt":"_sWHZtqQcW7RjL013nFGJg","claim":{"photo":"data:image/jpeg;base64,..."}}",
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}
Hackathons were used as an R&D environment to prototype and validate these ideas. Through this work, we built and tested identity-backed financial flows, privacy-preserving verification logic, and early compliance-aware DeFi integrations. The results were working prototypes rather than production systems.
We also developed a prototype KYC oracle on Cardano testnet. The oracle converts off-chain compliance signals into minimal on-chain verification outputs that smart contracts can consume, while keeping sensitive personal data off-chain or device-local.
Across these efforts, we delivered:
- Working identity and verification prototypes on Midnight and Cardano
- SSI wallet infrastructure supporting verifiable credentials and selective disclosure
- Privacy-preserving compliance logic suitable for DeFi use cases
- Early oracle designs for institutional eligibility checks
Ending the Year
We finished the year with a team workshop in Brazil. It gave us time to pull together what we had learned throughout the year, reflect on the summits and accelerator programs, and continue conversations with many potential partners and Cardano ecosystem participants in Latin America. We also spent time understanding how the crypto ecosystems in Argentina and Brazil are evolving, which helped ground our work in real-world context.
Looking Ahead
By the end of 2025, Fairway has a clear direction. We want to make it possible for regulated capital to use DeFi on Cardano in a compliant way, without giving up privacy. To get there, we’re building privacy-preserving identity infrastructure designed specifically for DeFi on Cardano and Midnight.
It feels like we’re in the right place to start the next year.
Happy New Year, everyone!
Henrik Metsämäki
Expert in blockchain compliance and regulatory frameworks. Passionate about bridging traditional finance with decentralized technologies.
