Litentry (LIT)

Overview

Litentry began as a project for managing digital identity across blockchains. A person may use one wallet on Ethereum, another in the Polkadot ecosystem, and a separate account on a social platform. Each account shows only part of that person’s activity. Litentry set out to connect those parts so applications could check useful facts—such as participation in a community—without needing a complete record of someone’s online life. Its original token was LIT. (heima-network.medium.com)

The project later took a new direction. In 2025, Litentry rebranded as Heima, and the team introduced HEI as the successor to LIT through a one-for-one token swap. The broader Heima design builds on Litentry’s work with identity. It aims to let people use one account for actions across several blockchains, while software handles the steps between networks. Both names matter when reading about the project: Litentry describes its identity-focused origins, while Heima describes its expanded direction. (heima-network.medium.com)

History & Team

From identity research to Heima

Hanwen Cheng founded Litentry. The team described itself as technology-driven and based in Germany, with early experience connected to Parity and Ethereum projects. Litentry received a Web3 Foundation grant in 2019 and completed an early funding round in October 2020. The project named FBG, Candaq, Signum Capital, Hypersphere Ventures, NGC Ventures, and D1 Ventures among the firms supporting that round. (heima-network.medium.com)

Litentry’s early work centered on decentralized identifiers, often called DIDs, and on ways to bring identity information together from different networks. It developed identity tools within the Polkadot ecosystem using Substrate, a framework for building blockchains. Over time, the team widened its focus from proving who controls an identity to making it easier for that identity to act across chains. The Heima rebrand marked that change. Its newer documentation describes a system for shared accounts, cross-chain actions, and automated services. (medium.com)

Technology & How It Works

Linking identities and proving facts

Litentry’s identity approach starts with accounts a user controls. An identity tool can link accounts from different networks into an identity graph: a structured view of how those accounts relate. An application can then ask for a specific result rather than examine every account itself. For example, a community might want to know whether someone has completed an activity or holds a qualifying credential. (medium.com)

IdentityHub, also called IDHub, is the user-facing part of this work. It uses verifiable credentials—digital records that can support a claim about an account or its activity. Credentials can contribute to identity scores based on categories such as Web3 activity, holdings, or participation. The purpose of a score depends on the application using it: a community may value activity, while another service may care about a different verified fact. (docs.heima.network)

Privacy is part of the design. IdentityHub documentation describes trusted execution environments, or TEEs, for processing sensitive information in an isolated computing space. It also describes selective disclosure, which lets a user share the information needed for a particular request rather than an entire identity record. This helps explain Litentry’s main idea: linked accounts can be useful to applications while the person behind them retains control over what is presented. (docs.heima.network)

From an identity graph to one account

Heima extends the idea of a connected identity into an omni-account. The proposed account brings together ways to sign in and act across supported networks. Heima’s Omni-Executor is designed to interpret an intent—the result a user wants, such as a token transfer or swap—and work out the steps needed to carry it out. Its Substrate-based network serves as a coordination record for these actions. The project also describes an Agent Hub for software agents that can perform tasks on behalf of users or applications. (docs.heima.network)

Tokenomics & Utility

LIT’s original economic model

LIT was created for Litentry’s identity network, with a stated maximum supply of 100 million tokens. Its initial allocation set aside portions for the team, foundation, seed and strategic sales, Binance Launchpool, and parachain and ecosystem development. The original light paper described LIT as a way to pay for identity-related computations and reward participants who helped provide identity data. It also described staking for identity registrars, which would make judgments about verified account activity. (assets-cms.kraken.com)

Those roles explain why a token appeared in an identity project. Checking information from several sources takes computing work, and a network needs a way to coordinate and pay the people or services doing that work. Litentry also used token-based participation in parts of its community and network activity. (litentry.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com)

The HEI transition

The move to Heima introduced HEI at a 1 LIT to 1 HEI swap ratio, while keeping the stated maximum supply at 100 million. Heima’s token documentation places HEI in its expanded system: it describes roles in governance, network fees, and the coordination of cross-chain liquidity. Under the gas-abstraction design, a service carrying out a user’s action can handle the network fee behind the scenes. These are roles of the successor token; they should be read in the context of Heima’s newer architecture rather than as a description of every function of the original LIT network. (resources.cryptocompare.com)

Ecosystem & Use Cases

Litentry’s clearest use case is portable identity. A user can bring together evidence of activity from more than one account and present a relevant credential to an application. This could help a membership community recognize past participation or help a decentralized organization set rules for access and voting. IdentityHub’s scoring system gives applications another way to match verified activity with their own requirements. (docs.heima.network)

The same approach can serve developers. Instead of building a separate method to inspect each supported account, an application can use identity tools to request a defined claim or score. Litentry’s earlier materials also explored reputation for decentralized finance, rewards tied to community tasks, and identity-based participation in governance. These examples show the range of questions that a shared identity layer was designed to answer. (litentry.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com)

Heima adds use cases centered on cross-chain actions. Its documentation describes a single account interface for actions across supported networks, an executor that maps a request into transaction steps, and developer tools for building applications on top. The proposed Agent Hub adds automation, such as carrying out an authorized task when a chosen condition is met. In this model, identity helps connect the user’s accounts, while the execution system helps those accounts do things. (docs.heima.network)

Advantages & Challenges

Litentry’s main strength is its clear starting problem: online identity is scattered across wallets, chains, and services. Linking selected accounts and producing verifiable credentials gives applications more context without asking users to present every detail. The combination of an identity graph, private computation, and selective disclosure provides a distinct approach to that task. Heima’s wider design also addresses the practical work of moving between networks. (docs.heima.network)

The challenge is complexity. An identity result is useful only when an application understands what the credential proves and trusts the process behind it. Cross-chain actions add more parts: account permissions, routing, transaction execution, and records on different networks must work together. The rebrand also means readers need to distinguish Litentry’s original identity functions from Heima’s broader plans. How widely developers use either set of tools will shape the project’s place in the ecosystem. (docs.heima.network)

Where to Buy & Wallets

LIT is available on Kraken. The older token also appears in listings for decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap on Ethereum and PancakeSwap on BNB Smart Chain. HEI is the successor token under the Heima rebrand, and the project provides an official one-for-one swap application for LIT and HEI. A purchase or transfer therefore depends on both the ticker and the network used for the token. (kraken.com)

An Ethereum-compatible wallet such as MetaMask can display the ERC-20 version of LIT when its token contract is added. Wallet support for a token on BNB Smart Chain or on the Heima network depends on that wallet’s network settings and the version of the token it supports. Heima also provides a web application with tools for moving HEI between supported networks. (coingecko.com)

Regulatory & Compliance

Litentry’s identity services and its tokens touch different areas of regulation. In the European Union, the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, or MiCA, provides a framework for many crypto assets and related services. Applications that process personal identity information must also address data-protection rules. European data-protection guidance emphasizes collecting only needed information and considering how people can exercise their rights when blockchain records are difficult to change. (finance.ec.europa.eu)

In the United States, rules for a service can depend on what that service actually does. FinCEN guidance addresses money-transmission obligations for certain businesses that exchange or transmit convertible virtual currency. These service-level requirements are separate from the technical function of an identity credential. (fincen.gov)

Litentry’s Shariah-compliance status has no established project-specific ruling. Its identity-verification purpose involves a service, while a fuller Shariah assessment would also examine how LIT or HEI is acquired and used, including any lending or reward arrangement. Islamic-finance principles distinguish payment for lawful activity from arrangements involving interest (riba), excessive uncertainty (gharar), or gambling (maysir). The identity technology alone therefore does not determine the status of every transaction involving the token. (litentry.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com)

Future Outlook

Heima’s stated direction is to make separate blockchains feel more connected to the person using them. That direction combines Litentry’s identity work with shared accounts, cross-chain execution, and tools for automated actions. The important question for its development is whether applications adopt those tools for everyday tasks: signing in, proving a relevant fact, or completing an authorized action across networks. The original identity layer remains part of the story because a useful cross-chain account begins with a reliable way to connect a user’s activity. (docs.heima.network)

Summary

Litentry introduced LIT around a practical idea: people should be able to connect and use their digital identities across blockchains while sharing only relevant information. IdentityHub, verifiable credentials, and private computation gave that idea a technical form. The project’s move to Heima and HEI broadened its focus to accounts and actions across networks. Together, the two stages show how identity can serve as a foundation for a more connected crypto ecosystem. (docs.heima.network)