Proof-of-Humanity Technology: Key Infrastructure in the AI Era

In today's rapidly advancing artificial intelligence landscape, distinguishing between humans and robots is becoming increasingly important. This is especially true in key areas such as advertising, dating, and government services, where the need to verify real human identities is becoming more urgent. Decentralized blockchain technology offers a promising solution for global, censorship-resistant online "humanity" verification.

A certain blockchain protocol has built a privacy-preserving global identity and financial network through the concept of "proof of humanity." This protocol uses biometric devices for iris scanning to authenticate users as unique individuals and issues a unique ID for each user on its blockchain. This technology is being promoted globally, and the protocol's native token is designed as a global internet currency and is used for protocol governance.

The co-founders of the protocol established it with the intention of allowing humanity to maintain its uniqueness and core position in an internet world filled with AI-driven content. If widely adopted, this protocol will provide a scalable and reliable global solution for distinguishing between real humans and AI, while protecting user privacy. This capability not only expands economic opportunities but also promotes the global democratic process.

Overview of Investment Logic

The "proof of humanity" solution is expected to become a key infrastructure in the future where humans coexist with AI. This is mainly based on the following reasons:

• Human Proof as a Key Tool: With the surge of autonomous AI agents and AI-generated content, verifying unique human identities is crucial for commercial and governmental applications. In situations where AI may replace human labor, "Human Proof" will become an indispensable tool when the government implements universal basic income programs.

• Superior verification solution: The protocol's biometric solution combines blockchain technology, surpassing existing government and private verification systems as it crosses jurisdictional boundaries and has censorship resistance.

• Early signs of growth: Since its establishment less than two years ago, the protocol has certified over 12 million unique individuals. The adoption of its blockchain has also shown strong growth, with approximately 45,000 new wallets added daily.

• Experienced Leadership: The protocol has greatly benefited from the involvement of a founder of a certain AI company. Its global influence and reputation are powerful tools for building trust with international government agencies and promoting strategic cooperation.

The vision of this protocol is not only a technological innovation but also a profound reflection on the future social structure. At the intersection of AI and blockchain, it may become a key bridge connecting humanity and technology.

Application Scenarios and Potential

"Human Proof" is crucial for many application scenarios and may have significant potential in large-scale commercial applications. Especially in the fields of advertising and government services, the ID of this protocol can bring huge benefits. Considering the scale of these end markets, even adding a small amount of value through unique human identity solutions represents a tremendous growth opportunity.

The protocol identifies gaming, dating, and social networking as three core application scenarios in the short term, significantly enhancing user experience by distinguishing between unique humans and robots. The protocol has established partnerships in these areas:

• Gaming Sector: Collaborated with a gaming peripherals company to launch a game ID to verify the identity of real players and enhance fairness in competitive gaming.

• Dating Field: Collaborating with global online dating leaders, users can verify their profiles through this protocol ID, reducing bots and fake accounts, thereby enhancing user security and trust.

• Social Domain: Introduce chat functionality in the app to help verified individuals connect and communicate securely. Currently negotiating partnerships with several major social media platforms.

• Advertising Field: A marketing agency plans to use this protocol ID to establish an anti-fraud advertising network aimed at eliminating bot-driven ad fraud.

The protocol's mini program ecosystem has played a key role in unlocking new possibilities and application scenarios for its ID. Currently, there are over 300 mini programs available on the protocol application, all of which can leverage protocol IDs and wallets to facilitate creative experiments and concept validation. Although the potential for future application scenarios has not yet been fully developed, early experiments show promising prospects.

The way the protocol blockchain is constructed provides unique advantages for verified humans. The gas fees for verified humans are subsidized by fees collected from non-verified humans (i.e., bots), ensuring that humans benefit from the increased commercial activity generated by on-chain agents.

Distribution Strategy

The protocol acts as a network, with its value increasing as the number of users grows. Currently, the protocol network is still in its early stages, with only 12 million verified users, so user acquisition is the top priority at this time. The free token incentive mechanism is similar to a certain payment company's early "$10 growth hacker" strategy. However, due to the need for face-to-face identity verification for initial validation, the current bottleneck is actually the physical distribution of devices. To scale the protocol to the next 100 million users, the key lies in improving the scalability of verification devices in terms of manufacturing and cross-jurisdictional distribution.

To achieve this goal, the protocol is accelerating the production of verification devices, aiming to make its devices as ubiquitous and accessible as ATMs. The team has developed a self-service device that allows users to operate independently without staff assistance, enabling global large-scale deployment and reducing operating costs. At the same time, a more portable verification device is being developed, resembling a smartphone in shape. This mini device is expected to be deployed in 2026 and is anticipated to be a key tool for expanding the number of internet users to over 100 million.

After driving validation through physical distribution and economic incentives, the next challenge is to improve user retention by building real application scenarios. Expanding the mini-program ecosystem is crucial for user growth and engagement. As of now, the download count for protocol applications has exceeded 55 million, and this ecosystem is gradually becoming the foundation for users' daily interactions, providing scalable leverage for accelerating user acquisition.

This year's launch in the United States is a key growth unlock. The protocol announced its launch in the U.S. in May, covering six cities initially. The plan is to deploy 7,500 verification devices in the U.S. by the end of 2025. They also expect to provide devices in high-density shopping areas nationwide through marketing campaigns with retail partners.

The goal of the agreement is to verify 50 million people by the end of this year, with the long-term vision of signing each unique human.

Government Relations

Many people still believe that the protocol circumvents privacy laws and government regulations, but the truth is quite the opposite. This misunderstanding stems from past regulatory actions. Cautious government regulators have challenged the expansion of the protocol, demanding that it suspend operations in certain areas.

In recent years, the regulatory attitude has undergone a positive change. This shift is attributed to multiple factors, including the strengthening of education and communication with local governments by protocols, as well as the accelerated popularity of artificial intelligence, which has made all parties recognize the need to learn and adapt to the new world paradigm with an open mind.

Recently, the protocol has made significant progress in collaborating with local governments, especially in the rapidly digitizing Southeast Asian markets. Before entering these markets, proactive engagement with government officials was undertaken to ensure they fully understand the platform's technology and its embedded privacy protection measures. To meet regulatory requirements for data privacy and storage, a top-notch legal and public policy team has been assembled.

A successful example is the collaboration with a government service provider from a certain country. The service provider offers offline services such as driving license examinations, identity card applications, and renewals. Through this collaboration, the verification services were integrated into the existing government infrastructure, demonstrating the capability of the technology to be embedded in government services and setting a precedent for future similar collaborations.

Commercialization and Potential Growth

The agreement begins to outline its plans for the commercialization of IDs. At the most basic level, revenue sources include transaction fees on the blockchain. In addition, ID service fees have been introduced, which will be charged to applications that use ID services. The fees are divided into two parts: credential fees, which are retained by the credential issuer; and protocol fees, which belong to the ID.

By making reasonable assumptions, a compelling investment case can be constructed. If the protocol can verify 5 billion unique users (approximately 60% of the global population), and each verified user can generate $5 in revenue per year, then the protocol will achieve an annualized revenue of $25 billion. Furthermore, this $5 accounts for less than 0.005% of the global per capita GDP, which is a reasonable proportion considering the widespread application of this technology in massive markets such as advertising.

With a reasonable growth multiple, this annual revenue of $25 billion, combined with an almost 100% free cash flow conversion rate, has the potential to drive a market value exceeding $250 billion. These figures demonstrate the commercialization potential of this ID on a global scale and its immense market value in the future.

Conclusion

This protocol uniquely addresses the critical challenge of verifying unique human identities in the rapidly evolving era of artificial intelligence. This opportunity is particularly timely, coinciding with the government's changing attitude towards digital identity, recent entry into the U.S. market, and the increasing widespread application of IDs in various regions and diverse scenarios.

Indeed, there is still a long way to go from the current state to the long-term vision of implementing the protocol. Questions regarding whether the protocol can achieve scalability quickly enough, the effectiveness of its growth incentive mechanisms, and the reflexive effects of its volatile cryptocurrency, among others, are still worth pondering. Furthermore, it is not only the entity that recognizes the key foundation of "human identity"; most large tech companies are also developing their own identity solutions. Although decentralized and censorship-resistant solutions are theoretically superior, this does not mean that they will necessarily prevail in practice.

With the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence, people are increasingly recognizing the significant importance of the mission to build powerful and secure authentication solutions, which is worth striving for. Several mainstream media outlets have reported extensively on this protocol over the past few months, highlighting its crucial role in the context of the growing prevalence of AI agents that are increasingly difficult to distinguish, especially in the fields of payment and social networks. A large asset management company also reiterated the strategic importance of "human authentication" in its annual shareholder letter, particularly in the context of the continuous growth of on-chain economy and asset tokenization.

Although the development of the protocol is still in its early stages so far, there is no doubt that it is a project led by an outstanding management team. If successful, its "grand and ambitious goals" will bring about significant growth potential. Looking ahead, we anticipate that the protocol will continue to make progress in geographic expansion, strategic partnerships, and the robust growth of the mini-program ecosystem.