Worldcoin Challenger Humanity Hits $1B Valuation

Humanity Protocol, a zero-knowledge decentralized identity project, has announced the successful completion of a $30 million seed funding round, valuing the project at $1 billion. The funding round, led by Kingsway Capital, saw participation from prominent investors such as Animoca Brands, Blockchain.com, and Hashed, among others.

According to a Medium post by the Humanity Protocol Media Contact team, this substantial investment comes on the heels of a previous $1.5 million investment. The move had occurred in early March as the investors anticipate Humanity Protocol’s potential to disrupt the decentralized identification space.

Humanity Protocol’s Plans to Revolutionize Decentralized Identification

The primary focus of Humanity Protocol’s is the development of a decentralized identity solution that aims to rival existing projects like Worldcoin. The strategy is to utilize a unique consensus mechanism called Proof of Humanity.

When combined with palm scans for identity verification, the protocol seeks to establish a secure and privacy-centric approach to verifying users’ identities within a decentralized ecosystem.

Proof of Humanity – A Paradigm Shift in Identity Verification:

Founder Terence Kwok emphasized the importance of creating a decentralized identity protocol that prioritizes user privacy and data ownership. According to him, the protocol will address the limitations and concerns associated with existing solutions.

Kwok highlighted the invasive and high-friction nature of current onboarding processes, citing them as barriers to adoption.

“Proof-of-Personhood is a powerful concept but the solutions that exist today haven’t seen adoption because onboarding is invasive and high friction,” Kwok stated in the post.

Accelerating Product Development

With the fresh injection of capital, Humanity Protocol plans to accelerate its hiring efforts and ramp up product development initiatives. The team is gearing up for the launch of a public testnet in the second half of the year, signaling significant progress towards realizing its vision of a decentralized identity ecosystem.

Experts see the move by Humanity Protocol as a way to stir competition in the decentralized identification space. They are optimistic that other players like Worldcoin are likely to upscale their network.

However, Worldcoin is contending with legal challenges in the wake of Elon Musk’s legal action against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman. The lawsuit, filed by Musk in San Francisco, alleges breaches of contractual agreements dating back to 2015.