# Proof of Humanity

###### tags: `thread`

We are gradually achieving effective "Proof of Humanity"

PoH is actively used by many projects as a Sybil-Resistance mechanism (e.g. Gitcoin, Worldcoin, Proof of humanity, etc.). While they still have many unsolved issues, innovation is going

## The problem

We want blockchain not only to be a toy for the rich and geeks but to go mainstream. This requires efforts from all sides

Rollup and L2s make Ethereum cheaper
Account abstraction makes Ethereum simpler
PoH makes Ethereum a neutral democratic platform

With PoH, we can build many human-centric applications

- Voting and Democracy dApps
- Quadratic funding (https://wtfisqf.com)
- UBI
- Human DAOs
- Better Airdrop System

More importantly, these applications are on a neutral platform, they will not be censored and influenced (unlike Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

## Some cases

We see many successful cases, but they are not mainstream👇

**Grants and passports of gitcoin**

Quadratic funding was very successful, and all passport data is stored in @ceramicnetwork, which ensures open source for other applications to use

For example, I can give priority to airdropping passported addresses. But the system still cannot resist Sybil attacks unless all entities have Gitcoin passports :)

[Devcon's talk](https://archive.devcon.org/archive/watch/6/1-human-1-vote-money-legos-more-democratic-daos/?playlist=Devcon%206&tab=YouTube)

**Proofofhumanity (17484 humans for now)**

This is the most direct case. By uploading a video with your face and Ethereum address, you can verify your human identity (one address one human)


Moreover, it is required to deposit 0.125 ETH and use the fraud-proof mechanism for the community to review. But the upload process is transparent, everyone can see your video

[how it exactly works](https://kleros.gitbook.io/docs/products/proof-of-humanity/proof-of-humanity-tutorial)

**worldcoin**

This is a more radical example, which verifies human identities by scanning pupillary membranes. Its goal is to scan the pupils of 1 billion people and give everyone a human identity/token

At this time we see a paradox, using centralized means can best achieve this kind of decentralized goal (Fortunately, Worldcoin uses economic incentives)

## Conclusions

It is very difficult to achieve human authentication in a decentralized system

Current attempts provide PoH in a certain scenario, but cannot be used on a large scale/efficient way

Proof-of-humanity and no-privacy limit current democratic applications on Ethereum. zkp can solve the privacy, while PoH still needs a lot of research

[Thread](https://twitter.com/LuozhuZhang/status/1593248156895977473?s=20&t=hf32T6kwnUQiTjAV1MfiLA)