Web3 faces a growing challenge with AI enabling the creation of fake wallets that dilute the value intended for real humans, while privacy concerns around identity verification grow more complex.
Listen to the podcast episode with Yan Ketelers, CMO at human.tech by Holonym Foundation
• Human.tech combines identity verification with privacy protection through zero-knowledge protocols
• Their Human Passport (formerly Gitcoin Passport) provides Sybil resistance for airdrops and voting systems
• The upcoming Human Wallet offers wallet recovery without seed phrases using innovative key-splitting technology
• Measuring success through real impact metrics rather than vanity metrics or hype
• Partnering with RefUnite to help refugees establish digital identities and receive aid
• Keeping marketing communications simple and focused on use cases rather than technical details
• Creating a framework where users maintain ownership of their digital identity while proving their humanity
Visit human.tech to learn more about their products and vision for digital human rights.
Yan Ketelers CMO human.tech
In the rapidly evolving landscape of Web3, a significant challenge has emerged: the proliferation of bot activity and Sybil attacks diluting value that should flow to actual humans. Jan Ketelers, CMO at Holonym (the foundation behind Human Tech), explained this fundamental problem during our recent conversation on the Web3 CMO Stories podcast.
"With AI, it's increasingly easier to create fake wallets," Yan explains. "This means a single entity can control thousands of wallets and collect a thousand times the airdrop that they should be entitled to get, which dilutes the value that goes to real humans." This pattern creates a system where honest participants with single wallets find their rewards and voting power dramatically reduced by these artificial participants.
The challenge becomes even more complex when considering identity verification. Traditional methods often compromise privacy – we've seen governments and KYC providers suffer data breaches that exposed citizens' personal information. Human.tech's approach tackles this contradiction through zero-knowledge protocols, allowing users to prove their humanity without revealing sensitive personal data.
Human.tech's ecosystem consists of three core products: Human Passport (formerly Gitcoin Passport), Human Wallet (launching soon), and the Human Network (the backend infrastructure). Human Passport focuses on Sybil resistance, enabling projects to distribute tokens, airdrops, and voting rights to verified humans rather than bot farms. This has already proven valuable for projects like Story Protocol, which used human.tech's solutions to ensure their airdrops reached genuine community members.
What distinguishes human.tech from many Web3 projects is their focus on meaningful metrics rather than hype. While many crypto projects chase vanity metrics like follower counts and engagement (often artificially boosted), human.tech measures success by tracking how much money they help distribute to real humans, how many refugees they assist with identity verification, and how many active users they have on their passport system.
The Human Wallet represents another innovative step forward, solving one of crypto's persistent user experience problems: wallet recovery. Traditional self-custody wallets require users to safeguard seed phrases – a cumbersome process that often results in lost access. Human.tech's solution allows wallet recovery without seed phrases by splitting keys across network nodes that can be reconstituted when needed, eliminating a significant barrier to mainstream adoption.
Beyond airdrops and crypto applications, human.tech is working on real-world impact through partnerships like their initiative with RefUnite, helping refugees establish digital identities and receive aid without requiring traditional identity documents. This approach ensures that humanitarian assistance reaches its intended recipients rather than being diverted through intermediaries or fraudulent accounts.
For marketers and founders in the Web3 space, Yan offers valuable insight about communication: keep explanations simple and focused on use cases rather than technical details. "Founders often go on podcasts and stages, and when they explain the products, that's the best marketing but also the most tricky, because they tend to go too technical," he notes. "They talk more about how we build things instead of why, and we need the why we build things and what we are solving."
As AI continues to advance, the distinction between authentic and artificial identities will become increasingly blurred. Human.techh aims to establish a framework where individuals maintain ownership and control of their digital identities while still being able to prove their humanity when needed. Their vision represents a Web3 approach to the growing challenge of digital personhood – one where privacy and verification can coexist.
