• TON Society announced the initiative today, revealing it had donated five million Toncoin (about $5.51 million) to users who prove their personhood through a palm scan.
• It has partnered with HumanCode and will use its proof-of-human solution to offer a voluntary state-of-the-art method for users to own their digital identity in Web3 securely.

TON Society has announced a new partnership with a leading decentralized identity solutions provider to allow users in the TON ecosystem to prove and own their digital identity in Web3.

The Society, which comprises several hubs that contribute to developing The Open Network (TON) decentralized ecosystem, made the revelation today during the ongoing Hong Kong Web3 Festival 2024. It has partnered with HumanCode, an entity dedicated to advancing the development of a human-centric digital identity ecosystem in the AI era.

Through the initiative, users of the TON ecosystem will gain access to cutting-edge palm-scanning technology solutions, offering them secure digital ID verification while fully protecting their privacy. The two partners envision a future in which the 1.5 billion Telegram users have access to secure digital identity, with the tentative target set at 500 million users over the next five years.

The Society has donated five million Toncoin tokens to the cause, amounting to just $5.51 million at press time, to users who prove their identity with the palm scan.

Digital identity has become critical as the world faces a new wave of bots and other ingenious digital attacks boosted by artificial intelligence. With HumanCode, TON users can access a “fast, easy and highly accurate” palm scanning technology that can be used on any smartphone, browser, or camera and accurately recognizes all skin tones. A quick palm scan proves the user is human but maintains anonymity, allowing the TON ecosystem to overcome the bot challenge many digital platforms face.

 “Now, we have reached a stage where bots present a significant risk to the Web. Solutions are in great demand for proof-of-human,” commented Dr. Zhang, the HumanCode founder. 

Dr. Zhang has worked with leading tech firms globally for several years to create bots for social media platforms and search engines. While these bots contributed to the advancement of the digital age, they have now become a danger to its continued development. According to Dr. Zhang, his company’s palm scan system “offers greater user privacy protection and does not require specific hardware.”

Commenting on the partnership, TON Foundation’s Growth Director Ekin Tuna described it as “a step towards a practical reputation system that has real-life use cases for everyone.”

He added:

A scalable, private, and decentralized identity will help to onboard the first one billion users to the Web3 ecosystem in Telegram. We look forward to going further and seeing what exciting use cases it will unlock for the community and TON developers alike.