Startup VeryAI has raised $10 million in a seed funding spherical led by Polychain Capital to launch a palm-scan id verification system designed to differentiate actual customers from AI-generated accounts.
The platform information id attestations on Solana and goals to assist crypto exchanges, fintech corporations and on-line platforms handle rising dangers from bots, deepfakes and artificial identities. The corporate mentioned zero-knowledge proofs enable customers to confirm their standing throughout platforms with out revealing private data.
The system captures palm photographs utilizing a smartphone digicam and converts them into encrypted biometric signatures used to substantiate {that a} consumer is human with out storing identifiable knowledge.
Based on the corporate, palm biometrics are extremely distinctive and fewer publicly uncovered than facial options generally utilized in id checks. The scans are transformed into irreversible characteristic representations reasonably than saved photographs, stopping the unique biometric knowledge from being reconstructed.
“We’re coming into a interval the place the web can not assume that each account, message, or video is created by an actual individual,” Zach Meltzer, founder and CEO of VeryAI, advised Cointelegraph. “AI is highly effective, however it additionally breaks lots of the belief assumptions that the web was constructed on.”
He mentioned crypto platforms are weak to those dangers, citing examples similar to sybil assaults throughout onboarding, faux accounts farming token incentives and impersonation scams focusing on customers and challenge communities.
The purpose isn’t simply to show {that a} human exists someplace — it’s to assist platforms confirm that an actual individual is current and performing authentically.
The corporate is already working with organizations together with MEXC, Colosseum, Clique and Talus, with different centralized exchanges and wallets getting ready to combine the palm verification system, Meltzer mentioned.
Traders within the spherical included the Berggruen Institute and Anagram. Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of the Solana blockchain, additionally joined as an angel investor.
Associated: Crypto ATM losses surge 33% in 2025 as AI superpowers scams: CertiK
AI-generated identities push demand for proof-of-human programs
As synthetic intelligence continues to blur the road between human and automatic exercise on the web, some builders say blockchain-based id programs might assist restore belief in digital interactions.
Chris Dixon, a normal companion at Andreessen Horowitz and founding father of the enterprise capital agency’s a16z crypto funding arm, final yr warned that an “ocean of AI-powered deepfakes and bots” might erode belief throughout the web and prompt blockchain programs might assist handle the issue via cryptographic verification of id and digital content material.
One firm attempting to handle the issue is World, co-founded by Sam Altman, which makes use of biometric iris scans to generate a digital id that enables customers to show they’re human with out revealing private knowledge. The system information proof of a consumer’s uniqueness on a blockchain community whereas the Orb gadget scans an individual’s face and iris to confirm id, although the biometric method has drawn criticism from privateness advocates.
As AI advances, curiosity in these programs seems to be rising. In January, the token linked to World (WLD) jumped about 40% after stories that OpenAI was exploring a bot-free social media platform that might require customers to confirm they’re human earlier than collaborating.
Some builders argue that id verification should steadiness authentication with privateness protections. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has advocated for fashions that enable customers to show particular attributes, similar to uniqueness or eligibility, with out revealing their full id utilizing applied sciences like zero-knowledge proofs.
Journal: Fly’s thoughts ‘uploaded,’ human mind cell wetware performs Doom: AI Eye