Aave, Curve, PoolTogether, and Sushi Among Leading Ethereum DeFi Projects Joining Celo on DeFi for the People Collaboration 5599

Today, a consortium of leading Ethereum decentralized finance (DeFi) projects announced DeFi for the People, a collaboration of global crypto organizations united by a common goal: bringing DeFi to the 6 billion smartphone users around the world.

Built on Celo, the new initiative counts Aave, Curve, Sushi, PoolTogether, 0x, UMA, Valora, Ubeswap, and Moola Market among its founding partners. Education and infrastructure partners include Chainlink, RabbitHole, The Graph and Wrapped.com. This new program will offer more than $100 million in educational initiatives, grants, and incentives. The majority of program participants will jointly contribute half the funds for incentive programs.

Full product integrations with PoolTogether, Sushi, Moola Market, Ubeswap, and Valora are available now, with more launching soon. Starting today, rewards are available for PoolTogether on Celo, and incentive pools with other DeFi protocols and projects will be launching in the coming weeks and months. Also expected this fall is the launch of Optics, a gas-efficient interoperability protocol for cross-chain communication. With Optics, users will be able to easily move assets between Ethereum and Celo.

DeFi has experienced explosive growth in recent years, but has yet to gain widespread adoption. Of the roughly 5 million people around the world currently using DeFi applications, less than 10% live outside of developed countries. DeFi for the People aims to change that by bringing builders together to create products that make DeFi more accessible and easier to use for the people who need it most.

For billions of people, a mobile phone is their most important device and often their only access to the internet. Celo’s mobile-first platform—with over 1 million wallet addresses across 113 countries—presents a unique opportunity to bring the benefits of DeFi to anyone with a mobile phone. New real-world applications for DeFi with Celo are already underway.

Take for example in Colombia, where last year, at the outset of the pandemic, a pilot program provided unemployed individuals with undercollateralized micro loans on Celo. The loans enabled users to purchase motorized bicycles so they could deliver for Rappi. With access to the right equipment, some members of the pilot were able to double—and in some instances quadruple—their earnings. This is just one example of how DeFi can provide instant access to capital for millions of people, particularly for those in emerging markets where access to traditional financial services has been limited.

“DeFi for the People aims to make DeFi accessible to everyone by powering real-world use cases and focusing on mobile-first adoption,” said Rene Reinsberg, Co-Founder of Celo. “We’re excited to collaborate with the biggest projects in DeFi to bring more than 1 billion new users into the DeFi ecosystem over the next five years.”

Now Live: PoolTogether on Celo with $500,000 in Prizes
PoolTogether, an open source and decentralized protocol for no-loss prize savings, is now live on Celo with more than $500,000 in prizes. Users can deposit into PoolTogether on Celo for a chance to win prizes, and even if they don’t win, keep all their deposited money. This is possible because prizes are funded by the interest earned on deposits. PoolTogether is a unique “no lose lottery” because everyone who participates keeps their money.

“Research shows prize savings is one of the most important and effective on-ramps into savings for underbanked people. PoolTogether on Celo can facilitate crypto and DeFi adoption for the unbanked and users in developing markets who benefit most from low gas fees and fast transaction times,” said Leighton Cusak, Founder, PoolTogether.

Coming Soon

Aave on Celo with $20 Million Incentive Program
Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol, is designed to enable users to earn yield on crypto assets supplied to the protocol, and to borrow assets. Suppliers earn yield by depositing digital assets into liquidity pools.

“The Aave protocol on Celo’s mobile-first platform has the potential to bring crypto to the 6 billion mobile phone users around the world, unlocking value on DeFi and making DeFi more accessible,” said Stani Kulechov, Founder and CEO of the Aave companies, the software development company that developed the Aave protocol.

Curve on Celo with $14 Million Incentive Program
Curve, an automated market maker (AMM) protocol, uses market-making algorithms to reinforce the liquidity of its markets, unlike traditional decentralized exchanges. Curve on Celo offers users a decentralized platform that allows users to trade and earn returns on their cryptocurrencies.

“Celo’s built-in stability mechanism makes it an exciting platform for payments that will drive greater stablecoin adoption. We are excited to help make mobile payments and DeFi mainstream,” said Julien Bouteloup, Curve Core Team.

Sushi on Celo with $10 Million Incentive Program
Sushi is a DeFi platform that facilitates trading, lending, and earning yield. Currently, Sushi users can trade assets with the Swap feature and provide liquidities on Celo with yield farming rewards and incentives coming soon. With Celo, Sushi users can benefit from faster transaction speeds and lower fees through secure and Ethereum-compatible transactions on Celo’s Proof-of-Stake (PoS) network.

“The Sushi AMM, Kashi lending, and other BentoBox products provide the necessary primitives needed for users to connect to a global and permissionless financial system. By leveraging Celo’s mobile-first product suite and UX that expands reach beyond crypto-natives, Sushi can drive this mission forward and take DeFi to the next frontier,” said Joseph Delong, CTO at Sushi.

Join DeFi for the People
DeFi for the People builds upon Celo’s mobile-first approach to make crypto and DeFi accessible for all. This is an open initiative for builders and entrepreneurs alike. Anyone interested in accelerating the adoption of crypto and DeFi in the real world is welcome to join.

To learn more about the movement, please visit https://www.defiforthepeople.org.

Calling All Builders: Hackathon with $1 Million in Prizes and Seed Funding
As part of its commitment to bringing crypto to mobile phones, DeFi for the People is hosting a hackathon in October with the goal of bringing more DeFi projects to Celo. Developers around the world are invited to build their projects on Celo, with $1 million in prizes and seed funding available for teams to jumpstart their projects. Learn more about the upcoming hackathon at https://www.defiforthepeople.org/#hackathon.

About Celo:
Celo is a mobile-first, open-source ecosystem of technologies, organizations and individuals that all share a common mission of building a financial system that creates the conditions for prosperity for everyone. The Celo ecosystem includes a decentralized, Proof-of-Stake blockchain technology stack (Celo Platform), a native asset (CELO), stablecoins (cUSD, cEUR), and the Celo Alliance for Prosperity, with over 150 organizations around the world, including Deutsche Telekom, PayU, Opera, Andreessen Horowitz, Anchorage, Coinbase, GSMA, Grameen Foundation, Prosegur, Abra, and cLabs, a service organization dedicated to growing and developing the Celo ecosystem. For more information, please visit: celo.org

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Covalent’s Largest Set Of Structured Data in Web3 Pioneering the Fusion of AI, Security, and Data Quality 11219

As the wave of Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to reshape industries, Covalent (CQT) emerges as a central player in the evolving landscape. AI, known for its reliance on vast sets of structured data, finds a robust ally in Covalent’s extensive dataset. Covering over 225 blockchains and supporting over 240 million wallets with its Unified API, Covalent provides the backbone for AI applications, offering a rich and structured foundation for model consumption, training, and product creation.

Google: A Lesson in Data Quality for AI

In the intricate realm of AI, the significance of data quality cannot be overstated. The potential for transformative innovation heavily relies on the accuracy and reliability of datasets. Google’s recent stumble with its Gemini AI tool reveals the critical role of data integrity in the space. The decision to halt Gemini due to inaccuracies and inadequate testing serves as a reminder of the risks associated with expediting AI product launches without thorough quality controls.

With Covalent, its protocol goes deeper than conventional approaches: it extracts data from various blockchains, uploads that data to a storage instance, indexes and transforms the stored data object, and loads the data into local data queried by API users. In short, Covalent’s cryptographically secure and standardization of all its extracted Web3 blockchain data creates a reservoir of structured information which is foundational to AI and machine learning training.

A Trusted Partner for the Web3 Landscape

At the core of the Covalent Network lies an innovative approach to data verifiability, designed with a tamper-resistant design and cryptographic proofs, it ensures the integrity and trustworthiness of accessed data. This unique feature not only distinguishes the Covalent’s Network but also serves as an essential mechanism in reshaping the foundations of Web3.

This is done by Block Specimen Producers (BSP) who extract the data and store it for multiple chains. To guarantee data integrity each BSP is running a script which keeps data secure and tamperproof. This ensures data integrity for Refiners who process the data, and later Query Node Operators who will serve the data (read more here).

Enterprises seeking high-quality data for their operations find a reliable partner in Covalent. The commitment goes beyond transactions, involving enterprises signing multi-year contracts including Fidelity, Rainbow, CoinGecko, and ConsenSys to secure a continuous stream of quality data.

The historically accurate data availability of Covalent lies in its ability to manage big data for customers with enhanced security, recently being awarded a SOC 2 certification for the highest enterprise grade quality assurance. By offering a robust dataset that meets the highest security standards, Covalent has become the trusted bridge between enterprises, crypto native projects and the wider Web3 ecosystem. Covalent’s offering ensures that customers have access to reliable and secure data, laying the groundwork for innovation and growth.

The Covalent Network: Built on Data Verifiability

As Covalent pioneers the fusion of AI, security, and data quality, it opens new horizons for innovation. Onchain data is continuously evolving with each block and indexed chain. By keeping data encrypted, and tamperproof it by design it mitigates future pitfalls with bad models and serves as a catalyst for innovative AI use cases. With thousands of Web3-specific applications already leveraging Covalent as their backbone data provider.

About Covalent

Covalent (CQT) powers the data layer in blockchain, enabling millions of users to build the new economy. It stands out for its deep commitment to democratizing blockchain data availability. Since its inception, Covalent has been helping developers, analysts, and enthusiasts with comprehensive, real-time data across over 200 blockchains. Learn how Covalent is building the Ethereum Wayback Machine.

Stead’s blockchain-powered floating cities of the future 11847

Stead is an Arbitrum-based DeFi platform (Stead.Builders) that provides liquidity for small marine businesses, fishermen, and fish farmers, most of whom are unbanked or operating in developing countries.

The platform supports numerous types of floating infrastructure, like fishing and transport boats, fish cages, floating docks, and, most impressively, floating houses, hotel rooms, and restaurants.

The platform started when the marine engineering company ArkPad, operating out of the Philippines, wanted to help customers to acquire mortgages for its floating houses.

Getting a mortgage is already difficult enough considering the huge down payments that need to be made, but securing a mortgage for a floating house is another story entirely. Most banks unfamiliarity with unconventional real estate means they pass it over for investment, so ArkPad helped to create the Stead platform in order to decentralize the funding process for floating infrastructure.

From floating homes to financial aid

While Stead’s initiative for supporting floating houses is tremendously unique, what also sets the company apart is additionally assisting unbanked small businesses in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.

In many developing countries, a large portion of the population is bankless or prevented from accessing loans to expand their businesses. Key reasons include banks having excessive regulations, bureaucratic hurdles in account opening, or simply having relatively small amounts of capital available for loans in the first place. Additionally, on an archipelago nation like the Philippines, many banks simply don’t have any branches present on islands where valuable fish, like Yellowfin Tuna, can be found. In such cash-based societies, lack of physical access to a bank simply means going unbanked.

Stemming from these challenges, many developing countries suffer from having highly unbanked populations, a fertile ground for crypto to fill the unused space.

Building blocks for floating communities

Turning its dreams into a reality, Stead offers a solution like no other, providing liquidity to small businesses, including fisherman, through STEAD tokens.

Upon minting STEAD, stables are put into a pool to purchase a particular asset. In this case, let’s say for a fisherman wanting to purchase a fishing boat. Once enough capital has been garnered to acquire this Real-World Asset (RWA), the fisherman can reap their rewards through the token’s ‘lease-to-own’ program, buying back and burning the STEAD tokens that were initially issued to fund them.

Amplifying the company’s uniqueness, STEAD acts as a ticket to reserve time with the asset. The fisherman can lease time with the boat by burning STEAD, and after a greater dollar amount amount have been burned than were initially minted, they will be transferred full ownership of it. Therefore, the token goes beyond being just RWA; it has an intriguing deflationary supply.

Not only does this burning mechanism result in a reduced circulating supply, but another mechanism is built into the minting mechanics. While STEAD has no maximum supply, the minimum cost to mint a token increases by around 11.4% annually, if price drops below that, minting stops. This means that while the token has no maximum price, the minimum price that it can have is constantly increasing, a novel mechanic not seen in any other token.

A financial and architectural revolution

Spearheaded by Stead’s Co-Founder, Mitchell Suchner, Stead is working hard to make financial resources more easily accessible in Southeast Asia.

RWA tokens are an important emerging niche of crypto, and Stead stands to facilitate some of the most important transactions to serve some of the most profitable, and simultaneously under-served communities, but there is more that sets this project apart from others, and that is there long term goal.

During the first stage of operations, the platform intends to focus on the Southeast Asian market, but during the later stages, they plan to partner with small island nations, DAOs, and other organizations to facilitate the construction of whole floating cities.

The idea of building floating cities in national or international waters has been around for a while, called ‘seasteading’ advocates want to create independent floating jurisdictions of self-run communities where crypto friendly businesses can thrive.

Using ships, docks, and floating houses, communities and villages can be built and connect together to share resources such as fresh water, electricity, and fiber optic cables for internet. Far from being a fantasy, the first floating house has already been built in Boracay, Philippines, with some coastal resorts in the country already planning to purchase their own for listings on AirBnB.

Will Stead’s ultimate dream of building an entirely floating blockchain city become a reality? Only time will tell. However, the technology is here, and buoy, is it impressive.

Dypius Enables Secure Cross-Chain NFT Transfers for CAWS and World of Dypians with Chainlink CCIP 11208

Dypius has integrated Chainlink CCIP — the highest standard for safe cross-chain interoperability in the Web3 industry – to enable seamless NFT transfers across the Ethereum, BNB Chain, Avalanche, and Base mainnets. Owners of Cats and Watches Society (CAWS) and World of Dypians (WOD) land NFTs can now securely move their assets across these blockchains, enjoying an enhanced user experience and driving the platform’s growth.

The CCIP interoperability solution is only one of the several Chainlink services that Dypius has integrated in recent years. This movement aligns with the platform’s goals to provide highly secure Web3 products and revolutionize the NFT landscape. Its continuous growth and recent updates show that Dypius is among the most innovative projects in the blockchain sphere.

How Chainlink CCIP Helps Dypius Grow

Chainlink is a world-class decentralized computing platform servicing financial institutions, startups, and developers while ensuring the utmost security for cross-chain interoperability, off-chain computation, and real-world data. The company has enabled financial institutions with $9 trillion in transactions to date – a proven track record of reliability and security that convinced Dypius to choose it as its primary interoperability solution.

CCIP is a continuously improving mechanism with a scalable architecture that allows developers to easily build custom chain-specific integrations and interact with any blockchain network via a user-friendly interface.

One of CCIP’s standout features is the backup from the Risk Management Network — a separate, independent network continually monitoring and verifying cross-chain operations. Its role is to add an extra layer of protection against the vulnerabilities of the cross-chain infrastructure.

Future updates to CCIP will benefit Dypius and its users, who won’t have to pay the switching costs if new cross-chain functionalities become necessary. This way, Dypius ensures its NFT owners enjoy ever-increasing security and efficiency without reducing quality or affordability.

Dypius has integrated several Chainlink services besides CCIP in recent years. In 2021, the platform integrated Chainlink Price Feeds into the Dypius ecosystem to help secure decentralized ETH and BNB price data. This movement supports access to real-time asset prices directly on-chain and thus ensures reliable and secure rewards data.

Incorporating Chainlink VRF & Automation helped Dypius deliver a unique and unpredictable gaming experience within World of Dypians while increasing data quality and performance.

Integrating CCIP will help Dypius users engage in seamless interactions and transfers across some of the most used blockchain networks. The platform should become more efficient and secure while growing and diversifying its user base.

Exploring the World of Dypians NFT Bridge

World of Dypians (WoD) is one of the most versatile metaverse platforms currently developing in the emerging Web3 space. This boundless multiplayer online role-playing game provides a unique, immersive experience in a virtual world that combines AI, high-quality graphics, and engaging gameplay.

The game welcomes NFT collectors and crypto enthusiasts to collect, use, and transfer CAWS or World of Dypians Land NFTs via the NFT Bridge – a dedicated page on the WOD website.

Users can initiate the transfer by connecting their wallet and choosing a bridge route between popular networks, such as Ethereum, BNB Chain, Avalanche, and Base Network. Next, they must select the NFT they wish to bridge and complete the NFT transfer, which sends the NFT automatically to the wallet in the destination chain.

Using the NFT Bridge on World of Dypians is quick and easy, even for first-time users. Moreover, it is secured by advanced protection standards, enabling seamless and efficient NFT transfers without any hassle.

The Steady Rise of Dypius

Dypius is one of the fastest advancing projects with a growing DeFi ecosystem incorporating secure and efficient products and services in Web3.

The platform is building World of Dypians (WoD) into a standout presence among platforms supporting NFT development. The game caters to regular gamers and businesses in the crypto industry and beyond. Its growth has attracted important partnerships with some of the industry’s leaders. Numerous major brands are already featured with dedicated spaces in the World of Dypians metaverse, including Chainlink, CoinMarketCap, BNB Chain, CoinGecko, KuCoin, Avalanche, Coin98, Conflux Network, Gate.io, MEXC Global, and Easy2Stake.

In 2023, World of Dypians completed key milestones, such as the game’s listing on Epic Games, launching a closed demo for its multiplayer mode, and setting new standards for AI-powered virtual universes. Moreover, the game became a legally recognized entity at the start of 2024, proving its commitment to transparency and structural growth.

Dypius is advancing on several fronts within its DeFi ecosystem. For example, its native token, DYP v2, is now supported by Trust Wallet and Coinbase Wallet, two of the industry’s top solutions for storing and managing cryptocurrencies.

Furthermore, the platform launched an exclusive beta testing program for its upcoming mobile app, inviting Dypians everywhere to become beta testers. Anyone can play a decisive role in shaping the app’s user experience by trying new features or revealing bugs.

Dypius caters to both crypto beginners and experts with versatile solutions, including analytical DYP Tools, DeFi solutions, CAWS NFTs, and Metaverse gaming. The project runs on unique smart contracts using the protocol’s proprietary anti-manipulation functionality.

Layer3 Blockchain Orbs Announces V4 Upgrade to Meet Growing Industry Adoption 11240

Trailblazing blockchain infrastructure project Orbs has announced the development of the next major iteration of its Network protocol, Orbs V4. Described as a substantial upgrade, V4 is designed to enhance the efficiency and robustness of Orbs’ Layer3 technology, preparing the network for an expected surge in already-growing demand and usage in 2024.

As decentralized applications increasingly integrate Orbs’ products, the need for a more advanced network has become apparent. Orbs V4 is set to address this pressing need by focusing on a raft of key node upgrades, ensuring Orbs remains at the forefront of blockchain technology and equipped to handle the next wave of L3 adoption.

“The evolution to Orbs V4 marks a pivotal moment in our journey,” said Nadav Shemesh, CEO of Orbs. “This upgrade is not just about scaling up; it’s about setting a new standard in L3 infrastructure, ensuring we stay ahead of the curve in this ever-evolving space.”

V4 arrives two years after the introduction of its predecessor Orbs 3.0, which showcased the venture’s novel L3 architecture. The launch of two execution services, Orbs Lambda and Orbs VM, meanwhile, allowed devs to extend smart contracts with L3 decentralized backend services executed by Orbs Guardians, reducing projects’ dependence on centralized backend solutions.

The latest iteration of the Orbs Network protocol has been in the works for some time and will benefit from more efficient node implementation and other necessary upgrades. These will include Layer3 scaling enhancements, improvements in uptime, an upgraded L3 Activity dashboard to track Orbs-powered protocols, and a revamped Tetra staking wallet.

To facilitate more frequent upgrades, the existing manual rollout process for Guardian nodes will be automated while Orbs will move away from AWS-centric deployment to support a wider range of hardware and increase decentralization.

Technical barriers facing node operators will also be reduced in V4 as the Orbs node installer CLI will be replaced. Moreover, the auditability of the Orbs core orchestrator will be improved.

The entire Orbs team is eager to collaborate with Orbs Guardians, major stakeholders, and the wider community to bring its vision for V4 to fruition and to further solidify its position as an innovator in the Web3 sector.

About Orbs

Orbs is a Layer-3 public blockchain infrastructure project, conceived as a decentralized execution layer operating between existing L1/L2 solutions and the application layer. Executed by a secure network of permissionless validators, Orbs utilizes Proof-of-Stake and improves the existing capabilities of smart contracts on both EVM and non-EVM chains.

Fully on-chain gaming: How Web3Games.com is transforming the space with W3Gamez Network 11397

Blockchain gaming has embarked on its journey since 2014 with the launch of Huntercoin to test the potential of integrating blockchain technology with games. After nearly ten years of exploration, blockchain games are looking more and more like advanced prototypes of traditional games: the gameplay loops are not just about grinding, and the graphics are much more eye-catching. However, crypto gaming remains the hilarity of the minority at the current stage. To illustrate it, one of the most popular blockchain games, Axie Infinity, is less than 0.2% the size of Counter-Strike 2 in terms of average monthly active users. To open paths to onboarding more both players and developers, a growing community of Web3-native developers and players finds another approach to the next level of blockchain gaming by building the ecosystem of games and NFT primitives that operate completely on blockchains. In other words, fully on-chain games.

Fully on-chain gaming is one of the most promising areas for creating the next Alpha space, with multiple top investment institutions conducting in-depth research. Currently, fully on-chain gaming is still mainly attracting the attention of niche geek groups, with most attention focused on the Layer 2 network RedStone created by the team behind the Dark Forest game. Recently, more and more projects are participating in developing fully on-chain gaming engines and products. Among these pioneers leading the paradigm shift to fully on-chain gaming, Web3Games.com stands out with its latest product, W3Gamez Network.

Web3Games.com has been committed to integrating decentralized blockchain technology with games since 2021, giving players real ownership of game assets, enhancing game transparency, and providing developers with more user-friendly blockchain development tools. In the early days, Web3Games.com focused on building the infrastructure for blockchain gaming. After three years, it is almost the only project that has delivered technical infrastructure applications and game products at the same time. The team officially announced in 2024 that it will focus on the fully on-chain gaming ecosystem and bring its fully on-chain gaming Layer 2 network W3Gamez Network, which is invested by the NEAR Foundation, developed based on the OP Stack framework, and uses NEAR for Data Availability (DA).

Since on-chain gaming requires that games solely use smart contracts to execute the gameplay logic and store in-game data, it challenges developers and players to operate under strict technical limitations. Therefore, the experimental trials for any project are inevitable, and the accumulative cost becomes consequently expensive. Moreover, traditional GameFi games typically only put game assets on-chain, while game logic is still processed on centralized servers. This can lead to transparency and fairness concerns, as players cannot verify that the game is being played fairly.

Web3Games.com has addressed these challenges by focusing on Layer 2 rollup solutions, enabling developers to create fully on-chain games that are both performant and affordable. In 2024, Web3Games.com launched its W3Gamez Network, a Layer 2 network specifically designed for blockchain gaming. The network uses NEAR Data Availability (DA) to provide low-cost and high-throughput transactions for game assets and logic.

In addition to launching the W3Gamez Network, Web3Games.com is also launching two tokens: WGT and W3G.

WGT (Web3Games.com token) is a utility and governance token that will be used to incentivize and reward activities that support the Web3Games ecosystem. W3G (W3Gamez Network Token) is the native gas and governance token of the W3Gamez Network. The W3G token sale is currently ongoing on Web3Games.com and will end on January 28, 2024. The token price is $0.02 USDC, and the target raise is $400,000.

W3Gamez Network has raised $4 million in two rounds of funding from investors, including NEAR Foundation, DAO Maker, and LD Capital. The team has also worked with NEAR on multiple projects, including providing blockchain technology solutions to Alibaba. W3Gamez Network is the first Layer 2 gaming network to use NEAR’s Data Availability (DA) technology.

To make games trustless, open-source and composable, with the game’s state always immutable and transparent on the blockchain, W3Gamez Network, along with the entire ecosystem powered by Web3Games.com, has provided a fully decentralized ecosystem with robust blockchain security, where everyone plays fair and owns their experience. However, the idea of putting an entire game onto a blockchain is still controversial among traditional game developers, because blockchains are notoriously undesirable for its computing speed, scalability and storage. There is a long journey ahead of fully on-chain gaming. In 2024, Web3Games.com will be fully focused on the development of fully on-chain gaming, having taken the road with the launch of W3Gamez Network as a major milestone. Although fully on-chain gaming remains experimental in the crypto industry, the thesis is that it is highly possible onboarding of the next billion users to blockchain will be through gaming. Hence, it’s essential that well-designed incentive structures, sustainable economics, and developing architectures are available for both developers and players, which is exactly what W3Gamez Network has been focusing on.

PunkPoll Unveils Censorship-Resistant Voting and Survey Platform Powered by Zero-Knowledge Proofs and Mina Protocol 11329

Mina Foundation, the organization serving the Mina Protocol, has partnered with PunkPoll, an online voting and survey platform that today announces the launch of its Open Beta. The PunkPoll voting system allows for anonymous responses and protects personal privacy through a zero-knowledge-native design verified on Mina Protocol.

As part of its Open Beta launch, PunkPoll is integrating with KakaoTalk, a popular Korean-based messenger app with more than 150 million users worldwide. This integration is made possible by Mina’s recursive zero-knowledge proof technology, which allows for its succinct 22KB blockchain to be embedded in users’ smartphones and day-to-day devices.

Joon Kim, a board member of the Mina Foundation, said of the partnership, “The holy grail of blockchain is finding killer use cases. PunkPoll, through its Open Beta, is positioned to showcase not only ZK-voting for real-world users, guaranteeing privacy and security, but decentralized identity verification through social graphing. We believe that PunkPoll not only highlights the potential of Mina’s technology but stands as a beacon for the blockchain industry as a whole. Mina Foundation is excited for what else is to come through this partnership.”

Mina Protocol uses zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) that allow one party to prove to another that a statement is true without revealing any information beyond the validity of the statement. Leveraging Mina’s ZK offerings for developers, PunkPoll minimizes the risks of sensitive data disclosure while upholding polling transparency and verifying the uniqueness of users’ identities.

PunkPoll’s platform supports a wide range of voting and survey use cases and user preferences. Among these features, PunkPoll offers social graphing — a novel voter authentication method where friends verify each others’ identities, rather than relying on personal documents and centralized certification authorities. This approach enables identity verification based on human relationships and is a key part of PunkPoll’s decentralized registration process.

Peter Baek, the CEO of PunkPoll added, “The aim of PunkPoll’s service is to enhance the transparency of voting processes and ensure the integrity of voting results, all while protecting the privacy of voters. By utilizing recursive zero-knowledge proofs on Mina’s performant Hodori Net, and soon, on mainnet, we simplify the voting verification process and enhance the scalability of the system. We believe the combination of these cutting-edge technologies effectively solves the problems that occur in existing voting systems.”

PunkPoll launches its Open Beta service on the Mina Hodori Net, featuring an anonymized ‘News-Based Public Opinion Poll’ system based on its zk-Voting infrastructure. For more information, please visit: https://www.punkpoll.io/.

About Mina Protocol

Mina Protocol is a next-gen zero knowledge (ZK) blockchain. Rather than apply brute computing force, Mina uses advanced cryptography and recursive zk-SNARKs to design an entire blockchain that is fixed at 22KB, the size of a couple tweets. Lightweight and accessible, Mina enables efficient implementation and easy programmability of zero knowledge smart contracts (zkApps). With Mina’s enhanced privacy features and off-chain execution model, developers can build novel applications that bridge the real world and crypto—bringing us closer to the secure, democratic future we all deserve.

About Mina Foundation

The Mina Foundation serves the Mina Protocol. The Foundation supports the protocol and its community by issuing grants to third parties that make significant contributions, fostering community growth, and championing Mina in the wider world. Mina Foundation board members include former Executive Director at ZCash Foundation Josh Cincinnati, Harvard Business School Finance Professor, and Coinbase Advisory board member Marco Di Maggio, Head of Product at OP Labs Tess Rinearson, Mina Foundation General Counsel Joon Kim, and former O(1) Labs CEO Evan Shapiro.

About PunkPoll

PunkPoll is a decentralized voting and public opinion polling platform, aiming to innovatively transform political participation in the digital age. This platform is designed to address several limitations and vulnerabilities of traditional voting systems, such as the potential for manipulation, lack of transparency, and privacy issues. PunkPoll employs the latest decentralized technologies, including Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) based blockchain and NFTs, to provide a secure and transparent voting system, as well as anonymized surveys and public opinion polling, enabling users to directly participate in substantial decision-making processes.

This system uses a decentralized registration method, allowing users to become PunkPoll citizens (panel members) through social graph authentication via messenger. This facilitates user participation in the mechanisms of direct democracy, with the goal of creating a user-friendly platform that is easily accessible from anywhere in the world.