The Hong Kong-based startup Humanity has announced a significant platform evolution: a transition from its original Proof of Humanity product to a new framework called Proof of Trust. The shift marks a broadening of scope from verifying biological uniqueness to supporting a wider set of trust-related attribute proofs using zero-knowledge cryptography.
Proof of Trust, as described in Humanity’s materials, uses zero-knowledge proofs to validate claims about a person or entity while preserving the privacy of the underlying data. The approach is designed to allow a party to confirm that an attribute is true – such as that a user meets a particular threshold or holds a given credential – without exposing the source information itself. This differentiates it from conventional biometric identity systems, which typically share a representation of the enrolled biometric for comparison.
Humanity’s platform evolution follows the Humanity Protocol’s $20 million palm biometrics raise at a $1.1 billion valuation in January 2025, which funded the company’s palm-based identity stack. Palm biometrics remain part of the uniqueness verification layer that the Proof of Trust system builds on. The company uses palm vein or palm image matching to establish that each participant in the system is a distinct individual before issuing identity attestations.
The announced milestones accompanying the platform shift include an API release, an acquisition – Moongate – and a deployment on the Arbitrum mainnet. These updates suggest the company is moving from early-stage product development toward a broader ecosystem rollout.
Proof of Trust builds on Humanity’s earlier partnership with Mastercard Open Finance to bridge Web3 identity and traditional banking, which tied the platform to financial service use cases. The Proof of Trust framework extends that ambition by offering a generalized trust attestation layer rather than a narrower proof-of-personhood function.
The move also echoes Humanity Protocol teaming with Kaito to launch a Web3 identity verification system, which similarly emphasized privacy-first verification as a design principle. Together, the partnerships illustrate a platform strategy of building integrations across Web3 and traditional finance channels while keeping biometric enrollment at the core of the trust anchor.
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
