Human Protocol Expands hCaptcha Tool, Launches Wallet to Make AI Smarter

“Proof-of-HUMANity” could also thwart front-running DeFi bots.

AccessTimeIconJun 14, 2021 at 11:56 p.m. UTC
Updated Sep 14, 2021 at 1:11 p.m. UTC
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Human Protocol has launched a tool that lets developers plug its “Proof-of-HUMANity” feature into cryptocurrency wallets.

By using Human’s hCaptcha – the anti-bot feature on websites that you may know as that thing that forces you to identify fire hydrants in a picture grid – developers can ensure transactions on their networks are executed by humans. The hCaptcha tool can be introduced to the design of third-party wallet plug-ins for web browsers such as Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Brave. 

With the boom in decentralized finance (DeFi), front-running bots have increasingly become an issue. The bots are known to cut in line in an execution queue, right before a known future transaction occurs, in order to capitalize on a price change. 

Human’s bot-buster is an independent and more private alternative to Google’s reCAPTCHA, which is used by the majority of the web. 

“Proof-of-HUMANity is a gamechanger for the blockchain industry, which has long been plagued by nefarious bot activity,” Alex Newman, Human’s hCaptcha co-founder, said in a statement.

The tool not only boosts know-your-customer capabilities, he said, but it also can “maintain the integrity of on-chain governance.”

To this end, Human Protocol previously partnered with popular crypto wallet MetaMask and data oracle network Chainlink to give users access to the hCaptcha method (if app developers support it).

But wait ...

In addition to the added “Proof-of-HUMANity” functionality, Human Protocol Labs is releasing a native wallet, the HUMAN wallet, that will serve as the main way to interact with dapps and platforms within the  protocol’s orbit. 

Essentially it’s a decentralized platform where requesters can crowdsource people to perform tasks that help bolster machine-learning networks. Artificial intelligence is not so good at identifying specific content in a video, so that’s where humans come in. Workers are compensated in the Human’s native token, HMT. 

Human’s Lonnie Rae Kurlander said one of aims here is addressing the lack of financial security and recourse when it comes to late or absent payments for workers who’ve completed tasks. 

“The goal of Human Protocol is to create a trustless environment for the gig economy, especially when it comes to better incentivizing participation in human intelligence tasks and digital labor platforms,” Kurlander said in an email. 

Learning from as many humans as possible will be critical to AI’s development and is vital to training machine-learning algorithms.

The HUMAN Wallet will be used to view jobs as they’re posted, secure the Human network by staking with trusted validators and tap into cross-chain applications. 

“The launch of the HUMAN Wallet will enable participation in this new decentralized job market for human intelligence tasks, and the availability of the new Proof-of-HUMANity developer tool will ensure the integrity of participation in blockchain networks,” said Kurlander, adding:   

“Together, these systems will enable a trustless and autonomous environment for humans and machines to solve increasingly complex issues relating to data science and machine learning.”

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