Blockchain Can Stop AI Fakes in Crypto Airdrops
Research in 2023 estimated that between 5% and 15% of accounts on X (formerly Twitter) were indeed bots, while Facebook blocked hundreds of millions of fake accounts every quarter.
As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to grow rapidly, identifying real people from deepfakes, bots and AI accounts has become a more formidable challenge. The stakes in crypto airdrops and elections are much higher; the threat these technologies pose to entire financial systems and democracy itself is real.
However, the number of such crimes is on the rise, and blockchain technology — by its very nature transparent and tamper-proof — provides effective remedies to this global concern.
How AI Fakes are Exploiting Systems
Crypto airdrops have proven to be fertile ground for AI fakes, with bots flooding into earn a free token. In games like Hamster Kombat, however, bots perform repetitive actions purely to increase in-game activity and therefore meet the conditions for receiving rewards, effectively precluding real users. This is also a huge challenge in elections, where the fake profile and identity could impact political processes.
A study from the University of Waterloo illustrates how entrenched this issue has become. A study involving 260 participants to identify human faces from AI ones found that only 61% were successful, far short of the expected threshold of about 85%, researchers said. This data highlights an urgent issue: If humans have a hard time distinguishing AI fakes, we need stronger systems for verifying authenticity online.
Using Blockchain as a Solution to AI Fakes
Then comes the blockchain, a technology with immutable records and decentralization that is getting reinvented to verify human identity. But many blockchain projects are already trying to find out how to decouple humans from bots in all kinds of systems, like crypto airdrops or voting processes.
Holonym’s Human Keys
A blockchain identity platform called Holonym introduced the idea of “human keys”. Human keys are generated from the unique, personal aspects of an individual (like biometrics or even social security numbers), unlike most private keys, which result from random algorithms. 1. For instance, a wallet could be generated from my face scan. It’s just to ensure that whoever takes the action is a human being and not made by a bot.
Digital ID by Civic’s Blockchain Platform
Civic is a blockchain powered project enabling video verification of users in real-time. The way it works is by analyzing a very basic video feed and verifying the uniqueness of the person so that one individual cannot create multiple accounts to undermine systems such as crypto airdrops.
Worldcoin’s Iris Scanning Technology
Arguably the most controversial of those projects is Worldcoin’s iris-scanning Orbs that produce unique identifiers as proof of personhood. However, there remain worries for data privacy despite Worldcoin using privacy-preserving laws such as zero-knowledge proofs (ZK-proofs). Nevertheless, the technology is promising for stopping bots and AI from abusing blockchain-focused systems.
Tackling Sybil Attacks in Airdrops using Blockchain
Digital identity systems in blockchain are already working great with crypto airdrops. Perhaps the most high-profile example was the LayerZero anti-Sybil campaign, which targeted bots hoping to qualify for airdrops over and over again. LayerZero tackled Sybil accounts (accounts created to manipulate the system) and by identifying and removing them from consideration, they made sure their tokens were properly allocated to real users, which ultimately resulted in its token performing far better than the projects that did not proactively do this.
Tools like blockchain-based digital IDs are necessary because, without them, crypto airdrops can be hit badly by bots and all the early tokens are dumped for fiat, eventually resulting in massive sell-offs and price manipulation of said tokens by bot operators. Market disruptions like these could be prevented by verifying identities using blockchain-based tools, such as those created by Civic and Holonym, to ensure that only real individuals are receiving the airdrops.
How Blockchain Could Play a Role in Elections
Usage of block chain for human verification, however, is not limited to crypto airdrops. Blockchain-based digital identification systems might change how voters are verified in elections, making sure only real, human voters cast their votes.
In practice, Holonym’s system was implemented in Andrew Yang’s 2020 U.S. presidential campaign to permit pledges of anonymous but legally validated donations. Donors could verify their U.S. residency through a system called Know Your Anon, which used zero-knowledge technology to preserve anonymity—an important tension between the need for transparency and privacy—which CI is working toward protecting. It leverages the capability of blockchain to create fair and verifiable elections, something that would otherwise be impossible given the nature of the situation.
Privacy Issues in Identity Systems Based on Blockchain
Though the advantages of blockchain are evident, the issues with privacy continue to remain a major barrier. This forces many users to stop sharing biometric data with centralized platforms due to the fear of surveillance and misuse of sensitive information by third parties.
To mitigate these issues, Holonym has an approach where 90% of all biometric data remains on the end-user device and no sensitive information ever leaves the cloud without word-for-word consent. Civic’s Capilnean, in fact, supports the current model of biometric verification methods needing to walk a fine line between usability and protecting privacy.
Blockchain Revolution: The Future of Defending AI Fakes
If such AI-generated fakes keep evolving, then the antidotes should also evolve. On the other hand, blockchain provides a transparent and immutable way to approach bot-related challenges in crypto airdrops and elections while protecting user privacy. Biometric authentication, zero-knowledge proof and client-side storage make blockchain-based digital identity systems the best at preventing AI-driven deception.
The expanded use of blockchain across industries, whether it be to avoid an AI fake in airdrops (happening now!), verify votes cast, and support low-income communities, provides hope for an emergent future where technology serves its role preserving trust and integrity during the artificial intelligence dystopia.
As AI bots are influencing as few as 5% to as many as 15% of users on platforms such as X, and Facebook is removing hundreds of millions of fake users each quarter, there is a burgeoning need for reliable verification systems. Blockchain is doing what only the top crypto can do, securing not only financial transactions but also the essence of human identity in the online world.
