Gavin Wood Unveils Polkadot’s Proof of Personhood Roadmap – Here’s What’s Coming

Polkadot founder Gavin Wood just dropped the playbook for blockchain's most anticipated identity revolution. Proof of Personhood isn't just coming—it's being engineered to rewrite the rules.

Why this isn't your grandma's KYC

The protocol slashes through centralized verification like a hot knife through butter. No more handing passports to crypto exchanges that'll inevitably leak them.

The launch phases decoded

Wood's blueprint reveals a multi-stage rollout. Early testnets will trial Sybil resistance mechanisms while the treasury funds attack simulations (because what's Web3 without a little chaos?).

The finance angle they won't say out loud

Bankers are already sweating over how to monetize decentralized identity. Expect 'PoP-as-a-service' SaaS clones within 18 months—VC funding secured, utility TBD.

One thing's certain: when the dust settles, we'll either have unstoppable digital sovereignty...or another stack for regulators to misunderstand.

Trust and decentralized identity in an AI-laden world

During the Web3 Summit panel simply dubbed “Trust,” Inventor and Financial Cryptographer at Ricardian Contracts Ian Grigg explained how trust is requires more than just technological reassurance.

Grigg believes that trust cannot be fully replicated by technology. This is because it is inherently human at its core, as it involves emotion, uncertainty, and context in order to fully be implemented.

Meanwhile, machines are not capable of feeling these emotions linked to human trust. Grigg argued that artificial intelligence should not be created to have such capabilities, simply because “automating trust” through machines creates fragile, insecure systems.

In addition, Grigg emphasized that trust and identity are interlinked with one another: in order to trust, one must understand exactly who or what is being trusted, grounded in human insight, not just protocol or code.