This set of tools was created to prevent bots from unfairly taking advantage of NFT drops. It limits the number of wallets that an account can use. Civic, the Web3 reputation and identity company, is continuing to fight bots and scams by launching a new tool, uniqueness validation, and a platform called Civic.me.
“Uniqueness verification” is one of the products we offer for enterprises, and is known as Civic Pass. JP Bedoya is chief product officer at Civic. He spoke Decrypt to Expoverse in Los Angeles.
He explained that Civic Pass is a token that is issued to consumers wallets and is not transferable. It is also non-visible via an explorer. This then attests that there is some verification.
Civic says uniqueness verification is a service that prevents bots from taking advantage of NFT drop by restricting the number of wallets an account may use to receive the drop. With the goal of stopping bots from accumulating large amounts of drops, each user can only use one wallet.
Civic launched Civic.me to verify uniqueness. This platform allows users to manage their online identity and wallet addresses from one location on the blockchain.
Bedoya explained to Decrypt that this is where you’ll be able manage your ever-growing NFT collections and all other aspects of your Web3 identity and profile. NFTs are a key part of Web3’s identity, profile and persona.
Civic, a San Francisco-based company that launched in 2015 with an open-source identity verification protocol based on Ethereum, has now made online identity its main focus for Web3, providing enterprise and consumer solutions.
Bedoya said that security and cybersecurity within Web3 requires consideration of multiple elements, such as access and hacking. This just goes back to bugs with code and smart contract issues.
Bedoya continued by saying that Web3’s cybersecurity is incomplete without learning and identifying the wallet owner.
He said, “That’s why something like Civic Pass or a token issued directly to wallets can help to create that foundational piece to build knowledge and establish a reputation.”
Civic spent many years developing tools to prove identity and “liveliness” of people. But the journey has been bumpy, because just because someone is living doesn’t mean they are immune from scamming.
Civic announced in December that it had “verified the Big Daddy Ape Club” through its Verified By Civic Pass program. The program required verification at the time: control over the project’s Twitter account, control over the domain and the identity and documents of the founder of the project, as well as a 3D scan of the face.
However, the Big Daddy Ape Club was still fake.
Scammers pulled off one of the biggest NFT rug pulls ever recorded in the history Solana blockchain’s history. They took 9,136 SOL (around $1 million at the time) from would-be collectors to mint what turned to be non-existent Big Daddy Ape Club NFTs.
In February, the Verified By Civic Pass program was discontinued by the company.
Civic remains confident in its mission to protect users against scams and bots by identity verification. It will make it a common requirement that users be private doxxed rather than publicly doxxed.
Bedoya stated that doxxing does not necessarily mean, “OK, look at my face, this is who you are to the public,” but it could be. It can also be, “This is who I’m,” but only certain parts of it will be revealed.
Bedoya states that building a reputation around your wallet is not enough. It takes some form identity, such as a biometric, to verify someone’s identity.
Civic’s Bedoya explained that this is done using a video selfie. This is then stored for private verification. Bedoya also said that Civic provided the tools but that the company had set up barriers to ensure that Civic doesn’t have access.
He says, “We have created a unique, distributed storage system where you, the user, have the only encryption key and decryption keys to access any data that is stored there like all the wallets you have linked.” It will be cross-chain, so there will be NFTs for Ethereum, Solana and Polygon. We also think it’s important to bring together all these pieces with privacy at its center.
