Understanding Idena – The Human-Centric Blockchain

As the years go on and the blockchain sphere gets more mature, it has become clear that the industry has little regard for providing fair voting rights. While practically all blockchains have voting and governance measures in place, most of them work by staking money, using up processing power to mine, or purchasing governance tokens. In other words, users must buy votes. The industry appears to be more interested in solving other technical problems and has chosen to simply disengage from the issues surrounding pay-to-vote systems.

It goes without saying that systems like this are not focused on the rights and abilities of individual users but rather are focused on monetary incentives. Blockchains like this (which is sadly the vast majority) are more geared towards providing practical solutions in the FinTech space, than caring about the fact that at the end of every blockchain transaction, there is a real person.

This is why it is such a breath of fresh air to come across a project that recognizes the inherently human aspect of this space, and is actively working towards making it more compatible with the way people live. One such blockchain is Idena.

Voting Made Fair

At the heart of Idena is the simple belief that everybody should have equal voting rights. There should be no skewing of votes based on mining ability or money being staked. Power must be distributed amongst everybody, with no imbalances whatsoever. This ensures that each user feels empowered and engaged, knowing their voice is just as loud as one another's, regardless of how wealthy they are.

This makes Idena’s blockchain perfect for running DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations) and other DApps that encourage their userbase to vote on crucial decisions. While Ethereum and other crypto ecosystems have projects running on them that support voting, they all favor the rich, as they all require people to buy more votes by staking more money or buying better mining equipment. This clearly leaves poorer and more disadvantaged participants behind. Idena, however, is on a mission to leave nobody behind, as it distributes power in a way that ensures nobody has an advantage over their fellow user.

Consensus for the Everyday User

To achieve this, Idena utilizes a proof-of-person consensus algorithm, something wildly different compared to crypto giants such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. With proof-of-person (or PoP), blocks are added to the chain by a decentralized collective of validators who must all prove they are human by performing a set of tasks that are simple for humans to complete but near impossible for machines. In other words, these are specially designed CAPTCHAs, referred to as FLIPs (“filters for live intelligent people”).

Anybody can be a validator. To do so, each person must all be at their computer at a certain time, where they all must pass these FLIPs, and those who score a certain percentage of right answers are approved to become one (or stay as one, as validators must continue to complete FLIPs to ensure the blockchain does not get overrun by bad actors or AI). Correct answers are also determined by people, making the system entirely self-sufficient and human-oriented. This process is known as a validation ceremony, as it is a celebration of new and old validators banding together to secure the blockchain and subsequently be rewarded for it in Idena’s own currency (iDNA).

As a result, each validator is given a cryptoidentity, which is a digital avatar that shows they have proven to the blockchain that they are a human being. With this, they are granted the ability to vote on decisions within the Idena ecosystem.

Respect for Humanity

Notice how Idena is able to verify somebody is human without ever asking for any KYC or identifying information such as passports or driver’s licenses? This is because government-issued IDs are centralized tools, and so they are inherently against the blockchain industry’s desire for a decentralized world. Not only this, but it would be unfair to use ID as a necessity for engaging with its blockchain, as there are many people who cannot get government-issued proof of identity. One recent time this happened was with the United Kingdom’s Windrush scandal, where citizens within the country were unjustly branded as illegal immigrants due to a lack of paperwork, preventing them from working, owning homes, and accessing basic human rights. This is a perfect example of the problems that arise when centralized documentation is relied upon for proving somebody’s existence.

Not only this, but by Idena avoiding the use of identifying documents, people can rest easy knowing their sensitive data is not being compromised. People are rightfully skeptical of tech companies asking for such personal data when it has been proven they often monetize and exploit it.

Designed for an Inclusive Web

Idena is not merely a blockchain with a cryptocurrency; it is a fully-fledged blockchain ecosystem, fitted with smart contract capabilities and scalability features. This means that people can build their own applications on-top of it. It means any project inside this ecosystem would support the one-vote-per-cryptoidentity rule, making for fairer governance. It is hard to think of any idea that would not be made better by a rule like this. Nobody wants weighted votes– they are undemocratic, and they disenfranchise working-class users.

Idena might sound like a niche option to the status quo, but this is far from the truth. The industry has trained us to view any consensus algorithm that is not proof-of-work or proof-of-stake as a quaint or novel alternative, but the truth is that the standard models are not fit for purpose. Idena is designed for a future that is more inclusive, more welcoming, and more robust than the current one we occupy. It is the human-centric, humanitarian arm of the blockchain and web3 space.

Watch the explainer video about Idena

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLt4Xal16IU