Sep 8, 2025
TL;DR
Human Passport helped protect five distinct campaigns across five different testnets: Modular (Initia), Validator (Avail), Gamified (Sunrise), Decentralized Cloud (ImpossibleCloudNetwork), Ecosystem Exploration (Linea)
Each example highlights a real-world integration. While each campaign was different, most used Human Passport in a few key ways:
Incentivized testnets often bring the best – and the worst – of web3. While they help teams stress-test infrastructure and grow communities, they also attract Sybils and bots who are hoping to be rewarded for early adoption.
You can’t trust your metrics if you don’t know the users are even real. That’s why Human Passport offers a privacy-first way to protect incentivised testnets, verifying who’s human without storing sensitive data.
Most projects to date have used Passport Stamps, our most well-known offering. Towards the end, we also explore new, alternative solutions from the growing Passport toolkit!
The Challenge: Public Testnets Attract Sybils
Ahead of a major network upgrade or token launch, many teams start community-driven campaigns to onboard early users and stress-test infrastructure. These campaigns often involve quests, points, or gated activities, designed to reward meaningful engagement while allowing the community to explore what’s being built.
But with this pre-launch attention comes a familiar threat: bots and Sybil attacks. As always, these automated interactions can skew engagement, clog networks, and undermine the quality of participation.
To keep engagement meaningful, many teams introduce verification mechanisms to ensure rewards reflect real human involvement — the Proof of Personhood.
The Fix: Humanity Verification Without Friction
To address the challenge of bot activity and support fair participation, projects often turn to us – Human Passport, part of human.tech – a privacy-preserving identity protocol that helps distinguish unique humans from Sybils without collecting any sensitive, personal data.
Human Passport enables users to perform Proof of Personhood, proving that they are unique humans and carry that proof across web3. We also give builders the tools to check users’ Unique Humanity score (APIs and smart contracts) in both real-time and asynchronous, rewarding those who verify their personhood. This often means higher leaderboard placement or bonus points for verified humans, helping real participants stand out from automated or duplicate accounts.
Inside the Human Passport Toolkit
Human Passport is a modular identity verification system built for web3, based primarily on activity proofs (Stamps) and on-chain history checks using machine-learning models. Optional zero-knowledge identity verification (via Human ID) is available for use cases that require compliance.
Two tools involve user participation:
Passport Stamps: on-chain and off-chain identity verification aggregator, enabling users to choose how they prove their unique humanity
Human ID by human.tech: direct zk identity verification using zkKYC (Government ID), biometrics, sanctions checks (Proof of Clean Hands), and phone verification
Two work behind the scenes:
Passport Models: real-time wallet scoring based on transaction history across chains
Passport Data Services: async Sybil classification and clustering on wallet lists, anytime
Across the testnets in this post, projects used Passport in different ways:
Custom onboarding flows (like faucet gating or Discord integration)
Tailored scoring thresholds depending on how experienced their users are
Custom Stamp weights to reward actions that mattered most
Onchain verification to tie personhood directly to smart contracts
Most teams combine tools to balance UX, privacy, and Sybil defense.
Testnet Campaign Protection in Action
Across airdrops, faucet protection, and testnet quests, Human Passport has helped projects verify hundreds of thousands of users and protect millions of transactions, keeping incentives in human hands.
Most campaigns followed a similar pattern:
✅ Use of Passport Stamps to verify user activity
✅ Enforcement of a custom Humanity Score threshold
✅ Integration via API access or smart contracts
This allowed projects to gate access without a traditional KYC process or storing personally identifiable data (PII), while still offering users flexibility in how they are verified.
Here’s how some of those teams used Passport in practice:
Initia: modular testnet
A modular testnet campaign with gamified community features (including a virtual pet, Jennie).
Initia gated faucet access with a real-time Humanity Score threshold of 10, fetched via the Passport Stamps API. Users could instantly verify or build their score through the Passport app.
Avail: validator testnet
Validator- and dev-focused “Clash of Nodes” testnet to stress-test Avail’s data availability layer.
Participants needed a Unique Humanity Score of 20 to access the faucet through a dedicated Discord-integrated portal.
The results: over 2 million transactions from 75,000 verified wallets, Sybils screened out.
Sunrise: gamified testnet
A gamified testnet to explore Sunrise’s Proof of Liquidity (PoL) mechanism.
Passport gated faucet access and task eligibility for users with a custom score of 16 or higher. This helped identify real users to earn points toward Wave 4 of the $RISE airdrop.
Impossible Cloud Network: decentralized cloud
Impossible Cloud Network ran an incentivized testnet for a decentralized alternative to AWS and traditional cloud providers.
Participants needed a Passport score of 20 or above to access the testnet and be eligible for rewards from a 10.5M $ICNT token pool, keeping performance testing human-centric.
Linea: ecosystem exploration
Linea Voyage was a big-scale multi-week ecosystem testnet campaign with over 50 partners and 30M+ transactions.
To reduce bot congestion and promote real human participation, Linea launched the "I'm a first class Linea Citizen" quest in collaboration with Galxe, Guild.xyz, and Human Passport.
Using Custom Passport, Linea required users to mint their Passports onchain to Verax. Passport scores were accessed via smart contracts, and users with scores above 20 qualified for the leaderboard boosts.
Over 207,000 users verified their humanity through Passport during this campaign, helping Linea keep rewards fair and the leaderboard clean.
NEW: Combining Tools for Stronger Sybil Defense
Passport Stamps are the most widely adopted tool in the Passport stack. But combining them with other offerings unlocks more robust and flexible Sybil protection.
Here’s how you can combine tools:
Stamps + Models
Pair real-time Stamp verification with Passport Models for deeper Sybil detection. Experienced users can verify instantly via onchain history (Models), while newer users build up their score in the app (Stamps).
Stamps + Data Services
Verify users at the point of entry (e.g. faucet or testnet) using Stamps, then run post-campaign analysis with Data Services to catch any remaining Sybil clusters and suspicious wallets.
Stamps + Onchain Passport
Allow users to mint their Stamps onchain. Projects can access scores via smart contracts; no API integration needed. Onchain minting is generally optional for users, but can be required per campaign.
Premium: Custom Passport & Passport Embed
Fully customizable flow:
Custom scores and Stamp sets
Branded UI and URLs
Custom Stamp: wallet-list or GitHub-based verification
In-app verification via Passport Embed (now in early testing)
→ Apply here for early Embed access.
Human Passport, Embed announcement
Build with Human Passport
Human Passport helps projects fetch real human engagement, with smooth integration for builders and a seamless flow for users.
Getting started is simple: a few lines of code with the Passport API lets you fetch scores, retrieve Stamp metadata, access Model results, or plug directly into onchain logic with Onchain Passport. You can test everything in our API playground and customize your flow with Custom Passport.
For users, verification stays lightweight. Prove humanity once, then carry it across campaigns without repeated steps or personal data collection.
Whether through Stamps, Models, or onchain minting, Passport keeps testnets human while staying flexible, privacy-first, and easy to adopt.
📖 Learn more: passport.human.tech
FAQ
Do users need to share personal data?
No personal data is required for standard Passport verification. Most users prove humanity through Stamps and onchain history.
For projects that need stronger compliance, Passport also offers Human ID (zkKYC). In those cases, users may verify with a government ID, Binance account, or similar. Data is never stored, and using Human ID is optional unless your project requires it.
How hard is integration?
Most projects start with a few lines of code using the Passport API, connecting directly to the default setup in the Passport app. Onchain verification is also supported if you prefer smart contract logic.
What does it cost?
Default Passport integration with Stamps is free for testnet protection. Premium features — like Custom Passport or Passport Embed — add advanced options for tailored flows.
Can we set our own rules?
Custom thresholds, Stamp weights, and onboarding flows are part of premium features such as Custom Passport. The free setup uses Passport’s default configuration.
What happens if bots still get through?
Passport Models and Data Services can run post-campaign analysis to detect and cluster Sybil wallets, helping you clean up results.
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About Human Passport (formerly Gitcoin Passport)
Human Passport is an identity verification application and Sybil resistance protocol with more than 2M users. It enables users to collect verifiable credentials, or Stamps, that prove their identity and trustworthiness without exposing personally identifying information. To date, Human Passport has protected over $380M in airdrop and grant funds.
About human.tech
human.tech is a suite of technologies designed to enhance personal freedom, privacy, and financial autonomy. human.tech provides innovative solutions for secure identity, data ownership, and private transactions, ensuring that technology remains a tool for human empowerment.
