Pocketfi, a telegram mini-app recently launched a paid task known as “Proof of Humanity”, whereby users are required to spend at least $3 worth of TON or stars on their app in order to be regarded or counted as verified users. The truth is, issue of proof of humanity isn’t new to anyone as long as telegram mini-apps are concerned due to the fact that, in the past, airdrop miners have had to spend money even after months of consistent mining.
So the Pocketfi team introducing Proof of Humanity as one of the criteria for successful receipt of mined tokens is not new to us and it’s not strange either. However, I have some problems with the Pocketfi proof of humanity task and would like to share my thoughts on whether it’s a safe move or not. Therefore, if you are one of the people contemplating participating or joining the bandwagon of verified users, there may be need for you to take note of somethings.
What is Proof of Humanity?
Proof of Humanity otherwise known as PoH in cryptocurrency world, has to do with a system designed to verify or certify that participants of a crypto project, be it exchange or airdrop are real, unique humans and not Bots or people who are trying to game the system by creating and running multiple accounts. It’s a big term in the crypto world and even more significant for developers of crypto airdrops.
Reason is, it helps ensure fair participation and prevents manipulation by users. You know, bad eggs are almost certain in everything, and in the case of telegram mini-apps, with how easy it is to create a telegram account, people tend to game the system by creating numerous accounts to have an unfair advantage over other genuine users.
Pocketfi Proof of Humanity
The pocketfi Proof of Humanity involves spending $3 worth of TON or stars in other to fully be regarded as one of their verified users. Being a verified user, in their own words, mean your mined $Switch tokens won’t be burnt as they have intentions of burning tokens prior to the eventual listing date.
Pocketfi with a total token supply of $6.5b ans $1.3b verified total supply so far, claims the token total supply will be reduced as time goes on because, most people having lost faith in tap-to-earn telegram projects and the TON Blockchain may not be moved to spend a dime on any other project. So the administrators believe the total supply at listing will be much lower.
In as much as this is true, it doesn’t still change the fact that, listing price is determined by the Market Capitalisation and not just the supply. The pocketfi administrator might be using the less supply statement to indirectly encourage users who are yet to verify their accounts to do so.
The total supply has a role to play in determining listing price but it’s not usually the bone of contention. The problem here is, what would the Switch Market Cap be? That is what will determine the initial listing price and with this proof of humanity and what they intend to do with the raised funds, I don’t see them having a near-impressive listing price.
Why Paying For Pocketfi Proof of Humanity (PoH) May Not Be A Good Idea
There are several reasons why buying or completing the pocketfi Proof of Humanity task may not be a good idea and they are as follows;
1. Pocketfi seems to be clueless – after the successful launch of Notcoin, many other tap-to-earn projects were launched on telegram with hopes of listing on the TON Blockchain. The popularity and influence of Notcoin, led to growth of many other undeserving project of which, pocketfi was among.
Before you crucify me, bear in mind that pocketfi has been around for almost a year now, having launched sometime between June to July, same period Notcoin had a successful listing and from then till now, they’re still bickering on the issue of proof of humanity; what message does that send to you? It simply means they are clueless and such projects don’t do well.
I have personally spent money to verify a telegram mini-app airdrop project, only for it to get listed and I couldn’t even get half of what I spent on the verification. Once a project that has taken too long, starts requesting for payment for any form of verification, just know it’s time to disable and delete the Bot from your telegram account. It almost never ends well.
2. Pocketfi roadmap is flawed – according to the information on the roadmap published on their website, the listing of Switch token on exchanges is supposed to take place in Q1 of 2025 (First Quarter starts from 1st of January to March 31) yet no exchange has announced listing of their token yet.
Worse still, they are still on the issue of Proof of Humanity, when their roadmap states that token listing should have happened. We’ve seen similar scripts play out in other telegram projects that failed/disappointed the community and pocketfi is rapidly going in the same direction.
3. They claimed the proof of humanity payment was optional at first but their recent publications suggest it’s not. The essence of airdrop mining is to give early believers of a project some free crypto tokens for helping the project grow. However, if you make it compulsory for same users to pay money in order to access their mined tokens, then the essence of airdrop has been defeated.
The fact that they are threatening to burn tokens of users who don’t complete the verification is a clear sign that they won’t do well in the end.
4. Giving extra bonus to users who complete the verification – under normal circumstances, one should be excited about the 5% extra switch bonus but for a project that claims total supply would be reduced after they’ve burnt unverified users to still be adding to the supply by giving extra bonus is just point blank, weird to me.
In the past, failed projects like ToMarket, Tapswap etc all did the same. They rewarded users with additional bonus after spending TON but at the end i.e. After listing, most of the users were still not able to regain the amount spent. Therefore, the extra 5% is more of a disservice to users than a bonus.
Conclusion
Pocketfi is an untrustworthy project in all honesty and to be honest, I feel it’s safest to just steer clear of the whole Proof of Humanity (PoH) requirement unless you are ready and willing to let go of the money. Airdrops that ask users to pay for any form of verification especially on telegram never perform well and if you’ve had some level of experience with them, you wouldn’t even argue this with me.
If you still want to pay for the verification regardless of all we’ve discussed here, then go ahead and spend blindly on a project that hasn’t even fixed a definite listing date with Q1 about to end.
Thanks.
About Author
Join Our WhatsApp Channel