Human nodes,
Please update your node to the latest version!

If you are running the node using Humanode Launcher, go to Settings and Click on Check for Peer Updates.

And to check what's new in the latest update, check the release notes.

Development Update
30th July – 6th August

Check out the latest from Humanode's development team:

🔺 Finality incident analysis
This month, we faced a finality stall, which was quickly resolved, and the chain is back to normal. Our incident analysis confirmed the root cause. The node responsible for the primary slot (A1) took unusually long to distribute its block. Consequently, the chain continued with the block produced by the secondary slot node (B1), which produced two more blocks (B2, B3). Nodes began voting to finalize B1 on the fork (B1, B2, B3). Meanwhile, A1 continued producing blocks on the best chain (A1, A2, A3, etc.), leading to a chain reorganization. Finalization on B1 remained in progress but couldn't be finished since B1 was not part of the best chain. The Parity team acknowledged the complexity of this issue.

Since then, we have improved our internal alert systems to promptly respond to potential finalization lags. The code related to Grandpa logic has been deeply studied, and we issued a fix for the Grandpa RPC endpoint in mainnet 119 runtime.

Last week, we started experiencing frequent finalization stops again, prompting the creation of a tracking issue, Humanode Issue #1104, to actively track all occurrences. The Parity team has actively engaged in resolving the problem, and our research has been instrumental, in leading to a proposed fix from their side. The regression test, which checks the logic for block finalization after chain reorganization, was used to validate the fix. The pull request containing the fix and our test was merged: Polkadot SDK PR #5153.

However, the fix was not rolled out immediately due to potential unknown impacts on certain modules. It was decided to first reproduce the problem and then observe network behavior with the fix. Last week, we successfully reproduced the block finalization stop within the dev environment.

According to our plan, if the fix shows specific results in the dev environment without any side effects, we will promptly roll it out to the mainnet.

🔺Gossip fix
Additionally, this week, we rolled back an update to improve the state of gossip. For more detailed information, visit the Humanode GitHub.

🔺 Exploring CVM attestation
We've collaborated with the Rustwasm team to address some Web WASM/Rust infrastructure issues. Stay tuned for the new version of the wasm-bindgen crate, which will include fixes for API generation and the async fn bindgen definitions.

🔺 Introducing a new flow for the web app
We continued integrating the new flow for the web app, including a transition to a new authorization signature format and an improved error display format for users, providing detailed text on why the error occurred.

🔺 Front-end updates
We have updated the active validators counter on the mainnet landing.

ELI5 on how Supra decentralized oracles work and why they stand out: https://x.com/humanode_io/status/1821196266509910032

📢 Community asked - we ship!

Update to the UX of BotBasher, our Discord integration.
In order to achieve max Sybil-resistance and privacy in BotBasher re-registration of accounts is impossible for a 6 months period. There was a popular issue for users with multiple accounts: they bonded a Discord account they had in the browser, which is different from their account in the app. On a scale of 10k-100k people coming at the same time for a few days many bioverified a wrong account.

Now after a private biometric session our app asks users to check and verify account name and user ID once again.

Hello, Humanode community! 👋🏼

It’s been a while since we’ve had a good sit-down, so we thought, why not do just that this Friday? We’re hosting Founders' Talk—nothing formal 😉 just a casual hangout where we can catch up, share what we’ve been working on, and get your thoughts.

Here’s the plan ⬇️

🗓 When: Friday, August 16
⏰ Time: 14:00 UTC
📍 Where: We’ll be live on YouTube | Humanode Announcements Telegram Channel | X | Discord | Instagram | TikTok

Join us on whichever platform suits you best—we’re excited to connect with you!

See you there! 🫡

Over a thousand of unique humans in consensus and growing.

Sharing our ❤️ to devoted human nodes

🔈Founders Talk is starting in 1 hour!

🗓 When: Friday, August 16
⏰ Time: 14:00 UTC
📍 Where: We’ll be live on YouTube | Humanode Announcements Telegram Channel | X | Discord | Instagram | TikTok

Join us on whichever platform suits you best—we’re excited to connect with you!

See you there! 🫡

Intract, a web3 community engagement platform with 12 million users has integrated our chain. Now projects on Humanode can create web3 campaigns with automatic distribution of ERC-20 tokens and NFTs.

Learn more: https://x.com/humanode_io/status/1824498340761149923

We know people do not like articles these days, but here it is: https://blog.humanode.io/intract-integrates-the-humanode-chain/

People tend to confuse ZK-KYC and Humanode’s tech - cryptobiometrics. If you want to understand it on a technical level, read the article on our blog here.

TL;DR
KYC = Know Your Customer. Even in ZK-KYC, to get an encrypted credential, you have to give out data in plaintext to verify your legal identity.

Cryptobiometrics only prove you’re a unique and real human without knowing who you are with zero data shared in plaintext from your device - it’s always encrypted.

Victor and Dato discussed how bots and Sybils are ruining multiplayer games by disrupting their economies.
Check it out! ▶️

https://x.com/humanode_io/status/1826607568229425619

Funds and exchanges , in pursuit of high metrics, prevent the integration of Sybil-resistance into Dapps. Simply because they operate with elevated numbers when looking into projects. These projects adopt to raise.
▶️ https://x.com/humanode_io/status/1827385343597015440

We have interviewed a few human nodes who have been through the thick and the thin, from the very beginning of Mainnet or even before. The first human node to answer the call is MLH, a 77-year-old retired university professor. His reason for becoming a human node, “to help in some small way to bring about the beginnings of a just and equitable financial system.”, was one that made the team realize that they were on the right track. Here are some of the Q&A from the interview. Q: How has your experience as a human node been so far? What makes this experience unique? MLH: It’s been both challenging and interesting. Challenging because steps and words that seem normal to the programmers are not intuitive to me. Interesting, because there are many words and phrases that I’m learning as I go along. Q: What are the challenges in running a human node for you? MLH: Probably for me as a non-tech guy, learning what to do if my node has a problem, which fortunately doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, the tech support has always been stellar and has quickly solved my issue. Read the full interview here: https://blog.humanode.io/meet-the-human-nodes-kicking-off-with-mlh/

Humanode community!

You all know the answer, right? 👇

https://x.com/humanode_io/status/1828837489848791399

Comparing consensus (Sybil-resistance) mechanisms:

Proof of Work vs. Proof of Stake vs. Proof of Biometric Uniqueness

https://x.com/humanode_io/status/1829223984141086793

Human nodes,

We have shipped the fix for consensus issue we have discovered recently.

The target version is eb403adcc6fa545c28e99d73d7e0be38054439ca

If you are running the node using Humanode Launcher, go to Settings and Click on Check for Peer Updates.

You know that feeling when you’re watching a show and everything is going smooth and then out of the blue, there’s a twist that leaves you on the edge of your seat?

Well, same thing can occur with a blockchain when it’s the consensus mechanism suddenly fails.

From a 51% attack on Bitcoin Gold to the PoS failure that halted the entire network, these incidents could either break a blockchain or lead it to innovations.

In our latest article, we dive into some real-life blockchain incidents where Proof of Stake(PoS) and Proof of Work (PoW) mechanisms hit the wall and what happened next:

⚡️Bitcoin Gold - A 51% attack that left $18 million double-spent.
⚡️Ethereum Classic - A costly reorganization that made everyone rethink blockchain security.
⚡️Dymension's Mainnet Launch - Proof of Stake failure that halted the entire network.

And the big question ‘What If’ Bitcoin’s consensus mechanism were to fail? Could it happen?

Learn how these failures affect the blockchains and why it might be a good time to look at new consensus mechanisms like Humanode’s Proof of Biometric Uniqueness (PoBU)

Read the full article here: https://blog.humanode.io/when-blockchain-consensus-mechanisms-fail/

Elys Network integrated Humanode’s BotBasher in its Discord and is using it as a requirement to participate in its upcoming airdrop.

To join the airdrop, you’ll need to get the BotBasher verified role—so only unique real humans participate.

This integration fixes a big issue in crypto where airdrops, like ZKsync’s and many others, got overrun by Sybils, leaving the community behind. With Botbasher, community members can be sure it remains a fair game.

For Elys Network, this means they can drop rewards fairly without needing your personal info or KYC, keeping things genuine with the community.

For the community members, it’s a secure, fair, and privacy-friendly way to join in, without having to compete with Sybils.


To get your 'Human Verified' role head to Elys Network’s https://discord.gg/elysnetwork

The process is simple: 
1. Click on ‘Linked Roles’ from the server’s drop-down menu and select ‘Human Verified’
2. Follow the prompts to connect your Discord and complete private face verification.
3. Enjoy your Verified status

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF7zDRvLZ74