Author: Zen, PANews
At the beginning of this month, the general human-computer interaction network Billions announced the completion of a total of $30 million in financing, led by Polygon, with other investors including well-known institutions in the crypto and AI infrastructure fields such as Polychain, Coinbase Ventures, LibertyCity Ventures, and BITKRAFT Ventures.
Shortly after the announcement, Kaito's Web3 crowdfunding platform CapitalLaunchpad announced plans to launch Billions Network on August 6. According to Kaito's real-time monitoring data, Billions accounted for as much as 8.03% of recent on-chain activity, ranking first on its leaderboard. Emerging from Polygon ID, Billions has made some new "achievements" after continuously delving into the decentralized identity space.
Team and Product Both "Evolved" from Polygon
The initial financing of $30 million is attributed not only to the chosen direction of digital identity verification being seen as a development trend but also to the historical connections and years of technical accumulation of the Billions Network project team. Billions originated from Privado ID, which was formerly known as Polygon ID. After it became independent from Polygon Labs in June 2024, it was renamed and continued to focus on digital identity and reputation solutions for on-chain data.
Thus, the core team of Billions has an inseparable relationship with Polygon, with many employees having experience working at Polygon—its co-founder David Z is also one of the founders of Polygon, having served as Polygon's Chief Technology Officer and project lead for Polygon ID and Polygon zkEVM. Additionally, he is the project lead for the Ethereum-based decentralized zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) identity management framework Iden3 protocol.
Another co-founder of Billions, Evin McMullen, has also long been engaged in the digital identity field. She created the decentralized identity management platform Disco.xyz and previously served as a project lead at Consensys. In September 2024, Privado ID merged with Disco.xyz to accelerate the creation and adoption of a unified, cross-chain digital identity infrastructure connecting Web2 and Web3 ecosystems. Evin subsequently joined the team as Chief Strategy Officer, focusing on the business sector.
After Privado ID became independent, Polygon co-founder Antoni Martin and core developer of Polygon zkEVM Jordi Baylina served as Chief Operating Officer and Technical Advisor, respectively, while Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon Labs and current CEO of the Polygon Foundation, acted as a growth advisor.
During the transition to Billions, Martin and Baylina seem to have left the team or no longer hold core roles, as both have not interacted with Billions recently, and their X platform avatars do not feature the unique "Billions style" mask like other team members. However, Sandeep will continue to support the growth of Billions.
General Human-Computer Interaction Network, Officially Claims to Attract One Million Users in Six Months
In February of this year, Privado ID officially launched the new brand Billions, which is claimed to be the world's first human-AI general network, aiming to extend mobile-first, privacy-first verification methods to billions of human users and future AI agents, establishing a foundational infrastructure for trustworthy interactions between real humans and AI agents.
The most attractive and disruptive aspect of Billions' design concept is that it does not require dedicated hardware devices or biometric features such as fingerprints or irises; verification can be completed solely with a passport and a mobile phone. The team has utilized the zero-knowledge proof (ZK) and verifiable credential infrastructure accumulated by Privado ID, allowing users to complete identity verification within seconds by taking a live photo or quickly reading their passport via NFC with their mobile phone camera. All sensitive information is encapsulated using zero-knowledge proofs and stored on a distributed network.
Unlike previous "proving human identity" solutions that only targeted humans, Billions has expanded this idea to AI agents for the first time: not only can human users generate, share, and revoke their identity credentials, but AI systems can also verify the authenticity of their training models, operational behaviors, and data sources within the Billions network, thereby achieving a trust loop of "human-machine mutual trust" in scenarios such as automated customer service, content generation, and risk control auditing. This effectively identifies trustworthy humans and avoids security risks posed by deep fakes, bots, and scams. The network provides a unified API and multi-end SDK (covering React, Vue, Android, iOS) to help developers quickly integrate identity verification features into existing applications.
In June of this year, Billions launched its first mobile app, promoting that it had attracted over one million users in the pre-registration phase. After completing verification within the app, users can obtain reusable Verifiable Credentials and quickly complete identity authorization across all compatible applications through a "one login, multi-end access" method. Meanwhile, users can earn Power Points through verification, inviting friends, and other actions to unlock subsequent features and exclusive incentives.
In addition to applications aimed at individuals, Billions has also built a B2B2C business model: basic verification services are billed per use, while advanced bank-grade/biometric verification is negotiated by enterprises; alliance nodes within the network earn stable income through a fee-sharing mechanism to incentivize more ecosystem partners to participate in maintenance and governance. Early on, Billions has partnered with projects such as Aurora, Avalanche, Camp, Chaincode, Clique, Intract, Lagrange, Linea, Polygon, Qacc/Giveth, SingularityNET, and Zeeze to jointly promote the application of privacy-first identity in decentralized ecosystems.
Balancing Uniqueness and Anonymity in Decentralized Identity
In the early days, most global identity verification solutions either relied on centralized servers to store sensitive user data or resorted to biometric recognition hardware, which posed risks of data leakage and made it difficult to popularize globally. The Billions team contributed an open-source zero-knowledge proof (ZK) architecture six years ago, including the Circom language and SnarkJS library, laying the technical foundation for decentralized identity. According to official announcements, Circom, as the most widely used zero-knowledge proof library, supports over 9,000 projects including Worldcoin, TikTok, Galxe, Scroll, and Aptos.
Through continuous refinement during the Polygon ID phase and Privado ID period, this ZK identity protocol has gradually evolved into today's Billions Network—a global identity verification system optimized for mobile devices, requiring no biometric hardware, and using passports and mobile phones as verification credentials.
In Billions' core product, the Profiles mechanism aims to address the paradox of "uniqueness and anonymity being difficult to achieve" proposed by Vitalik Buterin in his digital identity paper. Billions hashes each application with a client-randomly generated profileNonce and the user's main identifier (genesis_identifier) to derive a unique decentralized identifier (DID), thus achieving decentralized, non-globally linked multiple identities.
Since the nonce is completely random and generated locally, no server or issuer can track the same user across different applications, naturally preventing cross-context user profiling and monitoring. Meanwhile, this design does not hinder users from restoring their real identity through multi-party joint decryption when necessary, achieving accountable anonymity.
To balance decentralization and compliance needs, the Billions network also introduces the Context-Based Unique Identifier (CBUID) framework, allowing the unique identifier in each application context to be derived from any type of "uniqueness proof credential" while achieving unlinkability and unidentifiability by default. Thus, whether based on passport verification or future potential biometric verification, Billions can ensure the isolation of verification results in different contexts through the same cryptographic process, while providing optional compliance credential types for various supervisory audits.
In terms of user experience, the Billions.Network mobile application is now available on iOS and Android platforms, presenting end users with a very simple passport + camera or passport + NFC process, while all complex ZK proof generation, DID management, and credential encapsulation are securely completed on the client side.
Through this end-to-end local key management, Billions not only avoids the risk of centralized database leaks but also gives users absolute control over their identity data—they can choose to generate a new Profile DID in any compatible service at any time or quickly rotate keys if they suspect key leakage, maintaining their security.
Extensive Ecological Layout Covering Governments, Institutions, and Crypto Projects
After the launch of Billions Network, the project team reached a collaboration with SingularityNET in March this year to jointly build a Decentralized AI Agent Trust Registry. The aim is to issue verifiable identity credentials for each intelligent agent, ensuring that they are traceable and interoperable in the emerging "agent economy." This collaboration establishes a transparent connection between AI systems and their creators, allowing users to quickly identify and trust the entities behind them, thereby avoiding issues of role impersonation and blurred responsibilities in multi-agent collaborative scenarios.
In July of this year, Billions Network became the "official identity and reputation partner" of the AI security platform Sentient, providing privacy-first and composable identity verification capabilities for the registration and operation of Sentient's models. By integrating Billions' native zero-knowledge proof (Circom) and accountable anonymity (MPC) technologies into Sentient's auditing processes, Sentient can endorse the credibility of training sources, behavioral trajectories, and output results without exposing user and model training data, significantly enhancing the efficiency and accuracy of AI security monitoring and threat detection. It is worth mentioning that Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon, is a co-founder and core contributor to Sentient.
Additionally, Billions (or Privado ID) has collaborated with Deutsche Bank and HSBC, having adopted Billions' decentralized identity verification system in multiple joint proof of concepts (PoCs), demonstrating its scalability and reliability.
According to VentureBeat, Billions Network is also working with the Indian government to integrate the national identity system Aadhaar into its platform. Leveraging Privado ID's years of technological accumulation, Billions provides "verifiable credential" digital identity services for Aadhaar users, ensuring that their passport and mobile number verification circulates securely and efficiently on a decentralized network.
However, as Billions Network involves digital identity, privacy, AI, and cryptocurrency technologies with a global focus, it will inevitably face regulatory pressures due to its cross-border data flow and compliance design.
On August 6, the WeChat public account of China's Ministry of State Security seemingly named Worldcoin, stating that a certain foreign company was using the issuance of cryptocurrency tokens as a gimmick to scan and collect users' iris information worldwide, transferring data sources and posing threats to personal information security and even national security.
Although Billions Network has abandoned the collection of biometric features such as fingerprints and irises, regulatory authorities still need to discuss its reliability in data security. In the true realization of globalization, it will still face challenges from multiple national regulations, data sovereignty, and security audits.
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