ProofOf Contribution

Proof of Contribution is a modular toolkit for Web3 maintainers that: verifies contributors via KYC & liveliness checks, captures verifiable contribution artifacts (PRs, safetensors, reports), produces privacy-preserving attestations of maintainer reviews using zk-proofs, validates invoices, and automates compliant global payouts + long-term token rewards.

Who it’s for

• Maintainers / project leads / DAOs who need reliable, auditable evidence of contributor work before paying or rewarding.

• Contributors (devs, data/ML engineers, researchers) who want portable, verifiable proof-of-work and reliable payment.

• Grant programs and funds that want tamper-resistant evidence for disbursing funds.

Problems it solves

• No standard trusted way to prove contributions (PRs, dataset/model submissions, reports).

• Hard to pay globally in a compliant way and link payments to verified identity.

• Lack of privacy-preserving verification: maintainers want to attest without exposing sensitive reviewer data.

• No portable, reproducible artifacts for LLM/data work (safetensor + provenance).

Core user flows (high level)

• Onboard / KYC — contributor completes KYC + liveliness checks (webflow). The KYC attestation is encrypted and stored; a KYC Merkle leaf / attestation hash is published on-chain or into an index so the contributor can prove “KYCed”.

• Contribute — contributor opens PRs, uploads safetensor model artefacts (with MoPro metadata), or files progress reports.

• Auto-capture — GitHub webhooks and upload flows register metadata (hashes, links) into the toolkit’s database and pin heavy artifacts to Filecoin/IPFS.

Review — maintainer reviews contribution. Instead of posting a raw review publicly, the maintainer generates a zk-proof that asserts the review happened and met specified criteria (e.g., “approved”, score ≥ 7) without revealing private reviewer metadata.

Invoice — contributor issues an invoice inside the toolkit (signed with their wallet). The maintainer validates (through proofs + artifact hashes) and approves the invoice.

Payment — after validation, payment is executed through a PyUSD / PayPal payout adapter (or via on-chain stablecoin rails) to the KYC-verified recipient. Optionally, ERC-20 reward tokens are allocated or vested across configured chains.

Audit / Portability — contributor can export a bundle (signed attestations, safetensor hash, zk-proof, invoice, KYC attestation) to present to future projects/DAOs.

Key features (concise)

KYC + liveliness: PayPal (or partner KYC) onboarding, biometric liveliness checks; KYC artifacts encrypted with Lit, stored via Filecoin Synapse SDK. Only hashes & attestations go on-chain.

Contribution capture: GitHub PR integration, safetensor upload (content-addressed), MoPro-style provenance metadata.

Privacy-preserving verification: Semaphore + zk-proofs to attest reviews/ratings without leaking identities.

Invoice lifecycle: create → sign → submit → validate (on-chain or off-chain attestation) → payout.

Payments: PyUSD + PayPal rails adapter for fiat/stablecoin payouts; on-chain fallback using bridged stablecoins.

Incentive engine: lightweight ERC-20 token deployed / bridged across one or more chains (Filecoin, Optimism, Hedera) to reward sustained contributors.

Auditability & exports: portable proof bundles for contributors.

Data & trust model (what is stored where)

On-chain (minimal): content hashes, Merkle roots of KYC groups, zk-proof verifier contracts, invoice approval events, token reward allocations.

Off-chain (encrypted): KYC documents, liveliness images / biometric templates, full safetensor blobs (pinned to Filecoin), maintainer raw reviews (if needed).

Encrypted storage & access control: Lit Protocol holds encryption keys / access policies. Filecoin Synapse + IPFS for durable storage of large artifacts.

Indexing & search: Postgres + an indexer (or The Graph) for fast querying of contribution records and proof events.

Example use cases

• A data engineer uploads a safetensor LLM checkpoint + MoPro metadata; a maintainer verifies reproducibility and issues a zk attestation; the contributor gets paid and receives tokens vesting for long-term contribution.

• A developer opens 5 PRs; maintainers confirm merged work; the toolkit aggregates these, computes a score, and triggers an invoice payment flow.

• A grant committee requires KYCed recipients and cryptographic proof of deliverables before releasing funds — the toolkit supplies both.

Security, privacy & compliance highlights

• Minimal on-chain leakage: only hashes and proofs are published. Sensitive KYC data is encrypted off-chain.

KYC + sybil resistance: KYC attestation + Merkle/group membership prevents easy Sybil creation while preserving some anonymity during reviews via Semaphore.

Privacy-preserving reviews: zk-proofs confirm that a review with certain properties exists without publishing the review text or maintainer identity.

Audit trail: signed attestations and proof verifiers provide non-repudiable history for auditors or grantors.

Ethereum Foundation MoPro → Invoice suite on Android devices and reproducible model provenance standards for safetensor uploads.

NFC Feature Exploration (Experimental): NFC chip integrations (e.g., ETHGlobal wristbands) for tap-to-prove flows and better UX

Unified ZK Registry (Experimental): Vision for a single ZK registry supporting passports, zkPDF docs, MoPro attestations, etc.

Kadena: We’ve extended Proof of Contribution to Kadena EVM, taking advantage of:

Scalable Proof of Work: Chainweb’s multi-chain architecture allows horizontal scaling without sacrificing security or decentralization.

Low Fees + High Throughput: Parallel chains provide lower gas costs and faster confirmations.

EVM Compatibility: Seamlessly deploy existing Ethereum contracts to Kadena’s EVM chains.

Why it matters: Deploying our verifier, escrow, and token contracts on Kadena EVM gives contributors faster, cheaper transactions while retaining Ethereum-tooling familiarity (Solidity, Hardhat/Foundry).

Proof of Contribution is built as a modular toolkit combining identity verification, contribution tracking, invoice validation, and compliant payments, all stitched together with Web3-native and partner technologies.

Frontend & Dashboard

Built with Next.js 14, TypeScript, and TailwindCSS.

Contributors and maintainers log in with their wallets, upload artifacts (PR links, safetensors, reports), and manage invoices.

Backend Services

Node.js/TypeScript APIs with a Postgres database for metadata.

Filecoin Synapse SDK for storing large contributor artifacts like safetensor models.

Lit Protocol to encrypt KYC and liveliness data with wallet-based access control.

Redis queues for background tasks like proof generation and payouts.

Identity & KYC

We integrated PayPal KYC and PyUSD. Contributors complete KYC, and only a hashed attestation goes on-chain.

Raw KYC data and liveliness checks are encrypted with Lit, stored on Filecoin, and accessible only under cryptographic policies.

Proofs & Verification

Zero-knowledge proofs (zk-proofs) confirm that maintainers reviewed contributions without exposing their identity.

We used Semaphore for anonymous group membership proofs.

Proofs are generated with Circom + snarkjs and verified on-chain by a Solidity verifier contract.

Invoices & Payments

Contributors generate invoices inside the toolkit and sign them with their wallet.

Maintainers validate contributions → approve invoice → trigger payout.

Payments are executed through PyUSD (PayPal stablecoin) for compliant, global contributor payouts.

Incentives & Rewards

A lightweight ERC-20 token is deployed on Filecoin, Optimism, and Hedera.

Tokens are used to reward sustained contributors, distributed via a Merkle airdrop contract.

Partner Benefits

PayPal + PyUSD → gave us regulated, fiat-like payouts instead of forcing contributors into crypto-only.

Filecoin Synapse SDK → let us store large ML/data artifacts reliably.

Lit Protocol → handled sensitive KYC encryption without us building custom crypto infra.

Ethereum Foundation MoPro → Invoice suite on Android devices and reproducible model provenance standards for safetensor uploads.

NFC Feature Exploration (Experimental): NFC chip integrations (e.g., ETHGlobal wristbands) for tap-to-prove flows and better UX

Unified ZK Registry (Experimental): Vision for a single ZK registry supporting passports, zkPDF docs, MoPro attestations, etc.

Kadena: We’ve extended Proof of Contribution to Kadena EVM, taking advantage of:

Scalable Proof of Work: Chainweb’s multi-chain architecture allows horizontal scaling without sacrificing security or decentralization.

Low Fees + High Throughput: Parallel chains provide lower gas costs and faster confirmations.

EVM Compatibility: Seamlessly deploy existing Ethereum contracts to Kadena’s EVM chains.

Why it matters: Deploying our verifier, escrow, and token contracts on Kadena EVM gives contributors faster, cheaper transactions while retaining Ethereum-tooling familiarity (Solidity, Hardhat/Foundry).