Encointer was recently granted Kusama’s second common-good parachain slot by Kusama’s on-chain governance community, and began onboarding to the network on January 9th, 2022. In this post, we take an in-depth look at Encointer and the problems it addresses — how it can bring financial inclusivity to Web3 and mitigate Sybil attacks with a novel ‘proof-of-personhood’ system for unique identity.
The potential of Web3 extends well beyond reshaping finance in the developed world — it can also be used to foster greater financial inclusion in developing regions and new forms of democratic decision-making. But to allow for greater adoption, the fees to access Web3 services must be linked to local purchasing power. Furthermore, additional voting mechanisms beyond coin voting are needed that operate on the principle of one person, one vote.
These considerations pose unique technical challenges for decentralized networks, which Encointer seeks to address.