Real Protocol Whitepaper
Table of Contents
Introduction
Real Protocol seeks to deploy a non-invasive ‘Proof-of-Humanity’ test independent of individuals’ biometric identifiers, validating digital footprints through our nodes operated by real people. This is made possible through our Decentralised Physical Infrastructure Network (DePIN) security layer, where encryption & data transfer is decentralised and data privacy is protected.
Proving humanity in a decentralised environment through Real Protocol enhances security, amplifying the value of attested data. This mitigates Sybil attacks and reduces frauds, aligning with Real Protocol’s mission to establish trust in a trust-less world.
In an ever-evolving digital landscape, data ownership is no longer a privilege but a fundamental right and essential to personal sovereignty. The blockchain empowers individuals to claim, licence and distribute their information, where digital footprints become valuable mainstream currency. Our next step in this evolution is not just to leverage the data economy of real humans, but ensuring security & privacy while doing so.
Proving humanity in a decentralised environment through Real Protocol enhances security, amplifying the value of attested data. This mitigates Sybil attacks and reduces frauds, aligning with Real Protocol’s mission to establish trust in a trust-less world.
In an ever-evolving digital landscape, data ownership is no longer a privilege but a fundamental right and essential to personal sovereignty. The blockchain empowers individuals to claim, licence and distribute their information, where digital footprints become valuable mainstream currency. Our next step in this evolution is not just to leverage the data economy of real humans, but ensuring security & privacy while doing so.
The REAL Solution
The Problem
With the steady increase in the number of people utilising AI for entertainment purposes or unethical reasons, it is getting more difficult to filter what is real and fake in this day and age. Bots and impersonators plague the space and people who deploy them not only go unpunished, but also somehow manage to reap financial rewards for managing to evade systems set in place.
The only way to stop this would be to prove that the user is human.
Real Protocol solves a separate problem – the contamination of data by artificial/bot-generated internet activity. With the advancement of automation software, individuals are easily able to deploy bots to generate repeated activity and data, resulting in misrepresented user and activity data collected (e.g. DAUs/MAUs, click rates, etc.). The more verified a user proves to be a human being, the more valuable the data gathered from them will be.
The only way to stop this would be to prove that the user is human.
Real Protocol solves a separate problem – the contamination of data by artificial/bot-generated internet activity. With the advancement of automation software, individuals are easily able to deploy bots to generate repeated activity and data, resulting in misrepresented user and activity data collected (e.g. DAUs/MAUs, click rates, etc.). The more verified a user proves to be a human being, the more valuable the data gathered from them will be.
Proof of Humanity: Non-invasive Standards
The current methods of proving humanity are overly invasive and involve collecting extremely sensitive data, such as biometric information like iris scans, saliva samples, and palm vein patterns.
Our solution introduces the world’s first non-invasive verification standards through simple human actions and participation in the ecosystem. We utilise intuitive actions that only humans can perform, fully leveraging our physical abilities and hardware.
For the highest level of verification, we use the following actions:
- Ordering the hardware, where address and name are used for shipping.
- Physically removing the packaging.
- Extracting the physical device from its packaging.
- Inserting USB-compatible devices into the operating system.
- Linking a wallet on the UKISS hub to RealPass.
For individuals without a physical device, we have designed a series of liveness tests to enhance their humanity score. These tests are regularly updated and do not store any personal information, nor do they require users to reveal their identity.
These steps provide a secure and human-centered approach to verification, ensuring privacy and ease of use.
Advancing Security through DePIN
In order to establish trust in the digital data economy, it is crucial that data storage & transmission is not reliant on a centralised infrastructure where censorship, high cost & inefficiency is an issue. The exponential amount of data generated and the reliance on data-driven technologies have allowed centralised organisations to harvest the personal data of individuals under the guise of service provisioning. A centralised system also poses a threat to people’s confidence as individuals are not aware of how their data is being stored and transmitted, with the risk of data leakage and key information (i.e. personal biometrics data) falling into the wrong hands. It is hence Real Protocol’s priority to advance current data security standards with the decentralised models.
DePIN Framework
With a decentralised physical infrastructure network (DePIN) model, Real Protocol delivers a platform that supports secured, privacy-preserved data exchange on the blockchain. DePIN allows physical infrastructure that are traditionally managed and owned by centralised entities to be distributed and democratised to the masses. As a result, the barrier to entry for each component is lowered and individuals are incentivized to participate and maintain the network, decentralising the infrastructure further.
This model also creates a flywheel effect, where tokenization boosts a networks’ value as it rewards network contributors. The ecosystem is sustained by the data economy and a demand driven framework when Job Requests get created. It motivates more people to join and contribute to the network, growing the value of the network and consequently increasing the demand for Jobs. With the right incentives and usability of our consumer facing applications, it creates a cycle that reinforces itself.
This model also creates a flywheel effect, where tokenization boosts a networks’ value as it rewards network contributors. The ecosystem is sustained by the data economy and a demand driven framework when Job Requests get created. It motivates more people to join and contribute to the network, growing the value of the network and consequently increasing the demand for Jobs. With the right incentives and usability of our consumer facing applications, it creates a cycle that reinforces itself.
A DePIN model utilises the excess system capacity of users’ hardware like GPU, hard drive, CPU, and bandwidth to support the network and validation. This creates revenue streams for end point users, improving resource utilisation which lowers the cost of implementing physical infrastructure, reducing cost even further.
Physical Infrastructure: Hardware Reality Nodes
A Reality Node is one of the fundamental components of Real Protocol: the cluster that makes up the physical configuration of the DePIN network. The licence to host a Reality Node is bought & soul bound on the UKISS Hardware device, which acts both as an encryption and a blockchain digital identity authentication device, where the private keys never leave the hardware.
The UKISS Hardware devices in all the Reality Nodes collectively create a decentralised Hardware Security Module (HSM) platform that secures the data within the platform throughout its entire life-cycle, from data-creation to validation and storage. Within the Reality Node, the Hardware device is used to secure the enclave that protects the data the node is processing, even from the node operator themselves. The payload will be encrypted by a symmetric key, and the symmetric key will be encrypted by the target node’s public key. Hence, only the target node is able to decrypt the payload.
Traditionally, HSMs are deployed within large enterprises where secure management of private keys is crucial. Tamper-resistant, these hardware devices secure cryptographic processes by generating, protecting and managing keys used for encrypting and decrypting data, creating digital signatures and certificates. There is a high barrier of entry as these solutions are costly and sizable, requiring a secure physical location to house them. Overhead from major HSM providers e.g. Thales and Utimaco easily add up to more than USD 20,000. Some enterprises might opt for cloud solutions from Google, AWS or Azure, adding up to more than USD 1,000 a month.
With DePIN, Real Protocol makes hardware-grade private-keys security available to the masses at a much lower cost, putting data ownership and privacy protection back into the hands of individuals.
The UKISS Hardware devices in all the Reality Nodes collectively create a decentralised Hardware Security Module (HSM) platform that secures the data within the platform throughout its entire life-cycle, from data-creation to validation and storage. Within the Reality Node, the Hardware device is used to secure the enclave that protects the data the node is processing, even from the node operator themselves. The payload will be encrypted by a symmetric key, and the symmetric key will be encrypted by the target node’s public key. Hence, only the target node is able to decrypt the payload.
Traditionally, HSMs are deployed within large enterprises where secure management of private keys is crucial. Tamper-resistant, these hardware devices secure cryptographic processes by generating, protecting and managing keys used for encrypting and decrypting data, creating digital signatures and certificates. There is a high barrier of entry as these solutions are costly and sizable, requiring a secure physical location to house them. Overhead from major HSM providers e.g. Thales and Utimaco easily add up to more than USD 20,000. Some enterprises might opt for cloud solutions from Google, AWS or Azure, adding up to more than USD 1,000 a month.
With DePIN, Real Protocol makes hardware-grade private-keys security available to the masses at a much lower cost, putting data ownership and privacy protection back into the hands of individuals.
Technical Architecture
Network Overview
Requester: The Job & Workflow
In this demand-driven economy, the DePIN flywheel begins when the Requester submits a Job Request to REAL Protocol. The Job Request comes in many forms, from understanding a target audience better, requesting certain works to be completed by a real user, to collecting data sets from real users. Requesters can also filter the quality & category of Contributors that they wish to execute their requests.
Once a Job Request is initiated, the Job Resolver receives it, processes the request, and routes it to the appropriate Contributor. The Contributor executes the Job and generates raw result data which is sent to the Work Resolver. The Work Resolver processes this data and updates the Job status, sending it to the Workflow Resolver, which tracks the lifecycle of the Job. Lastly, The Reality Node receives the Job status from the Workflow Resolver, validates it, and signs off the job.
Once a Job Request is initiated, the Job Resolver receives it, processes the request, and routes it to the appropriate Contributor. The Contributor executes the Job and generates raw result data which is sent to the Work Resolver. The Work Resolver processes this data and updates the Job status, sending it to the Workflow Resolver, which tracks the lifecycle of the Job. Lastly, The Reality Node receives the Job status from the Workflow Resolver, validates it, and signs off the job.
Contributor: End-point Everyday Users
The Contributor Cluster consists of individual end-point everyday users of REAL Protocol, whose digital footprints on the platform are aggregated while they execute job requests from Requesters on demand. Contributors have direct control of what attributes and data they are comfortable sharing, and what job requests they are willing to take up. Their preferences are definite and can be updated.
Through our DePIN model, Contributors are incentivized to execute jobs put out by Requesters, allowing Requesters to utilise the data that they provide.
Through our DePIN model, Contributors are incentivized to execute jobs put out by Requesters, allowing Requesters to utilise the data that they provide.
Hardware: Reality Node Cluster
The Reality Node Cluster consists of Reality Nodes, the physical aspect of the DePIN network. The cluster is decentralised by distributing nodes to a large number of buyers over a wide geographical location. Validation is hence decentralised when the distributed Reality Nodes attest work data by Contributors before bundling them into tokenzed assets and uploaded onto the blockchain.
A Reality Node has a built-in workflow engine. It will check the workflow associated with a job and carry out the validation process according to the workflow definition. A rich set of workflow templates will assist Requesters in choosing the best workflow to accomplish the jobs.
Runners of Reality Nodes (Node owners) will earn incentives from job validation and data tokenization, in the form of $RPT token rewards.
A Reality Node has a built-in workflow engine. It will check the workflow associated with a job and carry out the validation process according to the workflow definition. A rich set of workflow templates will assist Requesters in choosing the best workflow to accomplish the jobs.
Runners of Reality Nodes (Node owners) will earn incentives from job validation and data tokenization, in the form of $RPT token rewards.
Resolver: Blockchain Architecture
The Real Protocol utilises four types of Resolvers, each a unique and independent smart contract that serves a distinct function, and is deployed onto the App-chain to collectively create an asynchronous, impartial, and decentralised brain of the Real Protocol:
- Job Resolver: The job resolver accepts job requests from Requesters, processes them, and routes them to the appropriate Contributors for execution.
- Work Resolver: The work resolver accepts raw result data from the Contributor, processes this data, and updates the job status accordingly.
- Workflow Resolver: The workflow resolver is like the project manager of the network. It is a crucial component that tracks the lifecycle of each job, receives updates from the work resolver, and updates the job status from initiation to completion.
- Node Resolver: The node resolver acts as a registry of Reality Nodes. It maintains a record of all active reality nodes within the network, facilitating efficient routing and tracking of jobs.
Putting it all together
Work requests or quests are then put up on the platform, allowing users to generate verifiable work data which will then be captured and returned to the user as a tradeable token. This token allows the user to sell their dataset & responses multiple times, preventing data wastage and giving full autonomy to the data creator.
One potential area of use for these secure privacy data is in the area of private LLM, where AI engines train on these personal data to better serve the owner without the risk of leaking these data to the public. Users can choose to store sensitive data securely on Real Protocol and open relevant data to the private LLM AI.
One potential area of use for these secure privacy data is in the area of private LLM, where AI engines train on these personal data to better serve the owner without the risk of leaking these data to the public. Users can choose to store sensitive data securely on Real Protocol and open relevant data to the private LLM AI.
Development
RealPass - Real Accounts by Real Humans
Each user that signs up on Real Protocol has to create a RealPass, where they go through different levels of verification tiers, proving themselves to be classified as a real human (proof-of-humanity). These different verification tiers are set in place as liveness tests, simply to prove that the person behind the screen is an actual human being. The highest tier of verification falls into the responsibility of the hardware device which completes the process of verification.
These actions form a robust mechanism for verifying humanity as they collectively ensure:
- Physical presence that includes steps like removing packaging and handling the device to ensure that a human is physically present.
- Manual dexterity and cognitive skills that include insertion of a USB device and linking a digital wallet. These demonstrate tasks that are currently challenging for AI and robots.
- Identity verification through providing a shipping address and name, as well as interacting with security systems of the e-commerce platform, ties the process to specific identifiable humans. However, this private information is not stored or linked directly to the RealPass users, but only as an indicator to the system that this is a valid human user who owns a hardware device.
By requiring multiple types of interactions and skills, the entire verification process makes it significantly more difficult for non-human entities to falsify their identity.
The REAL Directory - Verified Links Portal
Our go-to-market strategy is The Directory, a verified links portal that aggregates, curates, and verifies links to various Web 3.0 projects, providing a comprehensive directory for users, especially those who are new to Web 3.0, a trustworthy starting point to navigate the myriad of sites available in the ecosystem.
As a public service good, The Directory aligns with Real Protocol’s ultimate mission to improve the level of trust in the space, particularly in digital navigation & data availability. As early users are incentivized to incorporate the usage of The Directory into their everyday Web 3.0 activities, real digital footprints of site traffic can be recorded.
This Directory paves the way for building a comprehensive community platform of Real trusted users with their protected data that they can potentially monetise and build upon.
As a public service good, The Directory aligns with Real Protocol’s ultimate mission to improve the level of trust in the space, particularly in digital navigation & data availability. As early users are incentivized to incorporate the usage of The Directory into their everyday Web 3.0 activities, real digital footprints of site traffic can be recorded.
This Directory paves the way for building a comprehensive community platform of Real trusted users with their protected data that they can potentially monetise and build upon.
Reputation Management
In every data economy, it is important to assess data quality and response speed. A decentralised mechanism is also needed to determine a node’s quality, in terms of availability and capacity. Real Protocol has a design-in mechanism for users to submit their feedback on a Contributor’s reputation for Requesters to choose the most suited Contributors and nodes from.
AI empowered behavioural analysis is a feature that is also built into Reality Nodes. Custom AI models can be trained with behavioural data sets to detect threats, uncover potential vulnerabilities and alert end users timely. It can also be used to serve the user as a personal AI assistant where privacy is ensured.
With user feedback and the custom AI model, Real Protocol assigns reputation scores to each end-point, allowing Requesters to filter the Contributors based on reputation.
AI empowered behavioural analysis is a feature that is also built into Reality Nodes. Custom AI models can be trained with behavioural data sets to detect threats, uncover potential vulnerabilities and alert end users timely. It can also be used to serve the user as a personal AI assistant where privacy is ensured.
With user feedback and the custom AI model, Real Protocol assigns reputation scores to each end-point, allowing Requesters to filter the Contributors based on reputation.
The REAL Token $RPT
$RPT powers our DePIN ecosystem. It incentivizes users to participate and contribute to Real Protocol. It also rewards node runners for contributing computing resources necessary to support the DePIN infrastructure that allows for decentralised and secure data ownership. $RPT is essentially the currency of the Real Protocol ecosystem, in which businesses pay users for their work and the resulting attested data. Users also pay in $RPT for purchasing hardware and services within the Real Protocol business ecosystem, hence underpinning the value of $RPT with real world utilities.
Governance
Real Protocol will evolve into a decentralised open protocol, governed by the community. All holders of $RPT will be able to participate in protocol governance via ownership of the $RPT token, which allows owners to vote on important decisions.
The governing DAO committee will be responsible for determining and managing the governance tier structure in order to achieve a balanced and effective governance of the Real Protocol.
The governing DAO committee will be responsible for determining and managing the governance tier structure in order to achieve a balanced and effective governance of the Real Protocol.
Token Utility
Gas Fees
A portion of the gas fees will be redistributed to the validator nodes of Real Protocol blockchain, according to the DPOS (Delegated Proof of Stake) scheme. The remaining gas fees will be set aside for burning, to create deflation for $RPT. The ratio between the 2 portions will be periodically re-calibrated according to the market condition to achieve a balance between liquidity and profitability of the validator nodes.
The upper limit of total gas-token burning would be 10% of the entire token supply, afterwhich the validator nodes will receive all the gas fees. This limit can later be adjusted by the governing DAO.
The upper limit of total gas-token burning would be 10% of the entire token supply, afterwhich the validator nodes will receive all the gas fees. This limit can later be adjusted by the governing DAO.
Reality Node Staking
All Real Protocol Reality nodes must stake $RPT to operate the nodes. The minimum number of $RPT to be staked by each Reality node is 5000 $RPT. This amount could be adjusted by the governing DAO in future. In return, they will receive mining yields in $RPT, distributed from the protocol’s mining pools. 10% of the mining yields will be deducted as platform fee.
Application Fees
Data applications or requestors accessing data and our users on Real Protocol will need to pay in the form of $RPT. This fee will be used to reward verified protocol users, with 10% of the fees serving as platform revenue.
Hardware Purchases
$RPT is used to purchase the hardware devices required for running node services. These devices protect the data processed by the nodes, collectively creating a decentralised HSM (Hardware Security Module) layer that provides HSM-grade data protection for all Real Protocol users. For more details on the security features, please refer to the HSM sections.
End-users will be able to purchase the hardware device in $RPT for ‘proof-of-humanity’ verification and protect their crypto assets as it also functions as a full-fledged hardware wallet. Users can pay for it in $RPT that they purchased from the secondary market, or from the airdrops that they earn for contribution to the ecosystem (e.g., by using the verified links aggregator portal).
We aim to allow the masses to easily afford a hardware solution to protect their crypto assets and data, by contributing to the community and ecosystem and earn $RPT tokens in return. This way, they become our long-term users and contributors to the Real Protocol ecosystem.
End-users will be able to purchase the hardware device in $RPT for ‘proof-of-humanity’ verification and protect their crypto assets as it also functions as a full-fledged hardware wallet. Users can pay for it in $RPT that they purchased from the secondary market, or from the airdrops that they earn for contribution to the ecosystem (e.g., by using the verified links aggregator portal).
We aim to allow the masses to easily afford a hardware solution to protect their crypto assets and data, by contributing to the community and ecosystem and earn $RPT tokens in return. This way, they become our long-term users and contributors to the Real Protocol ecosystem.
Tokenomics
The $RPT token is designed to facilitate operations and governance of the Real Protocol Ecosystem. The focus would be incentivising users to participate in the contribution of verified data.
30% of the entire supply is dedicated to nodes who ensure decentralisation, security and constant operation of the protocol.
30% of the entire supply is dedicated to nodes who ensure decentralisation, security and constant operation of the protocol.
Distribution
| Category | Sub Category | % of Total | Cliff (Months) | Vesting (Months) | Token Amount | Initial Unlock on Token Generation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Project development | Team | 13% | 12 | 36 | 130,000,000 | 2.5% |
| Project development | Advisors + Ambassadors | 5% | 6 | 24 | 50,000,000 | 2.5% |
| Liquidity | Liquidity + Exchanges | 8% | 0 | 0 | 80,000,000 | 100% |
| Marketing | Partners + KOLs | 5% | 6 | 12 | 50,000,000 | 20% |
| Community | Community Airdrop | 5% | 0 | 12 | 50,000,000 | 100% |
| Community | Early Contributors | 6% | 3 | 16 | 60,000,000 | 8% |
| Reserve | Foundation Reserve | 4% | 6 | 12 | 40,000,000 | 50% |
| Ecosystem Incentives | Node Rewards | 30% | 0 | 252 | 300,000,000 | – |
| Tech Development | Technical Contributors | 5% | 3 | 6 | 50,000,000 | 50% |
| Ecosystem Partnerships | Ecosystem Partnerships / Grants | 5% | 3 | 6 | 50,000,000 | 50% |
| Private Sales | Seed Round | 10% | 3 | 18 | 100,000,000 | 8% |
| Private Sales | Strategic Round | 4% | 3 | 12 | 40,000,000 | 10% |
Summary
Key Features
- Contributor cluster extend reach beyond geographical location, carrying out job requests to collect data or perform action
- Cluster of Reality Nodes validate data in a decentralised and trusted manner.
- Security and privacy by UKISS Hardware Device devices throughout the lifecycle of the data.
- Proof of processes integrity and data authenticity are attested and proof uploaded to blockchain.
- Fast and low cost Appchain.
- Tokenized data can be traded on Data Exchange.
Benefits
- Contributors earn incentive from executing the jobs.
- Job requesters are able to utilise execution and data collection resources beyond their reach originally.
- Reality Node operators earn incentives from job validation and data tokenization efforts.
- Data utilisation level increased because of more active data trading.
- Secured and privacy preserved process assures community confidence.
- A more active data ecosystem.