Are People Willing to Participate in Proof of Personhood?
Almost 1 out of every 2 persons, or 48.8% of participants in a survey, indicated that they were willing to participate in a Proof of Personhood (PoP) system. Those who were fully willing to adopt Proof of Personhood accounted for the largest group at 30.3% of survey participants, making this the most popular sentiment. Another 18.5% felt like they would be at least somewhat willing to participate in PoP.
The second most popular sentiment was neutrality, with 24.7% expressing that they were neither willing nor unwilling to participate in Proof of Personhood. In other words, nearly 1 in 4 were uncertain or sitting on the fence about PoP adoption, or simply felt indifferent towards it.
The remaining 26.5% of respondents indicated that they were against adopting Proof of Personhood, with 16.5% stating that they felt completely unwilling to participate in such systems and 10.0% somewhat unwilling. While this group includes people entirely opposed to PoP technology, there might also be people who see the benefits but have much stronger concerns about risks related to privacy, inclusivity, security and more.
Do People Want to Differentiate Humans From AI Online?
In the same survey, at least 3 in 5 people placed strong importance on being able to differentiate between humans and AI when interacting online. Specifically, 48.6% or almost half of crypto participants considered it very important to know if they are engaging with a human or an AI, while 17.0% felt this to be quite important.
This suggests that more people are against AI pretending to be human, or the possibility of AI being mistaken for a human in the online world. In other words, such people seem to highly value having clear AI disclaimers rather than not, such as the ‘Automated’ account label that helps identify AI agents on Crypto Twitter.
By extension, this 65.6% share of participants also seem like they would value Proof of Personhood technology, which would be able to verify humans with greater certainty.
However, not all respondents were consistent across their opinions on differentiating humans from AI, and their willingness to participate in PoP. Only 30.4% of survey respondents simultaneously said it was very important to differentiate humans from AI, and were willing or somewhat willing to adopt PoP. Whereas 7.5% considered differentiating to be very important, but were just neutral about PoP participation.
Most notably, 10.8% of respondents felt that differentiating humans from AI was very important, but were unwilling or somewhat unwilling to adopt Proof of Personhood themselves. This may point to strong skepticism towards the effectiveness or safety of Proof of Personhood technology, or reflect dissatisfaction toward existing PoP systems.
Not All People Care About Differentiating Humans vs AI
Another 19.8%, or 1 in 5, took the more moderate position that it was just somewhat important for them to tell humans and AI apart online. These people likely would prefer to differentiate humans from AI in certain situations, but do not think it is the highest priority.
6.6% found the differentiation only slightly important, indicating that they generally had no preference as to knowing if they are interacting with AI or a human.
The remaining 8.0% of survey respondents did not care about being able to differentiate AI from humans online. Given that half of this group also were unwilling to adopt Proof of Personhood, their disinterest in telling AI and humans apart is likely because they prioritize online anonymity above all.
Proof of Personhood Participation
The crypto community’s level of willingness to participate in Proof of Personhood (PoP) systems are distributed as follows, according to the survey:
| Willingness to participate in PoP | Share of participants |
|---|---|
| Unwilling | 16.5% |
| Somewhat unwilling | 10.0% |
| Neutral | 24.7% |
| Somewhat willing | 18.5% |
| Willing | 30.3% |
When asked how much importance they placed on differentiating AI versus humans online, the same set of respondents expressed their positions in the below distribution:
| Differentiate human vs AI | Share of participants |
|---|---|
| Unimportant | 8.0% |
| Slightly important | 6.6% |
| Somewhat important | 19.8% |
| Quite important | 17.0% |
| Important | 48.6% |
Methodology
The study examined 2,632 crypto participants’ responses in the anonymous CoinGecko Crypto x AI Survey, which ran from February 20 to March 10, 2025. Survey results should be taken as indicative only.
Among the survey participants, 51% considered themselves as crypto investors with mainly long-term holdings, 26% identified as traders with mainly shorter-term holdings, 10% as builders and 13% as sidelined spectators. In terms of how long participants had been in crypto, 53% were in their first cycle (0 to 3 years in crypto), 34% in their second cycle (4 to 7 years) and the remaining participants were veterans with 8 or more years of experience. Geographically, 93% of participants stated that they were based in Europe, Asia, North America and Africa, while the rest were in Oceania or South America.
This study is for illustrative and informational purposes only, and is not financial advice. Always do your own research and be careful when putting your money into any crypto or financial asset.
If you cite these insights, we would appreciate a link credit to this article on CoinGecko, which allows us to keep supplying you with useful data-led content.
Curious to find out more about our previous research studies & statistics? Check out this one we did on trust in AI agent KOLs.
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