Proof, a platform for securing the digital economy, has announced new digital credential solutions. These solutions enable digital asset wallets, service providers, and users to verify identity and Know Your Customer (KYC) characteristics in a privacy-preserving, repeatable, and secure manner. The offering aims to modernize on-chain activities, improve user experiences, and enhance compliance for regulated service providers and their customers.
While digital asset transfers often occur in real-time, regulatory compliance has historically been a slower process. Proof’s new system addresses this by providing instant identity and characteristic verification, such as sanctions screening, for on-chain participants. This development is designed to bring compliance up to par with the speed of digital transactions, enabling blockchain-based open payment and transaction networks to scale while regulated entities meet their obligations.
Pat Kinsel, CEO and Founder of Proof, stated, “There is incredible innovation and potential in blockchain technology to transform finance, and digital credentials are a necessary component for these networks to support mainstream payments and other financial services. Financial institutions won’t fully embrace blockchain-based services until they can verify parties in a transaction and meet the same compliance standards they follow for traditional transactions. Proof’s identity platform bridges that gap and enables mainstream consumers and financial institutions to embrace digital assets confidently.”
Proof is launching what it describes as the industry’s first entity-level certification solution specifically for US sanctions screening. This credential facilitates instant verification by various financial entities, including banks, payment service providers, centralized cryptocurrency exchanges, and hosted wallet services. This capability aims to help these institutions verify the US sanctions status of counterparties and customers, thereby improving their integration into the traditional banking and payments ecosystem. Proof functions as a centralized certification authority, issuing cryptographically secure credentials that allow market participants to efficiently conduct required diligence checks and compliance reviews.
Lightspark, an open payment network built on Bitcoin, is among the initial companies to join Proof’s network. Lightspark is leveraging Proof’s Certify product to enhance its compliance capabilities and secure transactions. David Marcus, co-founder and CEO of Lightspark, commented, “Lightspark is building the future of global payments on Bitcoin — the world’s most open and secure money network. To bring Bitcoin into the regulated payments era, we need modern identity and trust layers. Proof’s digital credentials make it possible for senders and receivers to verify each other in real time — unlocking fast, compliant, and trusted payments on Bitcoin at scale.”
Proof has an established track record, having secured over $500 billion in traditional financial transactions across banking, real estate, and insurance. The company applies insights from this data to verify consumer identities for transactions using Proof’s Certify, a reusable digital identity product. This allows consumers to verify their identity once and then engage in crypto transactions with the assurance that they are interacting with the correct party. By extending cryptographic verification principles from traditional finance to digital assets, Proof aims to build necessary trust infrastructure for widespread crypto adoption.
This consumer identity approach also streamlines regulatory compliance. Certify provides a method for sharing identity information, conducting sanctions screening, and meeting customer-level regulatory obligations. The platform is designed to integrate with existing financial reporting requirements, including Travel Rule mandates. This enables providers to perform KYC checks efficiently and securely share necessary information across payment rails, bridging digital asset providers and traditional banks to accelerate stablecoin adoption while meeting compliance expectations.
