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Inspiration

What it does

How we built it

Challenges we ran into

Accomplishments that we're proud of

What we learned

What's next for Utonoma: Proof of Useful Work

Utonoma – Project Story

🚀 Inspiration

The internet we use today is dominated by centralized platforms where content moderation is biased, opaque, and often politically influenced.
On the other side, decentralized social networks exist, but they still expose a critical weakness: votes and actions are public, which compromises user privacy if their wallet is ever linked to their real identity.

We wanted to create a network where people can express themselves freely, without fear of censorship, stigma, or surveillance, while still keeping moderation democratic. That vision became Utonoma.

✨ What it does

Creators earn crypto for every like on their content.
Community moderation removes harmful content if it receives too many dislikes.
zk-proofs ensure privacy, so no one can link a vote to a specific user or identity.
All content is stored on IPFS, making it censorship-resistant.

🛠 How we built it

Smart contracts deployed on Starknet handle voting, moderation, and token distribution.
Content is stored on IPFS and indexed in the frontend.
The frontend is a PWA built with HTML, CSS, and vanilla JavaScript for simplicity.
We integrated zkSNARK circuits (Circom + snarkjs) to generate vote commitments and proofs.
A relayer system was implemented so users don’t have to pay gas directly when revealing votes.

⚡ Challenges we are into

Implementing zkSNARKs into a real voting workflow required designing circuits that balance privacy, usability, and cost.
Gas efficiency was a challenge, especially when generating and verifying proofs on-chain.
UX is always tricky in Web3: we needed a flow that feels simple to non-crypto users.
Coordinating between smart contracts, frontend, and circuits introduced complexity in integration.

🏆 Accomplishments we are proud of

We implemented a working prototype of private voting on Starknet using zk-proofs.
Successfully combined content incentives + democratic moderation + privacy in one app.
Built a fully working end-to-end flow: create content → vote → prove → validate → reward.
Demonstrated that censorship-resistant, privacy-preserving moderation is not just theoretical—it works.

📚 What we learned

The importance of designing for privacy from the ground up—you cannot just “add privacy later.”
Zero-knowledge proofs are powerful, but usability and performance must evolve hand in hand.
The community response reinforced that privacy is a key missing piece in decentralized social networks.
Building on Starknet gave us insight into scalability trade-offs and L2 design patterns.

🔮 What's next for Utonoma

Batching & Mixing: Implement vote batching mechanisms to prevent timing-based deanonymization.
Prepaid blind voting cards for easier onboarding and monetization.
Mainnet launch on Starknet, scaling with ecosystem support.
Explore DAO-driven governance, where users can propose and vote on platform rules.
Grow adoption starting with university communities and Web3 creators, expanding later to mainstream users.

🌍 Utonoma’s vision: A freer and fairer internet where every user has a voice, every vote counts, and no one has to fear being watched for their opinions.