Banks Are Scoring Ghosts. Kenshiki Labs Puts $12,500 on the Line to Prove It.

TACOMA, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--U.S. lenders lose billions each year to synthetic identity fraud due to a fundamental design flaw: the systems are built to assess whether an applicant appears legitimate on paper, not whether that person exists.

The raw material enabling the fraud varies: stolen data from large leaks on the dark web, deceased individuals whose records never reached the Death Master File, or identities built from fragments of real lives. The common thread is that existence is “proven” through histories manufactured from real lives, a weakness amplified by AI-driven identity fabrication.

"AI didn't just make fraud faster and cheaper. It made it scale by driving the cost of manufacturing a human identity to near zero," said Stephen Fishburn, CEO of Kenshiki Labs. "Fraud rings exploit vulnerable identity signals at industrial scale, and the legacy systems still haven't caught up in this AI arms race."

To demonstrate a proof-of-identity system that cannot be compromised by forged signals, Kenshiki launched the Pulse Bond Challenge, a $12,500 public bounty for any cybersecurity red team that can bypass its deterministic proof-of-identity infrastructure without a live human present.

Kenshiki’s Pulse platform requires real-world proof before an application proceeds. It treats a session as complete when a phone’s hardware, a live biometric check, and an NFC read from a chip-enabled government ID are all linked on the backend. The Pulse Bond Challenge targets apex predator attackers: to win, a red team must defeat the full hardware-bound stack.

"Having worked on legacy credit infrastructure, I've seen even advanced credit systems fail because workflows focus on creditworthiness but rely on flimsy proof of identity," said Larry Signorile, CTO of Kenshiki Labs. "Pulse flips that model: every client is treated as hostile until hardware-rooted signals prove a live person is filling in the application."

"We're not optimizing the credit score. We're attacking the business model of forgery," Fishburn added. "Pulse turns easily forged signals into hard-won physical evidence, shifting fraud from bulk automation to costly one-off fabrication."

The Pulse Bond Challenge opens July 4, 2026, and runs for 28 days.

For rules, safe harbor terms, and access to the live environment, visit: https://gate.kenshikilabs.com/challenge.

About Kenshiki Labs

Kenshiki Labs provides high-assurance identity verification infrastructure for lenders, credit bureaus, and financial institutions. Its hardware-bound, privacy-conscious proof-of-life systems are designed to reduce synthetic identity fraud by shifting it from low-cost automation to governed, high-friction physical processes.

The company prioritizes regulatory alignment and data minimization, limiting identity signal use to fraud and risk controls while integrating with established assurance frameworks.