Ethereum's Future: Governance, DAOs, and Digital Identity

Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, continues to evolve with new and innovative use cases. According to CoinShares, the future of Ethereum encompasses significant developments in governance, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), and digital identity.

Governance and DAOs

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) represent a novel form of organizational structure devoid of central authority. The primary goal of a DAO is to act in the best interests of its participants, typically through democratic means. DAOs have been a recurring topic in the Ethereum ecosystem since their inception in 2016, though they have not been without controversy, such as the infamous $70 million DAO hack in 2016 that led to a hard fork.

Despite the challenges, successful DAO implementations like UkraineDAO, MakerDAO, BitDAO, and DecentralandDAO demonstrate the potential of DAOs. However, numerous exploits, from smart contract vulnerabilities to social engineering tactics, highlight the need for robust fail-safes. When implemented correctly, DAOs offer unique advantages, including decentralized decision-making, efficient processes, and high protection from external threats.

As DAOs evolve, they are expected to occupy a significant portion of Ethereum's blockspace, serving as governance structures that embody the ethos of blockchain technology. Key users of DAOs include token holders, developers, voters, proposers, advisors, investors, core contributors, and activists.

Digital Identity

Digital identity encompasses non-financial use cases that leverage Ethereum's blockchain for identity management and verification. Popular examples include the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) and the Sign in With Ethereum (SIWE) standard, which allow users to carry their identities across various online interactions and transactions.

Modifying and Revoking Attestations

Attestations serve as irrefutable proof of an entity's claims, such as academic degrees or professional certifications. Ethereum's blockchain can be used to issue, modify, and revoke these attestations, ensuring their credibility and immutability. This approach offers transparency and efficiency, making it suitable for institutions requiring reliable verification methods.

Reputation Management

Reputation management on Ethereum involves on-chain attestations that incorporate privacy features like zero-knowledge proofs. These attestations can help public and private entities evaluate an individual's past behavior, reducing negative social and economic externalities. While conceptual, this use case could play a significant role in future blockchain applications.

Social Networks

Social networks on Ethereum benefit from decentralization, preventing censorship and promoting open exchange of ideas. Platforms like Farcaster, hosted on Ethereum Layer 2 solution Optimism, demonstrate the growing interest in decentralized social networks. These networks incentivize user participation and ensure content moderation through consensus rules rather than centralized control.

Key users of digital identity applications include social network users, reputation-based services, educational institutions, regulatory and compliance entities, security experts, attesters, and everyday crypto users.

Summary

The use cases explored in this discussion are primarily non-financial, focusing on governance, identity, and reputation management. They leverage Ethereum's core properties of immutability, trust, security, and transparency. While this series provides a high-level overview, the landscape of blockchain applications is continually evolving, with new and unforeseen use cases emerging regularly.

Future research should aim to estimate market sizes for these use cases, assess their implementation on public blockchains like Ethereum, and evaluate their impact on gas consumption and blockspace utilization.

For more detailed insights, visit the original [CoinShares](https://blog.coinshares.com/the-future-of-ethereum-use-cases-part-3-2ecd0fc7cb4b).