Original video: "Bankless: Ethereum's Defense Against AI"

Interview: Ryan Adams, David Hoffman, Bankless

Guests: Bryce Patrick, Steve Dakh, EAS

Compiled: bayemon.eth, ChainCatcher

EAS (Ehtereum Attestation Service) became one of the four projects shortlisted for the Ethereum Conference EDCON 2023 Super Demo finals in May this year. Although this project is not well-known by the public, its thinking on the basic layer of Ethereum's identity is original and is a major breakthrough in proving identity on the chain. EthStorage, which was also a finalist, completed a seed round of US$7 million at a valuation of US$100 million at the end of July this year, so we believe EAS is an Alpha project worth paying attention to.

In the next few years, perhaps 99% of content generation jobs may be replaced by artificial intelligence. In order to still be able to perform reliable identity authentication in the era of artificial intelligence, some teams have begun to consider hashing some historical content and attaching a timestamp to save it on the blockchain. This article will discuss the Ethereum authentication service EAS, which is a new public good (Public Goods). It is an open source standard that does not require special permission, does not involve tokens, and can be used free of charge.

To simply understand, the current DID applications are still very closed and lack interoperability. EAS aims to build a basic layer under the application layer to ensure the integrity and reliability of identities on the chain through a collection of multi-dimensional certificates. Without a basic layer for building proofs, all DIDs will become more limited. In addition, the existence of the basic layer can introduce more things other than finance such as transactions and transfers into the encryption field.

Bankless recently invited EAS team builders Bryce Patrick and Steve Dakh to discuss the Ethereum Proof Service EAS. ChainCatcher compiled and organized this episode.

In today’s discussion, we’ll explore the keys to unlocking decentralized identity and crypto’s non-financial uses, and will get key takeaways from the following four questions:

• First, why decentralized identity is not mysterious, and why decentralized identity is just a collection of testimonies;
• Second, why social networks including Web2 and Twitter are really just storage places for proofs;
• Third, why financial use cases will evolve rapidly after the power of proof is unlocked;
• Fourth, we finally explore world coins, privacy, soul-bound tokens and a series of other topics related to decentralized identity.

Bankless: I think this will be an educational show for everyone because the entire Bankless community believes that identity is very important. There are often voices in the community saying that we must first solve the currency problem and then solve the identity problem. This seems to be the final destination of the crypto world. In addition, at Ethereum’s Waterloo event, we also heard many people’s suggestions, saying that you must communicate with the EAS team. They have done a lot of great things in this field. This is a major breakthrough in proving identity on the chain. . "Open source, no currency, free, public goods", these characteristics of EAS are very tempting for Bankless. Bankless hopes that by the end of this issue, we will all have a deeper understanding of EAS, and be able to examine and predict the future development direction of "identity" from the perspective of "public goods".

**Bankless: What exactly does "Authentication Attestation" in the Ethereum Attestation Service mean, and how does it relate to identity? **

EAS: Simply put, the Ethereum Proof Service is a signed proof of something by an entity. With the addition of EAS, participants can prove anything.

We have always been very interested in solving the problem of decentralized identity and reputation, but we also know that this is a very difficult problem to solve because identity is relative and reputation is relative and exists in specific situations. For example, my reputation is different with two different people, Bryce and David. Identity is a very abstract and complex concept, and no one can truly achieve "complete" identity proof. At the same time, most current projects fall into the misunderstanding of identity proof, that is, they do not describe the complex matter of "identity" in the form of primitives. So when we started thinking about what identity verification is all about, and compared all the identity verification platforms that exist today, we found that most of the platforms that can do identity verification are almost KYC companies. They built a closed authentication platform, and for other companies and developers who have to use this platform, once they sign up, all information is locked inside.

For example, Polygon ID is essentially testing whether it has passed KYC that can only be used within the platform. So if other platforms want to use KYC verification, they must require the smart contract to perform similar verification procedures on each identity platform, which is important for Decentralization is meaningless because it is not interoperable, which means that these solutions do not actually solve the identity problem.

So, we have to start thinking, what exactly is identity?

When I was born, my mom named me Steve, so to speak, and she vouched for my name; then I went to school, and my teachers certified my grades, and the kids in the class probably vouched for whether they liked me or not. To certify; the government can certify my passport and driver's license; the university can certify my degree certificate; the employer can certify employment status and also state whether I am a good employee. So, we quickly realize that identity and reputation can be expressed as the sum of testimonials about someone.

In fact, not all identity protocols are developing in the wrong direction, but there is no base layer in the current Web3 world, but each project only represents one aspect of identity. Therefore, if we want to truly solve the root of the identity problem, what we need is a base layer that allows any entity to make claims about anything, a common language and framework.

Bankless: Although your definition of Primtive is just someone's statement about something, in fact, the "elaboration" of identity of this primitive is extremely profound. Therefore, when we discuss identity and primitives, many listeners (especially those who are new to the crypto world) will be confused by identification and primitive expressions because of the overly grandiose way of expressing and thinking. Please explain in more concise language the formation of identities and how primitives like EAS form the underlying basis of identity proofs.

EAS: If we completely put aside the blockchain and only consider our interactions and interactions in the display world. For example, if I ask Ryan to borrow $5,000, Ryan may write an IOU. The interaction between us is based on mutual trust. But if David wants to go to the bank for a loan, then he needs to provide the bank with all the documents to prove his ability to repay the loan. This is because there is no trust between David and the bank between me and Ryan, and at the same time, we need to comply with the relevant laws and regulations of bank lending. But no matter how trust is based, the key to proof of identity is that all entities are simply attesting to each other. The way proof works, then, can be summarized as any interaction that attempts to build trust while ensuring that the other party has a certain reputation to back it up.

**Bankless: Is EAS just focused on identity verification, or does it have broader application scenarios and goals? **

EAS: Proofs can be used for much more than identity, and the reason we talk about identity first is because we like to reveal complex concepts by explaining simple things. In fact, proofs can be used for supply chain, voting, authentication, ticketing, and a variety of other things that are not directly related to identity. In real life, these actions are what we perform every day, but there is no proof of a completely digital, structured, and standardized method to complete each transaction. This is the magic of EAS. It can create a template (Schema) that describes the content of the proof and the proof process, and prove various social activities based on this. We believe that this is the revolution that EAS can really bring.

Take notary services as an example. If you want to sign a mortgage document or an important document, you usually need a notary to be present, and the notary itself is the certifier of the document, but for blockchain, we do not A product that can structure the role of "notary public". Although current digital signatures and verification timestamps can provide support for proving authenticity, we do not yet have a more composable and interoperable way to structure them to meet the needs of more people.

Bankless: So in summary, the concept of proof is actually the interaction of some people with other people on the chain, or the unilateral claims made? For example, I own rsa.eth, which corresponds to an Ethereum address, and I can perform operations such as signing and digital verification on the chain. When the system prompted me whether to sign, my choice was to "prove" that these operations were real.

EAS: Yes, it is structured in the EAS standard, but each proof is signed with the wallet's private key, so it can be pointed unambiguously to the entity making the claim. Taking today's social media as an example, posting is actually a kind of proof. If David likes and comments, it is also a kind of proof that "likes this post". The problem remains that we don’t have a core base layer that connects social activities with proofs. In addition, in addition to the on-chain proof, EAS will also ensure that the proof is still accessible off-chain in some specific way, so EAS is also an off-chain protocol for digital signatures.

**Bankless: Primitives really require people to think about "what is a proof" in a new way of thinking. So could it be understood that my identity is a statement made about me by the people I interact with, through the social environment I am in? **

EAS: Identity is derived not only from claims, but more importantly from the evaluation of these certifications by the entities making the claims. For example, if I show you a statement from Vitalik in which Vitalik claims that I am a good person, someone who knows Vitalik or has a favorable opinion of Ethereum may find it valuable, but someone who only uses Solana may not. So, this method of proof is actually very correct. If I want to lend to a certain entity, then I need to show the relevant proof to the entity. These proofs may meet the requirements of this entity, but for other entities , additional support material may be required.

To a certain extent, this feature brings unprecedented decentralization to EAS - the entire world's perception of a person depends on the object of certification, but the importance attached to the certification also varies from person to person. I think that's the only way to solve the problem of decentralized identity, which is that you can't presuppose what the identity actually is, it can be made up of many factors, maybe I have a proof that I was once a member of the Mickey Mouse Club, but The importance of this proof varies from person to person.

Bankless: In fact, there have been many attempts on identity in the early days of Bitcoin's development, and people at that time were already aware of the relationship between private keys and identities. Subsequently, projects such as WorldCoin and Crypto Meta began to look for solutions to identity verification at the application layer. Previously, you also mentioned that these attempts on identity cannot completely solve this problem at the application layer, so it is necessary to build basic modules. Can you explain in detail why you need to build the base module so that you can build more applications on top of it.

EAS: As I mentioned before, all identity solutions are moving in the right direction. As for WorldCoin, some people are worried about iris scanning, while others are not concerned at all. However, the iris is only a part of a person's identity. If solutions including Worldcoin and Bright ID work independently, they will not give developers and users the opportunity to choose "whether to trust". So while we think all identity solutions are moving in the right direction, they tend to either issue coins or extract value at the protocol layer. Thinking about trust and identity in this context, it's a bit like oil and water, i.e. one can't really discuss finance, trust and identity at the same time, but if we truly have a trustworthy neutral base layer where any entity can type of proof, then Worldcoin and other protocols can actually become more composable.

In addition, for these companies, if there is no basic original model, then different identity proof schemes have to make multiple assumptions about identity. I think this is the biggest failure of companies including uPort - they are "what Much work has been done on the issue of "identity" and relies heavily on these standards, but as mentioned before, human identity is a very complex set of proofs, so these assumptions are not generalizable. EAS is different. uPort can preset a template they want to build and test it, but they are still on the same layer, and any smart contract can achieve template reuse. This is why EAS makes proofs more interoperable and more conducive to the construction of decentralized identity and reputation systems.

**Bankless: What specific form does EAS take? Is it a standard similar to ERC? **

EAS: The basic structure of EAS includes two parts expressed in the form of smart contracts: the pattern registry and the proof ledger. The schema registry allows anyone to register any type of statement, while the proof ledger is used to store proofs, with each proof referencing a specific schema to describe the data structure and content of the proof. In addition, EAS also supports an off-chain statement protocol, so that statements can be generated and delivered outside the chain without paying fees, and can be timestamped or revoked later. These off-chain statements are also fully portable and can be passed from one party to another and can be uploaded to a server for verification when needed.

One of the key points is that these certificates do not necessarily require a recipient, as EAS can also act as a human self-certification. For example, let's say Bankless wanted to prove the authenticity of this episode. They could generate a hash of this episode and prove that Bankless actually generated the hash, but that wouldn't necessarily involve other topics. The key is that this known entity is signing some structured data at some point in time.

I think on the Web3 side, which is crypto-native technology, the reason we want to record something on-chain is so that smart contracts can interact with it. Maybe in a decentralized community in particular, we might want to have more transparency into the governance of the community, such as how funds are distributed, and put content more on-chain in this very decentralized world is more meaningful. But there are also a lot of regular offline use cases where you just need to prove the authenticity of a signature, so it really depends on the goal of the use case, they all have value.

Bankless: This means that since EAS is open source, anyone can propose any model they want. As long as they can organize enough people to participate and gain consensus, then they can adopt some kind of standard to prove Whether the individual has a degree from their institution, this degree is used to perform on-chain certification and adopt some self-created standard on top of EAS.

EAS: You're right in that I think one of the challenges with previous attempts to create some kind of degree schema etc. is that people made too many assumptions about the fields required in the schema, when really just allowing The community works together to develop the right model, and over time we've seen that even in the electric vehicle space, there's a lot of research done on things like the best charging port for an electric vehicle, and then Tesla said, actually we're going to Building our own standards rather than adopting existing standards, you actually need to focus on the issues that users care about and then let the standards build over time.

**Bankless: EAS gives me the feeling of going back to the first time I learned about HTTP, because it is too flexible, and it seems that it can complete many things at the same time, and its capabilities seem to be unlimited. For EAS, they are the original building blocks of reputation and identity, and are the cornerstone of the organization of the entire social identity proof operation. And "proof" can accomplish anything just like HTTP. Are you worried that we are developing a "big and useless" method? function? **

EAS: I think EAS is not "too big to do". This is the characteristic of these technologies. New technologies can achieve things that were previously unachievable, so there are endless possibilities. But interestingly, it doesn’t necessarily require massive network effects to work. For example, if an entity decides to start using EAS to certify tickets for the entity that owns the tickets, it is sufficient for the entity and its clients to reach a consensus on the certification. For many use cases, a large number of people do not necessarily need to sign up to complete the proof of identity using EAS.

We’ve been running hackathons in recent months. In a recent competition, 25 teams developed based on EAS. It’s interesting to see people building a variety of applications, some involving medicine, some involving cross-chain payment master systems, some involving certification of open source software, and so on. There are so many use cases that people can somehow incorporate this into their applications, otherwise they would have to build some smart contracts within their own platform and test them, putting all their applications that use EAS A standardized place would make these certifications more valuable.

What we're really trying to do is lean more toward the ecosystem narrative, so even as a base layer upon which identity is built, EAS is not a simple identity protocol. What we want to do is to help the identity ecosystem be more closely connected. EAS brings together developers from different fields. They naturally create any model about identity proof and the convenience of signing digital signatures. When there is such a universal system in the ecosystem, solution, the entire system will follow.

**Bankless: One thing that is refreshing about EAS is that the team has no tokens, no venture capital, and no incentives issued like other companies. Can you briefly describe EAS's growth vision and are there any plans for global expansion? **

EAS: Of course, our goal is to create a base layer infrastructure for anyone, not to have everything about the user. We hope to bring positive change to the world by creating this infrastructure, making all certifications more valuable. You believe it is important to build more trust in the digital world, both on-chain and online, as the current online experience is filled with mistrust, disinformation, fraud and scams. We believe that by using digital signatures and building a certified trust network, it is very important to help people conduct online activities more safely and at the same time promote people to carry out various activities in a more decentralized manner. Without these trust mechanisms, we will face increasing challenges in the face of increasing fraud and disinformation. Therefore, through authentication, we can better build trust.

Bankless: Why do we need certification in this digital age, what will EAS bring to us in the future world, and whether EAS will drive the next change in human society like the Internet.

EAS: With the rise of AI-generated content, it will become increasingly difficult to prove the authenticity of what we consume and interact with online. Although we can prove the authenticity of a document through a digital signature, if it is an audio file, it is difficult to verify whether the character in it is an AI imitation. So if EAS is used, we believe that a complete evidence chain can be established based only on digital signatures and verified timestamps.

I like to give an example, imagine that 99% of the current video content is actually recorded and not generated by AI, but in the next few years, it is very likely that there will be earth-shaking changes. EAS gives people the ability to store any type of content on-chain and confirm its authenticity. Therefore, we can simply take some historical content, store its hash value and timestamp on the chain in the form of a proof, and then a thousand years later, the proof we store will be able to reveal that this content actually exists in our Before having AI replica technology. Therefore, we can preserve historical proof in this way, which I think is a very important thing, because the emergence of AI is a very big challenge to the preservation and authenticity verification of historical documents. Imagine that in the next few years, you may receive a FaceTime video call, and the images of family members appear on the screen, but in fact they are indeed imitated by AI, and it will become increasingly difficult to identify the authenticity of the people on the screen. Therefore, digital signatures will also become increasingly important over time to prevent potential fraud and maintain the authenticity of content over time.

EAS is entirely based on EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine), an important aspect of which needs to be done on-chain, although technically this does not necessarily have to be the case, there is a schema registry on-chain, whether on-chain or off-chain, Every time a confirmation comes in, I think it's really important to be able to immediately understand its contents by immediately checking the schema registry.

Overall, offline confirmations are not stored, so technically don't necessarily need to be Ethereum based, but since it is signed using an Ethereum wallet, it will only work if signed using an Ethereum wallet, which it uses EIP712 performs the signing of offline confirmations that can later be verified by smart contracts on the chain.

We chose Ethereum because we believe it is the most important blockchain infrastructure and the choice of the vast majority of developers. We also plan to launch on other EVMs, which may be Layer 2 solutions for Ethereum, or It is a Layer 2 solution of other public chains but still based on EVM.

Bankless: Ethereum and similar blockchain technologies are more than just a financial tool, they can serve as a broader global distributed infrastructure for building decentralized, unstoppable and permissionless identities and confirmation system. This is a potential use that could provide public benefits and services that go far beyond finance.

In the current Internet age, trust and identity verification are crucial, especially when faced with issues such as disinformation, fraud, and privacy violations. Ethereum and other blockchain technologies provide powerful tools for building these trust mechanisms. Whether in finance or elsewhere, distributed authentication and confirmation can be used to improve users’ online experience, increase security, and reduce the spread of fraud and false information.

In addition, this technology is global and can help areas that do not have stable financial systems or identity verification systems to complete these tasks, providing support for public interests and human rights on a global scale. Therefore, Ethereum and similar technologies do have the potential to become a global public infrastructure that has a positive impact on global society, not just limited to the financial field. This potential impact may be broader and more important than applications in finance.

EAS: I think this is a very important point. Over the past few years, the blockchain and cryptocurrency space has really focused primarily on the decentralization of assets and finance. This includes cryptocurrencies, decentralized finance (DeFi) applications and asset management, among others. Developments in these fields are very important, but there are many other non-financial problems and applications that can be solved by decentralized technology.

Decentralized authentication and validation is one of these very critical areas as it applies not only to the financial sector but to almost every other sector. For example, decentralized identity verification can be used for medical records, academic certification, digital rights management, supply chain traceability, voting systems, and more. These areas can benefit from decentralized, verifiable identity and confirmation systems to increase transparency, reduce the risk of fraud, and foster innovation.

Due to the versatility and security of blockchain technology, it can become a powerful tool for solving a variety of real-world problems. Therefore, developing decentralized identity verification and confirmation systems is an important direction that can bring more benefits to society, not just limited to the financial field. This is also in line with Ethereum’s original vision of creating a decentralized global computing platform that can handle a variety of different applications and use cases.

This is a very important point. With more and more people owning private keys and using cryptographic technologies like NFTs, we are now at a good time for entities to start entering the identity authentication space. You mentioned that the original vision of Ethereum was to decentralize everything, but in the past few years, although there has been a lot of progress in the financial field, there are still many unsolved problems.

These unresolved issues include identity verification, academic certification, digital rights management, supply chain traceability, etc. Previously, building related applications on Ethereum required developers to write smart contracts, which made the barriers to entry in these areas high. But now, with the advent of EAS, anyone, including institutions, can use no-code or low-code tools to create custom authentication schemes, thereby lowering the barrier to entry.

This versatility and ease of use make EAS a powerful tool for solving a variety of real-world problems. It is not limited to the financial field but applies to almost all fields. This trend will help realize Ethereum’s original vision of creating a global computing platform capable of handling many different applications and use cases. It provides institutions and individuals with a more open and innovative way to handle identity authentication and confirmation, thereby bringing more benefits to society.

Bankless: A sign that a new technology is put into use is that there are already encryption projects integrating EAS for authentication. Can you briefly introduce the projects that are currently using EAS to solve problems?

EAS: An important example is Optimism. Optimism is one of Ethereum’s Layer 2 scaling solutions that aims to improve Ethereum’s performance and scalability. Optimism chose EAS as its core infrastructure for various confirmation and authentication operations. They have integrated EAS into their native code base, which allows any new chain deployed on Optimism to automatically inherit the EAS contract. Optimism is committed to advancing the field of confirmation and authentication and sees EAS as one of the key infrastructures to achieve this goal.

In addition, EAS has collaborated with many other authentication protocols and projects and has been well received. Due to the versatility and flexibility of EAS, it can adapt to a variety of different application scenarios and provide developers with powerful tools to build authentication and confirmation solutions.

These collaborations and integrations show that EAS is gradually becoming one of the standards in the blockchain field and is expected to bring more innovation and development to the field of identity verification and confirmation.

Yes, establishing a standard and ensuring its widespread adoption is a challenging task. You mentioned the concern in the early days of developing EAS of becoming just another standard trying to become a standard, and that's a legitimate concern. However, EAS has achieved great success in becoming the core infrastructure for authentication and validation. The partnership with Optimism and its decision to incorporate EAS into its core infrastructure is a major win, helping to ensure that the same standards are used across the entire ecosystem, rather than fragmented into multiple standards.

By forming partnerships with, and gaining support from, other authentication protocols, EAS has gained widespread acceptance and support for itself, demonstrating that EAS has the potential to become a common, widely adopted standard that solves key issues of authentication and confirmation. , rather than just a standard trying to corner the market. This collaboration and openness is expected to enable EAS to play an important role in a wide range of application areas, thereby increasing the trustworthiness and security of the entire Web3 ecosystem.

EAS's smart contracts have become part of every chain deployed on the OP Stack. This indicates that EAS' standards will become a core component of the OP Stack ecosystem, rather than just a standalone project. This integration is expected to provide authentication and confirmation capabilities for various applications on the OP Stack chain, thereby providing greater trustworthiness and security for a wide range of use cases and users.

Currently, the use of attestations in Optimism covers multiple use cases, including the following aspects:

1. Attestations of governance roles: Some projects are trying to attest different governance roles in DAO to authenticate identities in governance decisions.

2. Certification of the Optimism domain name: There are projects that are certifying different aspects of the Optimism domain name and domain name registration to enhance the credibility and identity verification of the domain name.

3. Quadratic voting: EAS is used for quadratic voting. For example, in a hackathon, all teams can use EAS for quadratic voting, and anyone can aggregate and verify the votes to determine who will be rewarded.

4. Gitcoin Passport Stamps: The Gitcoin Passport Stamps plan is moving to using attestations as the basic building blocks to make it more composable and better integrated with other identity solutions.

Bankless: The most recent blockchain application related to "identity-related" seems to be Friend.tech. In order to use Friend.tech, you must authenticate from Twitter to confirm the authenticity of the identity. The authentication is valid, but technically not perfect since Twitter has access to all identity information.

EAS: Yes, for blockchain this may result in the keys being controlled by a third party, without the need for any other authentication authority. At the same time, this certification method does not involve any interoperability. If you only use one API, it is difficult to ensure that it is always updated and that the project team does not change the code at will. Therefore, Friend.tech is essentially a very unique use case centered around Web2 socialization. It still follows the old path of Web2 social verification, but moves the social graph construction to the chain to some extent. All in all, we still need a way to make people's identities more interoperable.

Bankless: I think this really speaks to the need for an application layer on top of EAS, once the number of proofs increases exponentially, we have to need organizations like proof service providers to help reintegrate the 10,000 that are being made every day Different proofs. As we discussed before, there are a variety of different authentication attempts, everyone trying to authenticate in the Web3 world. I think the business model has now been established that you can't do authentication directly, you have to let it evolve naturally, and once enough proofs exist, we will need the application layer to help us provide a lens through which to view all of these proofs.

**EAS:**Imagine a future where everyone can view the relevant certifications of counterparties. For example, this entity's previous relationship with me, and whether any friends have verified their authenticity.

In the near future, trust networks will become more visual, and by putting on a device like the Vision Pro, you can start browsing different trust networks. But the difference is that in the real world today, we are assigned a trust score, such as a credit score involved in a bank assessment. In the future world, we will be able to customize the weight of the trustworthiness level, which corresponds to what we said at the beginning. Everyone has different perceptions of the importance of certification.

Imagine that when one starts to build a new decentralized trust network, everyone's trust score in the network starts from scratch, and they all have the right to set their own score weights. For example, because I trust my mother and good friends very much, I will set a high weight for this person's certificate because they have confirmed this person's certificate. Applications such as MetaMask may display each person's credit score on the page, allowing users to form their own unique trust network.

This is a huge problem and we are working with a number of different teams who would typically look at on-chain data from various DeFi platforms, aggregate it, and come up with various scores, but now if everyone starts doing all kinds With certification, you can start defining a variety of scores, connections, and various categories of metrics. For example, what is an individual’s DeFi score? What is his social rating? What are his other ratings? There will be countless scoring categories. So providers who can integrate all this data and understand it will become very important, and open source tools that let users run it themselves and integrate proofs and generate scores will also be interesting. This way, you can have other entities provide proof of this entity's rating.

So in the example I gave you earlier, like being able to gain relative trust from someone, maybe that person is not in your network, so you could have other trusted entities, like companies like the Equifaxes of the world, Rather than just doing credit scoring, they are now starting to integrate attestation data and build different views about entities based on that data.

Bankless: Privacy is also an important topic for Web3. Whether privacy protection issues are considered during the construction of EAS, or privacy needs to be maintained through additional application layers.

EAS: Typically, we tell people to be aware of privacy issues when doing on-chain proofs. If something is going to be put on the blockchain, it obviously shouldn't contain any private data. For example, if Coinbase wants to perform KYC verification on an address, Coinbase only needs to prove that the address passed the test, without proving who you are. Therefore, you can create a pattern, such as "KYC Passed", and assign the value to true. Other entities can use it as well, and services that accept these proofs can do their due diligence, for example, they might trust Coinbase's proofs or other entities' proofs and build that into the application. This is also the reason why we built off-chain proofs, because in the real world, ID cards, passports, and driving licenses are essentially proofs, but they are off-chain and not public. Users only need to Show them under circumstances.

We have also created tools that can be used to prove large amounts of private data. For example, imagine a doctor's office that can certify all medical records, and we built a really cool tool that can make all of those records into a Merkle tree and do the on-chain certification of the root hash. Anyone can then prove part of that tree to other entities, and basically I can prove to my insurance company that I actually received the treatment that provides benefits for it, and then just reveal the part of the medical data and they can proceed verify.

Additionally, there are zero-knowledge proofs, which can prove private data without actually revealing that data. The problem with ZK is that every solution so far has been very specific and there is no universal "ZK everything" solution. Therefore, we do not have a clear view on which zero-knowledge proof system to use, there are many different options, and we do not presuppose what is inside the proof. The proof could be a full ZKP, or a privacy-preserving statement like the one we showed, or off-chain, or even a public tweet. In summary, we care about privacy and tell everyone in the documentation to choose carefully what to prove because on-chain proofs will exist forever.

Together with other developer teams, we are trying to build privacy tools to help developers solve these types of problems. For example, many teams at hackathons tried to use EAS to create ZKPs based on proof data, which means that identity information can be selectively shared. We also received a lot of positive feedback about the Merkle tree mentioned above. For example, sismo integrated with EAS can be used to create ZKP, which means that as long as I have a proof of a specific thing, I don’t have to disclose it. Its specific address, as long as it's clear that I own it. The combination of EAS and ZKP can complete verification and information sharing while protecting privacy.

**Bankless: How will EAS obtain funds without issuing coins and without VC? **

**EAS: **EAS is currently funded through grants. The key issue we are currently focusing on is mode coordination, that is, how EAS officials educate people on how to organize and choose the correct mode as custom modes gradually increase. Optimism has just given us a sizable grant to address this issue. In addition, we are also exploring new funding mechanisms, such as retrospective public goods funds. But to date, EAS's operating funding sources have been mainly self-funded and grants.

**Bankless: What is the relationship between the concept of Soul Bound Tokens and EAS? **

EAS: I remember Vitalik proposed the definition of Soul Bound Tokens in 2020, and I thought it was a wrong solution at the time. Due to the NFT craze at that time, everyone could integrate the viewing function of NFT into their wallet, so when people considered what tools to use to solve identity or reputation problems, the first thing that came to mind was NFT. But in fact, we think NFT is not suitable for identity proof. In order to prove my trust in a person, do I need to redeploy a brand new contract that inherits the SBT interface, and then write information about whether he is trustworthy? Each new SBT can belong to a different smart contract, and everyone can also design a completely different smart contract with completely different interfaces and non-interoperable functions, so if I want to check whether his address has an updated identity Information cannot be easily obtained.

As a primitive, EAS can provide consistent excuses and proof examples. This is more meaningful for improving the universality of the proof.