On-chain identity

On-chain identity is made of several pieces. A readable name such as ENS, which ties a .eth handle and a profile to an address. On-chain attestations from the Ethereum Attestation Service (EAS), verifiable by a contract. Non-transferable Soulbound Tokens, which bind credentials to the wallet. And permissioned gating, where the contract reads the credential or whitelist before allowing an operation. It can rely on self-sovereign identity, with DID and VC, or on native primitives.

It is the substrate for permissioned access to real-world assets and security tokens. Compliance, such as KYC, investor accreditation or jurisdiction, is expressed as a verifiable attribute bound to the wallet, enabling compliant transfers in which only addresses holding the right credential can receive the token. The ERC-3643 framework, together with Tokeny's ONCHAINID, is one of the permissioned-token standards that consume on-chain identity.

Among real examples, ENS provides the handle, EAS the attestations and Coinbase Verifications publishes on-chain KYC attestations on EAS and Base. On-chain identity is the realization of SSI on a blockchain, consumes DIDs and verifiable credentials, its behavioral history is on-chain reputation, and its honesty depends on proof of personhood to avoid sybil wallets. In the European Union, the EUDI Wallet under eIDAS 2.0 provides the regulated credentials layer.