On-Chain Profiles and Identity

Identity in decentralized social stacks multiple primitives: a wallet for signing, a human-readable name like alice.eth, an avatar NFT, and optional credentials proving employment or KYC without doxxing the whole wallet history. None of these alone is a full persona — together they become how others recognize and trust you.

Ethereum Name Service maps names to addresses and reverse records, letting clients show alice.eth instead of a hex string. Lens and Farcaster add their own namespaces — handles can collide across systems, so linking proofs (signing a message from each account) helps establish that profiles belong to the same person.

Verifiable credentials and on-chain attestations from services like EAS let you prove facts — developer at a company, over 18, Gitcoin Passport score — without publishing your entire transaction history. The design tension is reputation versus surveillance: rich identity helps coordination but can enable targeting if credentials are too granular or permanent.