ERC-7231 Has Finally Unlocked The Door To A Truly User-Owned Internet

Introducing ERC-7231: The Future of Digital Identity Management

The Ethereum blockchain world has unleashed a host of innovations over the last couple of years, with its switch to a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm through “The Merge” and the adoption of its ERC-721 token standard, which led to the introduction of smart wallets. 

Now, we’re witnessing yet another monumental change with the introduction and growing adoption of the new ERC-7231 standard, which promises to forever change the way people perceive and manage their digital identities. It’s a potentially revolutionary development that has major implications for non-fungible tokens and soul-bound tokens, representing the latest beacon of progress in blockchain privacy and data ownership. 

Introducing ERC-7231

The ERC-7231 standard is really just an extension of the popular ERC-721 standard that provides a set of guidelines and rules for minting fungible tokens and NFTs on Ethereum. ERC-721 has become widely known as the “NFT standard”, and has been used to mint millions of NFTs already. 

With ERC-7231, that standard is evolving to introduce an idea known as “identity binding”, which enables the possibility of numerous individual identities from Web2 and Web3 to be merged. The identities are all linked to the same, unique NFT. In addition, it also allows for those identities to be represented as an SBT, which is a special kind of non-transferable NFT that has emerged as a popular solution for identity applications, proving someone’s credentials, reputation and achievements without revealing their identity. 

What Does ERC-7231 Do? 

It’s an important development because ERC-7231 paves the way for some novel possibilities that simply didn’t exist before the standard came into being. 

For background, the creator of the ERC-7231 standard is called CARV Protocol, and it’s an extremely ambitious project that basically wants to become the data layer for the world of video games and artificial intelligence development. The CARV Protocol can be thought of as a kind of aggregator for gaming credentials, where dedicated gamers can merge all of their gaming histories, data, achievements and all of the assets they own, from every Web2 and Web3 game they play, creating a single identity or profile that encompasses it all. 

What this means is that gamers will be able to keep a record of all of their gaming history and achievements, and make this information available to games developers if they choose to do so. 

NFTs are key because they are the technology that represents those IDs. Every time a new user creates a CARV ID, they’re issued with an NFT that contains all of the information from every game they have linked to it. One of the metadata files linked to that NFT is known as the Multi-Identities Schema, which includes their UserID. Users can choose to link any account identifier to this Multi-Identities Schema, such as their profile on Fortnite or GTA, or the Web3 wallet they use to play Axie Infinity or some other blockchain-based game. 

For each UserID the player configures, a hash is created that can be bound to the NFT. The result is that the user’s NFT aggregates all of their gaming profiles and accounts into a single token, which can be either a traditional NFT or an SBT, which cannot be transferred, meaning it must remain in the wallet where it was minted. 

As the first implementation of ERC-7231, CARV ID has already been integrated by hundreds of games developers, including Electronic Arts, AliCloud and Netmarble, as well as individual Web3 games such as Aperion, Pixelmon and Illuvium.  

Why Is This Different? 

The big benefit of this is that ERC-7231 provides new opportunities for monetization and data sharing. Because users have full control over their ERC-7231 NFTs and the data within them, they can choose to share it and earn rewards for doing so. 

Users can provide consent to specific applications, allowing them to access their gaming histories, achievements and data, and in return they’ll be rewarded with cryptocurrency for sharing that information. Games developers can then incentivize gamers to share their information, and use that data to deliver targeted adverts, acquire new users and so on. 

What’s interesting is that this data sharing model is not limited to gaming. Users can also potentially share their online experiences and browsing histories, and any other online data that might be interesting to third parties. 

Other benefits that might interest gamers include the ability to share their verifiable achievements with the communities of their favorite games, essentially showing off how good they are. 

Towards A User-Owned Internet

Most importantly, ERC-7231 changes the very nature of gamers’ relationships with corporations. Rather than simply giving up their data for free to the creator of every game they play, they can control that information and keep it secret if they prefer, or earn some compensation for agreeing to share it. 

In this way, ERC-7231 represents a philosophical shift towards data sovereignty and makes good on one of the biggest promises of Web3. It paves the way for us to evolve from a world where user data is a commodity, to a world where user data is an asset owned by its creators, who have the freedom to dictate who can see it and how it’s used. 

The ERC-7231 standard can thus be considered one of the key building blocks of a user-owned internet, and a catalyst for a more equitable digital world. 

Unlocking Innovation

With ERC-7231, CARV Protocol is set to unleash a wave of yet more innovation in Web3. The advent of a user-owned internet will facilitate concepts such as permissionless access to platforms and targeted airdrops based on user credentials, as well as a less invasive and more equitable advertising industry. 

It also opens the door to more data for AI developers, who can incentivize gamers to share their gaming histories and experiences to aid in the development of non-playable characters, gaming assistants and more. The use cases are truly vast. 

CARV Protocol and other projects building on the ERC-7231 standard are helping to create a more trustworthy, user-controlled identity system that’s more flexible and improves information security while giving users full control. 

ERC-7231 has been formalized and is already enjoying rapid adoption, and it will be exciting to keep an eye on and see what other kinds of innovations result.