Is THORChain or EAS Crypto’s Hottest Project?

Over the next several weeks, Coinage is coming to a consensus on which Web3 endeavor shall be crowned Crypto Project of the Year — and it’s truly up to you. Vote or build your own bracket between 16 crypto hopefuls for a shot at 0.25 ETH.

As on-chain activity in crypto evolves, the balance between digital identifiers and ideals of a permissionless, anonymous ecosystem is something that several projects have grappled with.

In 2023, crypto projects leaning into those key tenants have been handsomely rewarded. Decentralized finance platform THORChain has seen its token rise by more than 400% in a year where centralized exchanges like Coinbase and Binance have been hammered by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

According to THORChain Tech Lead Chad Barraford, anyone should have the ability to trade assets like Bitcoin or Ethereum — without divulging personal information. On the other hand, Ethereum Attestation Service co-founder Steve Dakh believes data like on-chain attestations can lead to broader industry growth.

“This entire industry was born from the idea of decentralization,” Barraford told Coinage on Tuesday. “What’s kind of tragic about that — 15 years into Bitcoin’s story — it took us this long to remove the centralized points of being able to get in and out of Bitcoin.”

THORChain as a protocol has been powering a number of wallets, like Trust Wallet and Edge, to enable cross-chain trades. This year, it’s also added enhanced options for users to earn yield on their crypto assets. How some front-end applications using THORChain’s tech might satisfy stricter know your customer or anti-money laundering rules remains somewhat of an open question. For example, one site for users called THORSwap briefly paused operations in October after someone used it to transfer funds linked to an FTX exploit.

But is a decentralized, on-chain know your customer solution even possible? New crypto project Ethereum Attestation Service has been making strides in that endeavor and then some with its open and permissionless ability to let people to attest to various facts on-chain. EAS co-founder and early Ethereum developer Steve Dakh joined Coinage to explain why it’s an important development for plugging crypto into real world applications in finance and beyond.

“An attestation can be anything. It can be me voting for somebody, it can be me tweeting something out, it can be a government attesting to my driver's license,” Dakh said. “You can actually represent identity and reputation as an aggregate of attestations about someone. And so if you want to be able to solve this, this big problem, what you really need to start with is a base layer where anybody can attest about anything, right?”

EAS is far from the only project working on the problem. As Coinage has highlighted, the Sam Altman-led eye-scanning project Worldcoin is also trying to tackle proof-of-identity on-chain. As Dakh sees it, EAS can serve as a base layer for projects like Worldcoin and others attempting to solve the same issue.

“We don't believe that Worldcoin is going to be the only trusted identity source,” he said.

Which project deserves to move forward in Coinage’s Crypto Project of the Year? Coinage Membership Pass holders can watch the full video above and vote on which projects advance in our celebration of crypto’s top projects. Don’t have a Membership Pass? Mint one now!