Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin Proposes Pluralistic Digital IDs to Defend Online Privacy

• Ethereum co-founder advocated for pluralistic identity systems as a flexible solution to balance privacy, inclusivity, and resistance to abuse.
• He suggested leveraging social-graph-based verification or multiple ID providers to ensure error tolerance and support for individuals without access to conventional IDs.

Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, has unveiled “pluralistic identity,” a new type of digital identity system that prioritizes privacy protection while facilitating fair participation in digital life. In his recently published blog post, Buterin highlighted the potential and challenges associated with zero-knowledge (ZK) proof-based digital IDs. Furthermore, he cautioned that privacy-focused systems can pose greater risks if they strictly enforce a one-identity-per-person rule.

“ZK-wrapping solves a lot of important problems,” he wrote, but cautioned that “ZK-wrapped ID still has risks.” Buterin further cautioned that by enforcing one ID per person, it could expose users to the risk of coercion and undermine pseudonymity.

One of the key risks, as per Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, is that platforms can force users into a singular, trackable identity, thereby erasing the ability to maintain separate pseudonymous profiles.“In the real world, pseudonymity generally requires having multiple accounts,” he said.

Buterin further stated that without this flexibility, users could be forced into a system where “all of your activity must de facto be under a single public identity,” thereby increasing the vulnerability to government or employer surveillance.

Buterin also dismissed the idea of relying solely on “proof of wealth” as an anti-Sybil mechanism, arguing that it excludes those who cannot afford to pay and concentrates power among the wealthy. “The theoretical ideal is something in the middle, where you can get N identities at a cost of N²,” he said.

Ethereum Co-Founder Vitalik Buterin Proposes Pluralistic IDs

In order to foster a more adaptable approach, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposed pluralistic identity systems as the “best realistic solution,” emphasizing that no single authority should dominate identity issuance. Previously, Buterin has stressed that the team should also focus on privacy to address real-world financial use cases, as reported by CNF.

Ethereum’s Buterin explained that such systems could be explicit, using social-graph-based verification methods like Circles, or implicit, leveraging multiple ID providers — such as government documents, social platforms, and others — to prevent any one ID from monopolizing the market.

“Any form of pluralistic identity… is naturally more error-tolerant,” he noted, highlighting that this flexibility benefits stateless individuals and those unable to access conventional forms of identification.

Buterin ultimately advocated for integrating one-per-person identity schemes with social-graph systems to build diverse and global identity networks.

“If their market share gets too close to 100%, they shift the world… to a one-per-person model, which has worse properties,” he cautioned, emphasizing that only pluralistic identity systems can effectively balance privacy, inclusivity, and resistance to abuse.

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