Once this is how you had a digital identity, your bank account!

Your salary came in.

The bills were sent out.

Your bank had a general idea of how much money you used, and how you used it.

However, that model looks like an exceedingly old one.

The world is evolving towards a new era where your wallet for cryptocurrencies may be more than just a repository for your tokens.

It might be digital you!

I don't believe most people are listening right now anyway.

Your wallet is already becoming a profile

Consider what you can know from a blockchain address.

What assets you have.

The protocols that you employ.

The NFTs you have collected.

The people you meet with.

The links you tie across.

What kind of applications to which you are linked.

If not your name, a capable observer of your on-chain activity can piece together a remarkable profile of your interests and activity, even if they don't know the real name.

That's very different from traditional finance.

Your bank has information about your money.

Your wallet can potentially have information about your digital life.

As additional applications begin to link identity, reputation, payments and AI, that distinction may prove to be significant.

The next step isn't just owning crypto

That's where it gets fun.

Visualize a new Web3 app that you want to launch in the future.

Rather than having to create a new account.

Not completing another form.

Don't have to remember another password.

It's as easy as connecting your wallet.

The application already has an idea of your reputation.

Perhaps you have specialized in a certain community.

Perhaps you have helped out with open source projects.

Perhaps you've earned some qualifications.

Perhaps you have established a track record of sound deals.

The wallet is a sort of a portable reputation layer.

Not just:

"Here is my money."

But:

Here's my story,

That's a paradigm shift in the way we consider digital identity

AI makes this even more interesting.

Add AI to the situation.

As the digital economy grows, AI agents will have to find methods to communicate with it.

May be required to pay for services.

Purchase data.

Use APIs.

Hire other agents.

Execute transactions.

Manage budgets.

With these agents running on blockchain networks, wallets may well form the financial backbone of an entirely new digital economy.

There’s a possibility that your AI partner will soon be their own wallet.

You may have your business with their own wallets.

A software agent might get paid for performing one action, and then use that money to perform other actions.

Well, that is a peculiar notion, if you're considering today's internet.

But to think that software will recommend things would make much more sense if you think of a world where software doesn't.

It actually does things.

But there's a massive problem

Ownership and exposure go hand in hand in the same wallet.

But if all one's digital past is tied to one identity, there is a serious issue with privacy.

Suppose the companies could analyse your wallet and deduce:

What you can afford
What you like
In what places you go
The communities that you belong to.
The level of financial activity you are engaged in

This is really strong data.

And it brings up a distressing thought:

Do we really want our entire digital lives to become permanently traceable?

Thus, I believe the future of cryptos is not solely driven by Bitcoin, Ethereum or the next 100x token.

It will also be determined by something that is not as dramatic as that:

Who owns you on the Internet?

The biggest crypto asset might not be a token

For years, cryptos investors have been indoctrinated to think in terms of coins.

Bitcoin.

Ethereum.

Memecoins.

DeFi tokens.

The next big wave however, may be a different one.

Identity.

Your credentials.

Your reputation.

Your history.

You can prove instead of give up your whole life to a centralized platform.

The opportunity here could be huge if crypto is able to address that problem while still maintaining privacy.

Eventually, nearly every thing that we do online will require some sort of identity.

But is it a company's identity?

or to you.

My takeaway

I don't believe your crypto wallet is going to be your bank tomorrow.

I'm not sure about the future of the wallet as one of the most important pieces of digital infrastructure that we will own, but I think that's what we're moving towards.

I don't know if it's interesting that wallets can have money in them.

It's the fact that they may contain evidence of who we are online.

But if it does, the largest cryptocurrency revolution could be more about not losing money.

It could be a matter of having your own online identity.