The End of the Era When "0x..." Says Nothing
The assumption that a wallet is merely a random hexadecimal string has eroded rapidly, accelerated by Account Abstraction adoption. ENS provides human-readable naming, EAS (Ethereum Attestation Service) handles KYC and affiliation verification, and SBT offers non-transferable badges — together forming what amounts to a wallet's resume.
The impact extends far beyond payments. For unsecured lending and DAO governance, the stakes are highest. Now that risk associated with unknown addresses becomes quantifiable, lending consortiums previously hesitant to enter crypto are beginning to move.
The Privacy Tug of War
The fact that Attestations persist on-chain itself raises privacy concerns. Implementation of ZK-based Selective Disclosure — proving only the attributes you need to reveal — is widely seen as the next frontier.