EthPrague Recap

Last week, Self Protocol joined the Celo Foundation, cLabs, and Celo EU in the Czech Republic as Beam sponsors of EthPrague! The annual conference fosters discussion and debate around the latest innovations and trends in the Ethereum ecosystem, breaking down the frontier tech emerging with potential to scale Web3 for the next wave of adoption. Self co-founders Marek Olszewski and Rémi Colin both spoke at the main event, alongside leaders like Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, Eigen Labs’ Director of Developer Relations Nader Dabit, and even the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee. 

Kicking the week off, Self co-founder and Head of Engineering Rémi Colin presented, “The Last CAPTCHA: How Self is Verifying Identity With ZK Proofs” on the Seed stage. Setting the scene for why Self exists, Rémi explained, “up to this point, we still burn energy to prove we’re not bots — and with AI rising, it’ll soon be impossible to tell humans from machines. We need privacy-preserving, bot-resistant identity now more than ever.” As for CAPTCHA tools to confirm proof of humanity? “Forget CAPTCHAs. In two years, AI will solve tests humans can't — and most ‘proof of personhood’ schemes will be obsolete.”

Continuing to explain how Self solves without compromising privacy, Rémi shared, “With Self and zero-knowledge proofs, you can prove your age, nationality, or OFAC compliance — without revealing anything else. It’s selective disclosure with full anonymity… Biometric passports are globally trusted, hard to fake, and cryptographically signed. Self turns that trust into privacy-preserving ZK proofs — no counterparty, no data leaks.” 

After Rémi’s talk, Self joined ZK Hack and EthereumCzech to sponsor their meetup. Over drinks, snacks, and ZK chats, the team met with local members of the Ethereum and Web3 community to learn more about how they’re leveraging zero-knowledge technology and interacting with identity solutions onchain. These insights and alpha will help inform the continued development of Self’s suite of tools. 

On Wednesday, Self co-founder Marek Olszewski sat down with Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin for a fireside chat, “Stablecoin Use, L2 Revenue & Identity,” moderated by Ethereum Foundation’s Joseph Schweitzer. Discussing the rapid growth of stablecoin adoption, including Celo’s expanding ecosystem of 22+ native stables, Vitalik highlighted that, “stablecoins and DID systems are complementary. Mass stablecoin adoption could be a major onboarding moment for decentralized identity systems.”

Diving into onchain identity solutions, Marek explained the need for privacy preservation, “you wouldn't want to prove it in a regular smart contract — you'd reveal your passport data to the world. But if you prove it in zero knowledge, that becomes really interesting.” Vitalik agreed with this sentiment, continuing to say, “ZK solves basic privacy. What it doesn't solve is deplatforming risk... even with ZK, people can still be kicked off. That’s why multiple overlapping ID systems make things more robust.” 

Marek closed the week at EthGlobal Pragma, presenting “Shipping zkPassport: Bringing Self Protocol to Production.” The keynote followed the journey of Self Protocol, from its origins in early 2024 to the acquisition of OpenPassport, launch at EthDenver, and today, as the first privacy-preserving, ZK-powered identity protocol live and available for users throughout the world.

The Self team was proud to join the Ethereum ecosystem in Prague for an insightful week, and looks forward to onboarding additional users and gaining more feedback at EthCC later this month. Stay tuned for a full itinerary on where you can “Prove Your Self” in Cannes!