There’s a dominant use case emerging for the Ethereum blockchain, a killer app that will make crypto as widely adopted as smartphones. And it isn’t money.

It’s all about digital property rights, identity, and ownership. Public blockchains are essentially massively multiuser databases. Decentralized and authenticated by the network itself, they allow anyone with a blockchain address to maintain their user data in a way that is transparent and protected. And being decentralized, your data is safe from search and seizure, even by government and international agencies.

So you can be in control of your own digital destiny, your identity, and your rights of ownership to both digital and physical property. It’s all part of being a sovereign individual, and not relying on institutions and authorities, when it comes to proving that you’re you. Blockchain records are immutable, and can only be updated by adding new blocks to the chain, so everything is recorded and encrypted, by design.

Now I don’t need a passport and a copy of a recent utility bill to identify myself. I can open a bank account, enter into smart contracts, and invest in startups in a foreign country; just by sharing my trusted chain data. And of course, I can receive and make payments too.

My biometric data and health records are also securely stored on the network, and I can give access – and revoke it – to parts of my data, to people and applications. Like my doctor, or lawyer, or Siri.

Data, especially personal data, is fast becoming the oil of the 21^st Century global economy. Now I can control my personal information and identity, and no-one can hijack it and pretend they’re me.

I am ether; I am me.