This article serves as the concluding chapter of the Blockchain Civilization Trilogy, aiming to sketch the prototype of a Decentralized Society (DeSoc). We argue that civilization is undergoing a substrate migration — from the Atomic Age into the Bit Age. Against this backdrop, Ethereum demonstrates the potential to become a meta-framework for civilization: a correctable system where social institutions can iterate continuously within a low-cost, programmable environment.

The upper bound of such a framework begins with its most fundamental unit: the human being. This article contends that as RWA (Real-World Assets) gain momentum on-chain, the mapping of ideologies, cultural structures, and RWOs (Real-World Organizations) will inevitably require “Putting Humans On-Chain.” Individual rights — identity, credit, ability, and social relationships — must be credibly mapped, freely transferable, and composable in order to reconstruct social structures on-chain.

Accordingly, this article elaborates a DeSoc centered on the Sovereign Individual across three layers: identity, economy, and governance. Empowered by bit-based on-chain rights and asset ownership, individuals can migrate across multiple DAOs (digital city-states) at low cost, driving governance optimization and ultimately forming a landscape of competitive governance — opening a new chapter in the Bit Age.

Keywords: Decentralized Society; Sovereign Individual; Putting Humans On-Chain; Data Assetization; Universal Basic Income; Bit Age.

I. Introduction — Eternal Migration: From Geographic Frontiers to Digital Realms

Freedom of movement is one of humanity’s oldest and most fundamental rights. Before the rise of nation-states and fixed borders, tribes and families migrated according to survival and security needs, selecting better environments. Migration served as a primitive check on power — one that did not eliminate power, but ensured it was always replaceable.

Agricultural civilization and state-building tightened this freedom: populations became bound to land, and the mechanism of irrevocable authorization anchored individuals to their birthplace. A dynamic, reciprocal social contract hardened into static constraint. Migration grew costly; reclaiming power became difficult.

Yet the pursuit of freedom never vanished, catalyzing two major historical tendencies:

Vertical Escape: individuals immigrating to freer, more prosperous societies under rule of law, actively choosing governance and services.

Horizontal Union: nation-states integrating to obtain higher-order public goods and to expand markets and mobility.

Both trends point toward a core demand: people continually seek environments where they can vote with their feet at lower cost and with higher efficiency.

Today, blockchain technology — especially DeSoc on Ethereum — is opening a third pathway: constructing an entirely new digital realm where the right to “vote with one’s feet” is re-endowed to each individual in a native, low-cost, and programmable manner.

This article argues that DeSoc, founded upon “Putting Humans On-Chain,” represents the latest chapter in humanity’s eternal migration toward freedom — achieving the ultimate dissolution of irrevocable authorization and accelerating civilization’s evolution into the Bit Age.

II. Identity Layer — From “Data Nakedness” to “Sovereignty in the Individual”

1. Theoretical Foundation: From SBTs to Social Composability

In works such as Decentralized Society: Finding Web3’s Soul and What do I think about biometric proof of personhood?, Vitalik Buterin lays the conceptual foundation for next-generation identity systems. His concept of the Soul-Bound Identity, carried by the SBT (Soul-Bound Token), is not a financial asset but a non-transferable credential holding one’s social resume, credit, and contributions. Its ultimate goal is social composability — granting every individual a recognizable, trustworthy, and incentivizable social foundation on-chain.

2. Technical Architecture: The Sovereign Identity Stack

The vision of “Putting Humans On-Chain” is transitioning from theory to engineering reality through a series of emerging Ethereum standards (EIPs/ERCs). The technical foundation is the three-layer Sovereign Identity Stack, shaped by community consensus:

2.1 DID — Root of Sovereignty and the Canonical Identity Anchor

Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs), built on the W3C standard, give individuals full control over their root identity. On Ethereum, EIP-4361 (Sign-In With Ethereum, SIWE) concretizes this by allowing users to authenticate directly with their Ethereum accounts. EIP-712 provides secure, human-readable structured data signing — critical for signing verifiable off-chain claims.

2.2 Zero-Knowledge Proofs — Privacy Shield and Verifiable Credential Engine

Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) ensure claims such as “I am over 18” can be verified without revealing underlying data (e.g., birth date). Emerging proposals like ERC-5833 explore privacy-preserving and compliance-friendly SBT architectures.

2.3 SBT — The Social Soul and On-Chain Resume Container

SBTs, evolving from ERC-721, derive their non-transferability from standards such as ERC-4973 and ERC-5192. ERC-1155 introduces scalable, composable credential issuance. Together, these tools form an individual’s programmable social DNA.

Thus, DID (EIP-4361/712) + ZK + SBT (ERC-4973/5192/1155) constitutes the foundational identity infrastructure enabling DeSoc to progress from whitepapers to implementable smart contracts.

3. Ecological Practice: Early Mapping of On-Chain Personality

Identity experiments in the Ethereum ecosystem remain fragmented, forming “multi-source reputation shards”:

Lens Protocol / Farcaster: social graphs as portable, verifiable assets

Worldcoin: biometric uniqueness to resist Sybil attacks

Proof of Humanity / Idena: human-verification mechanisms

Gitcoin Passport / ENS: reputation portfolios integrating contributions and identity

These are puzzle pieces — breakthroughs in isolated dimensions, but not yet a composable digital persona.

Projects such as Credinet represent a deeper exploration: integrating MACI and modular ZK proofs to construct “Unified Persona + Fragmented Rights + Privacy Anti-Coercion + Decentralized Governance.”

4. Real-World Drivers: Industry → Civilization → Competition

Decentralized identity is not merely technological evolution but a civilizational necessity:

Industry Driver: credit, insurance, governance require trusted identities

Civilization Driver: DeSoc is foundational for Ethereum as a social contract layer

Competition Driver: identity infrastructure has network effects and positive externalities beyond DeFi

Conclusion of Identity Layer:
When credit, capability, and relationship networks become portable and composable digital assets, humanity regains a fundamental freedom in the digital realm: migration. Identity becomes the atomic unit of a new civilization.

III. Economic Layer — From “Financial Lego” to “Social Lego”

When trusted digital identities become ubiquitous, a new credit-based market system emerges. Individuals transcend geography, evolving from digital nomads into digital citizens living within an economy secured by algorithmic trust.

3.1 Credit as Capital — The Rise of Personal Finance

When identity becomes trustable:

DAO members may issue reputation bonds

Developers can access trust-based loans

High-reputation communities may issue credit-backed stablecoins

Finance returns to its essence: the quantified expression of social trust.

3.2 Reputation as Productivity — The Market of Ideas

Every creation, interaction, and evaluation becomes part of one’s reputation asset portfolio.

Knowledge can be securitized.
Influence can be invested in.
Collaboration becomes quantifiable.

The trusted individual becomes the most productive individual.

3.3 Identity as Institution — Real-World Economy On-Chain

Trusted identity acts as an institutional bridge:

Corporate structures mapped to DAO sovereignty

Equity and voting rights encoded into NFTs/SBTs

Governance rules executed via smart contracts

This marks a shift from legal trust → algorithmic trust.

3.4 Paradigm Shift — Endogenous Trust and Reconstructed Order

When trusted individuals are the atomic units:

Transaction costs collapse
trust becomes intrinsic and algorithmic

Cost of evil skyrockets
SBTs permanently bind behavior to reputation

Rule of law → Reputation self-governance

A Trust Civilization emerges.

3.5 Rise of Digital Nomads → Digital Citizens

Basic economic security (UBI) arises from:

Data Asset Income
(privacy-preserving data rights markets using ZKPs)

Node Network Income
(staking, storage, computing in DePIN)

Together forming the economic base of DeSoc.

IV. Governance Layer — From “Full Agency” to “Bit-Style Authorization”

Power has always arisen from individuals surrendering their rights.

Under monarchy: one-time, irrevocable

Under constitutionalism: periodic but holistic

When rights become decomposable, composable, portable on-chain, the ancient political structure is fundamentally reconstructed: power shifts from monopoly to competition, from coercion to service.

RWOs and RWEs are redefined under this new paradigm.

4.1 DAO as Digital City-State

Each DAO has:

A written constitution (smart contracts)

An independent treasury

A citizenry (token holders, contributors)

4.2 Refined Freedom — Chain Migration and Multi-Dimensional Identity Allocation

Physical immigration is bundled and costly.
On-chain migration is granular and low-cost:

High reputation in a technical DAO

Core contributor of a cultural DAO

Governance rights exercised in aligned DAOs

Assets allocated in economically optimal DAOs

First time in history: comprehensive freedom of choice at low cost.

4.3 Governance Competition — The Attraction Contest

DAOs must compete for digital citizens:

Political Attraction: transparency, fairness, reversible authorization

Economic Attraction: tax design, revenue opportunities, public goods

Cultural Attraction: values, inclusiveness, creative vitality

Institutional innovation accelerates — just as in historical free city-states.

V. System Integration — DeSoc as an Emergent, Organic Ecosystem

When humans are fully confirmed on-chain — identity, credit, governance participation evolving continuously as composable data — a society of emergent order arises.

Not centrally planned, but co-created by:

billions of individual choices

automatic collaboration of smart contracts

DeSoc = a bottom-up mechanism of order generation.

At the individual level:
sovereign identity, economic security, contribution-based development.

At the governance level:
DAOs compete for talent, forming an open governance market.

At the system level:
power is tamed; innovation is amplified; dignity and autonomy secured.

For the first time, society’s codebase becomes upgradable in real time.

A civilization reboot begins — reborn in the world of bits.

VI. Conclusion — Toward a Bit Age of Self-Ownership, Self-Governance, and Self-Enjoyment

The Blockchain Civilization Trilogy completes a coherent loop:

We revealed the tool for taming power: reversible authorization, turning power into a service.

We established the substrate of civilization: Ethereum’s credible neutrality, global consensus, and programmability.

We depicted a new societal blueprint: identity confirmation → economic autonomy → governance competition → digital civilization centered on human sovereignty.

Civilization undergoes a profound substrate migration:

Atomic Age → Bit Age

Atomic logic produced geography, scarcity, and centralized power.
Bit logic enables global flow, infinite replicability, and decentralized power.

Identity becomes self-owned.
Governance becomes self-governed.
Revenue becomes self-enjoyed.

Lincoln’s ideal — of the people, by the people, for the people — gains a new, individualized interpretation:

“Of myself, by myself, for myself.”

This is — the Bit Age.

This article aims to explore The Upper Bound of Ethereum’s evolution from a “World Computer” to a “Civilizational Foundation”. We argue that the ultimate value of Ethereum lies in its role as the social operating system of a “Computational Civilization” — a programmable base layer that carries core civilizational elements such as wealth, identity, contract, and governance. By analyzing its triple foundations of technical, institutional, and cultural legitimacy, this paper systematically demonstrates Ethereum’s potential to become the root of civilization; furthermore, it explores its theoretical boundaries from four dimensions — technical, economic, governance, and social — ultimately defining the ultimate form of an “Ethereum Civilization” defined by physical limits, UBI, contestable sovereignty, and human-machine co-governance. The research concludes that The Upper Bound of Ethereum is essentially the limit of complexity, coordination, and secure evolutionary capacity that human social order can achieve on a programmable, verifiable foundation, offering a “meta-framework” for the safe evolution of civilization for the first time.

Keywords: Ethereum; Social Operating System; Trustworthy Neutrality; UBI; Contestable Sovereignty; Civilizational Framework; Metaverse Base Layer

I. Introduction: The Paradigm Shift from “Trust Machine” to “Social Operating System”

1. In the first paper, “Taming Leviathan,” we proposed the governance paradigm of “revocable authorization,” asserting that the legitimacy of power stems from its revocability, and revealed the important status of DAOs in governance practice. This paper further asks: What role will Ethereum play when the on-chain economic density and institutional complexity surpass those off-chain?

Ethereum’s narrative is undergoing a profound paradigm shift, evolving from a “protocol layer” focused on executing computation, to a “social operating system” that supports complex social collaboration. The Upper Bound of Ethereum is no longer defined by micro-indicators such as transaction throughput (TPS) or Gas fees, but by the institutional complexity, social scalability, and civilizational adaptability it can bear as the foundation of civilization.

More importantly, Ethereum has actually become the base layer for the human science fiction, the “Metaverse”. All functional modules and ecological synergy of the Metaverse must be built on top of Ethereum, as it is humanity’s first attempt to systematically reconstruct the underlying support for another parallel universe. Therefore, the core proposition of this paper is: Is The Upper Bound of Ethereum the limit of technical parameters, or the limit of human capacity to build civilizational complexity on a programmable foundation?

II. Pillars of Legitimacy: The Triple Foundations of Ethereum as a Civilizational Root

A system must pass the stringent test of legitimacy to bear civilization. Ethereum’s irreplaceable nature stems from the solid foundation it has built across the following three dimensions.

2.1 Technical Legitimacy: Uncompromising Security and Trustworthy Neutrality

The consensus system, with over 1.06 million active validator nodes globally and more than 34 million ETH locked, makes the cost of attack far exceed any potential gain, establishing absolute security in an “economic physics” sense. Continuous technological changes greatly enhance Ethereum’s scalability, providing technical support for it to carry large-scale applications.

Quantum resistance and long-term security planning ensure that Ethereum can maintain long-term security in a rapidly iterating technological environment, providing sustainability guarantees for its role as civilizational infrastructure.

More importantly, protocol rules are enforced by code rather than human will. This “code is law” neutrality is the prerequisite for attracting diverse global entities to converge and collaborate, and it is a moat that other high-performance chains, which compromise on decentralization, cannot match.

2.2 Institutional Legitimacy: Programmable Social Contract and “Institutional Lego”

Ethereum’s institutional legitimacy is reflected in its interaction with traditional governance systems and the maturation process of its internal governance mechanisms, which serves as the institutional guarantee for its role as a civilizational foundation.

Ethereum’s core value lies in transforming abstract social institutions (such as corporate law, contract law, governance charters) into composable, verifiable smart contracts, thus forming a programmable “social operating system”.

While Real-World Assets (RWA) are gradually moving on-chain, a deeper process based on the on-chain migration of the real world is unfolding — RWO (Real-World Organization).

The on-chain migration of RWO marks institutions themselves becoming composable “on-chain Legos” — identity modules, power modules, decision modules, financial modules, and auditing modules can be freely invoked, forked, and reorganized.

Ethereum’s institutional legitimacy will reach its ultimate establishment when human society’s institutions enter a “Three-Body-like” evolutionary stage where the cost of trial and error approaches zero, and the iteration speed is near real-time.

2.3 Cultural Legitimacy: Public Spirit and the Gene of Positive-Sum Game

Ethereum’s core values include decentralization, censorship resistance, transparency, and security. The global spread of these values makes Ethereum not just a technological platform but also a cultural symbol and value system, providing the basis for cultural identity as a civilizational foundation.

The Ethereum community has grown into a global, diverse network, encompassing participants from different backgrounds such as technical developers, financial innovators, artists, and social activists.

The Ethereum community culture is deeply rooted with an anti-zero-sum and pro-positive-sum gene. This public spirit, which transcends short-term interests, is the “soft power” that unites global collaboration, allowing Ethereum to move beyond a purely technical scope and become a global community with shared values.

III. Boundary Exploration: The Evolution Path from Technical Limits to Civilizational Expansion

Based on the above legitimacies, Ethereum’s development will touch its theoretical cap in four dimensions. These boundaries collectively outline the profile of the “Ethereum Civilization”, while also defining the core constraints for Metaverse construction.

3.1 Technical Boundary: From Scaling Challenges to the Exploration of Infinite Computing

The path to scaling is the core way for Ethereum to break through its technical boundary. The prosperity of the Layer 2 ecosystem and the continuous increase in Blob capacity are important ways for Ethereum to break through technical boundaries.

According to the Ethereum Foundation’s long-term technical planning, Ethereum can continuously break through technical boundaries in the foreseeable future, providing technical support for its role as civilizational infrastructure. Under the modular architecture, its computing power is theoretically scalable to support global-level applications.

However, the physical speed of light will become the absolute boundary for consensus synchronization. When human civilization moves toward the stars, inter-planetary communication delays will force the unified Ethereum network to split into multiple relatively independent “consensus autonomous regions,” forming civilizational partitions based on physical distance.

3.2 Economic Boundary: From Productive Capital to the UBI System

Vitalik once suggested that “low-risk decentralized finance (DeFi) is to Ethereum what search is to Google,” sustaining Ethereum’s minimum value. This is Ethereum’s floor.

With the continuous development of Real-World Assets (RWA) + Real-World Organization on-chain (RWO) and Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN), when the density of the on-chain economy and the complexity of its institutions surpass those off-chain, The Upper Bound of Ethereum is no longer defined by Earth’s GDP or market size, but is limited by the total complexity of the computational civilization.

At that time, its economic scale cap may reach several orders of magnitude above the Earth’s economy, becoming a “consensus economic universe” operated jointly by billions of humans and trillions of AIs.

In this system, the mechanisms for wealth creation and distribution will be reconstructed. The Global Basic Income (UBI) system will mainly consist of Node Dividend and Data Yield. $ETH will evolve into the fundamental unit for measuring the energy of the entire “consensus economic universe”. At this point, the essence of wealth is no longer the aggregation of assets in the traditional sense, but a function of the civilization’s capacity to coordinate complex activities. Therefore, The Upper Bound of Ethereum is truly the economic representation of the civilizational complexity it can support.

3.3 Governance Boundary: Contestable Sovereignty and Layered Legal Order

Ethereum’s governance boundary is reflected in its evolution from core developer dominance to multi-party co-governance, which is the governance foundation for its role as a civilizational root.

The Ethereum Foundation introduced four strategic pillars: accelerate, amplify, support, and long-term unblock, to support the ecosystem’s development. It also proposed the following two visions:

i. Maximize the number of people who directly or indirectly use Ethereum and benefit from its underlying values;

ii. Maximize the resilience of Ethereum’s technical and social infrastructure.

Ethereum has formed a multi-stakeholder governance model involving developers, validators, users, enterprises, and institutions. This pluralistic governance model can better balance the interests of different groups, enabling Ethereum to better adapt to complex ecosystem needs, thus providing governance assurance for its role as a civilizational root.

The development of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO) is an important manifestation of the expansion of Ethereum’s governance boundary.

Based on a Decentralized Society (DeSoc) formed by SBTs (Soulbound Tokens), individuals can seamlessly migrate their biometric characteristics (identity), capabilities, behavior, health, and wealth between different DAOs (which can be viewed as “digital city-states”). The role of real-world nations will gradually shift to “physical world public service providers” (public health, security). Ethereum, in turn, will become the “transnational constitutional layer,” setting underlying rules like “identity confirmation, asset protection”. Global governance will thus form a “layered legal order” of “Real-World Governance (Nation/Community) + On-Chain Governance (Constitutional Layer) + DAO Governance (Application Layer)”.

From this, a new system of contestable sovereignty emerges: power gains legitimacy through competition, governance achieves optimization through migration, and institutions complete iteration through consensus. “Sovereignty competition” will become the driving force for the continuous evolution of future society, and the quality of governance will be decided by the real-time voting of citizens’ migration data (“voting with their feet”).

3.4 Social Boundary: Human-Machine Co-Governance and the Consciousness Community Network

Ethereum’s social boundary is reflected in its evolution from an experiment by a few technical enthusiasts to a social infrastructure involving the global public, which is the social foundation for its role as a civilizational root.

Continuous optimization of user experience is a key way for Ethereum to break through social boundaries, enabling it to attract more non-technical users and expand its social base.

Enhancing localization and cultural adaptability is an important strategy for Ethereum to break through social boundaries; encouraging developers and users from different regions to build applications and services based on local needs and cultural characteristics allows Ethereum to better integrate into different social environments, providing a cultural foundation for its role as a civilizational root.

Expanding education and knowledge dissemination is an important way for Ethereum to break through social boundaries, enabling it to cultivate a broader talent base, providing human resource support for its long-term development.

When the abundance and depth of human digital identity (via technologies like SBT) and the on-chain activities of AI Agents collectively form the mainstream of social interaction, Ethereum will evolve into a neutral “Human-Machine Interaction Field”. Social governance will be jointly participated in by humans and silicon-based intelligence with on-chain personalities, and the social form will ultimately evolve into an inter-species consciousness community, making coordination intelligence Ethereum’s ultimate social function.

In this stage, Ethereum is no longer an extension tool of human society, but the new form of society itself — an operating system where humans and silicon-based intelligence co-inhabit.

In summary, the exploration of the technical, economic, governance, and social boundaries ultimately converges into a qualitative leap — when the core elements of civilization are encoded onto a programmable foundation, its evolutionary paradigm shifts from the slow, friction-filled, rigid iteration to agile, reversible, elastic evolution. This marks a systemic error-correction capability becoming an intrinsic attribute of civilization.

British physicist David Deutsch pointed out in The Beginning of Infinity: When a civilization masters a systemic error-correction mechanism, its progress will no longer have an upper limit.

This “infinitely correctable” capacity is the very source of civilization’s sustained evolution. Ethereum is precisely the technological realization of this error-correction mechanism. On Ethereum, social institutions are no longer unchangeable codes of law, but updatable code; power is no longer a static monopoly, but revocable authorization; governance is no longer a single design, but a continuous iteration process. This “institutional programmability” is essentially the “civilizational correctability”. It allows society to enter an operational mode of low-cost trial-and-error and high-frequency evolution, making the speed of institutional updates align with the speed of technological innovation for the first time.

When the social contract can be improved, copied, and forked like open-source software, humanity truly steps into a “beginning of infinity”: a civilizational stage that does not aim for perfection, but where continuous error correction and evolution are the norm.

This marks a fundamental leap for human society: from irreversibility to reversibility, from power monopoly to power mobility, and from institutional closedness to institutional openness.

Therefore, The Upper Bound of Ethereum is not a static endpoint, but an eternally activated “beginning of infinity” — a continuous, unbounded civilizational process driven by programmable institutions, revocable power, and iterative governance.

IV. Ultimate Form: The Infinite Game as a Civilizational Meta-Framework

Ethereum’s ultimate form is not any specific civilizational vision, but becoming a meta-framework for digital civilization — an underlying foundation that allows countless forms of civilization to be safely born, compete, evolve, and perish. It does not define the ultimate goal of civilization, but provides the necessary rules and soil for evolution.

4.1 Civilizational Meta-Framework: The Rules of the Infinite Game

As a meta-framework, Ethereum’s core is to establish a field for the infinite game. Within this field, all participants are engaged not in a finite game with an endpoint (such as winning an election, defeating an opponent), but in an infinite game aimed at making the game itself continue forever — that is, the continuation and prosperity of civilization itself.

Programmable institutions constitute the game’s mutable rules, allowing the social contract to iterate at the speed of code, enabling low-cost trial-and-error and high-frequency evolution.

Trustworthy neutral execution ensures the impartiality of the rules. Any participant, regardless of their strength, interacts under the same set of rules, which is the premise for the game’s continuation.

Contestable sovereignty introduces a competition mechanism for the rules. Different DAOs (“digital city-states”) can offer different governance models, cultural values, and economic systems. Individuals choose by “voting with their feet,” thereby driving the continuous optimization of the entire system.

Therefore, The Upper Bound of Ethereum is not a quantifiable technical metric, but the limit of complexity and coordination that a civilization can achieve after placing its core institutions on a programmable, verifiable foundation. Its limit is not the limit of computing power, but the limit of social coordinability. When a civilization’s institutions can be updated like code, and values can be freely migrated through consensus, human society enters a calculable, verifiable, and evolvable order space for the first time — this is the true meaning of the “Civilizational Cap”.

4.2 Metaverse: The First Instance of the Civilizational Framework

This civilizational meta-framework is not a castle in the air; its first, and most intuitive instance, is the Metaverse of human science fiction. In fact, Ethereum has objectively become the only viable base layer for constructing any true sense of the Metaverse.

The Metaverse is not merely a “virtual game” or “digital space”, but a parallel universe that requires “uniquely trusted identity, clear asset ownership, inviolable contracts, and highly efficient governance synergy” — these core needs are perfectly met by Ethereum’s underlying system:

Decentralized Identity (DID/SBT) ensures uniquely trusted and autonomous identity;

Non-Fungible/Fungible Tokens (NFT/FT) achieve clear asset ownership and global liquidity;

Smart Contracts guarantee inviolable and automated contract execution;

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO) support highly efficient governance synergy and revocable authorization.

In other words, all functional modules and ecological synergy of the Metaverse must be built on top of Ethereum or a similar trustworthy neutral base layer. Any so-called “Metaverse” that departs from this foundation, no matter how spectacular its visuals, will eventually fall into the traditional internet traps of platform monopoly or data silos, unable to become a true “parallel universe” where rights are fundamentally protected and the economy can freely thrive. Therefore, Ethereum is not just the civilizational framework; it is already the Constitution and the cornerstone of the Metaverse.

V. Conclusion: From Genesis Block to Genesis Civilization

From its very first “Genesis Block,” Ethereum has harbored the ambition to transcend technology. This paper systematically demonstrated its triple legitimacy, four boundaries, and ultimate form as a social operating system.

When identity, wealth, and governance fully migrate on-chain, Ethereum is no longer just a tool, but the “Promised Land of Digital Civilization”. Here, we are not merely users of code, but the founders jointly writing the social contract of the future.

The “possible future” envisioned by Vitalik is the path of technological implementation, while the “ultimate form” revealed in this paper is the underlying rule of civilizational evolution. Ethereum becomes the underlying protocol for all social experiments, and The Upper Bound of Ethereum is a function of humanity’s collective wisdom and capacity for collaboration — this is an infinite game that never ends.

From “Genesis Block” to “Genesis Civilization”, The Upper Bound of Ethereum is ultimately a reflection of our determination and imagination in choosing where to go together. It carries not only the evolution of a new technology but also humanity’s first attempt to build another universe in the digital frontier, and its boundary is the horizon of human collaboration and imagination.

Notes:

RWO, Real-World Organization, refers to the process of migrating the identity module, power module, decision module, financial module, and auditing module of real-world organizations (companies, groups, NGOs) on-chain in the form of smart contracts.

Node Dividend refers to the periodic income gained by nodes through consensus participation and resource contribution.

Data Yield refers to the income obtained from personal data in market exchange.

The core mission of political system design has always been to address the classic conundrum of “how to prevent the abuse of power”. From the sovereign metaphor of the “necessary evil” in Hobbes’s Leviathan to Madison’s design of the separation of powers to “make ambition counteract ambition,” the traditional governance paradigm focuses on horizontal checks and balances in the operation of power, but overlooks the technical feasibility of the power revocation mechanism — the core value of this “vertical constraint”.

1.1 Structural Blind Spot of the Traditional Paradigm

Locke (1689), in Two Treatises of Government, proposed that “government power is derived from the trust of the people, and violation of that trust can lead to its recall,” laying the theoretical foundation for the “authorization — revocation” model, but failed to solve the technical problem of “how to execute revocation at a low cost”. Montesquieu’s (1748) separation of powers and Buchanan’s (1962) public choice theory both focused on the allocation of power and supervision processes, avoiding the decisive impact of revocation cost on the mechanism’s effectiveness. Data from the World Bank (2024) shows that 43% of global constitutional crises stem from the “failure of legally prescribed revocation mechanisms due to excessive cost,” such as the impeachment process in the Brazilian Congress in 2023, which was stalled by political maneuvering and failed to reach a result after 11 months.

1.2 Core Value of Power Reversibility

This paper argues that constraint is an internal, horizontal, and process-based limitation within the power system, whereas reversibility is an external, vertical, and terminal limitation imposed by the grantor on the grantee, serving as the “Sword of Damocles” suspended over power. The core indicator for judging the effectiveness of a governance mechanism should not be the initial legitimacy of authorization or the intensity of supervision games, but rather “whether authorization can be revoked at any time with low cost and high efficiency”. This framework inherits Weber’s (1922) classification of the legitimacy of power, extending “Rational-Legal Authority” to “Technically Verifiable Reversible Authority,” to adapt to the dynamic characteristics of power in the digital age.

1.3 Research Methodology and Innovations

This paper adopts a “Three-Dimensional Integration” methodology:

Theoretical Dimension: Tracing the evolution of the power taming paradigm (Sacred Order → Constitutional Order → Algorithmic Order) and using institutional change theory to demonstrate the legitimacy of reversible authorization.

Model Dimension: Constructing the quantifiable PRI Index to achieve cross-institutional comparison of governance effectiveness.

Empirical Dimension: Comparative analysis of different governance models to verify the breakthrough of algorithmic governance.

Research innovations are reflected in three aspects:

Conceptual Innovation: Transforming “Power Reversibility” from an implicit assumption into an explicit measurement indicator.

Methodological Innovation: Constructing the multi-dimensional PRI Index to achieve quantitative comparison of governance effectiveness.

Practical Innovation: Revealing how algorithmic governance transforms a “political dilemma” into an “engineering problem” through technical means.

II. Theoretical Framework: Theoretical Foundation of Power Reversibility and the Construction of the PRI Model

2.1 Theoretical Lineage of Power Constraint and Paradigm Shift

2.1.1 Evolutionary Limitations of Traditional Power Constraint Theories

Power taming theory can be traced back to the origins of Western political thought. Aristotle’s theory of mixed government in Politics already contained the idea of achieving constraint through the balance of power. Since the modern era, Locke (1689) explicitly proposed that government power originates from the people’s trust, and the people have the right to recall authorization when the government violates that trust, thus establishing the theoretical prototype of authorization-revocation. Montesquieu’s (1748) systematic elaboration of the separation of powers became the core framework of modern constitutional systems, and Federalist Madison (1788) revealed the human basis of checks and balances with “ambition must be made to counteract ambition”. In contemporary research, Foucault’s (1975) “micro-power” theory broke through macroscopic analysis but did not address the technical realization of revocation; Ostrom’s (1990) theory of self-governance focused on the allocation of power in public affairs, but still failed to solve the revocation dilemma under the collective action problem. These theories commonly face the “high-cost trap” — electoral turnover requires periodic costs, judicial review presents procedural barriers, and revolutionary upheaval is accompanied by social turmoil, leading to “theoretically feasible, practically difficult”.

Table 1 Core Views and Deficiencies of Traditional Power Constraint Theories

2.1.2 Paradigm Shift in Blockchain Governance Research

Blockchain governance research has undergone a paradigm expansion from technology to society. Satoshi Nakamoto’s (2008) proposal of distributed ledger technology provided the technical possibility for the decentralization of power. Buterin (2014) positioned Ethereum as a “decentralized application platform,” driving blockchain’s shift from a monetary tool to a governance vehicle. Reijers et al. (2016) first linked blockchain governance with social contract theory, proposing that smart contracts are the technological realization of the social contract. Recent research shows two major branches : the technical governance path focuses on issues like optimizing consensus algorithms and smart contract security; the institutional governance path, with Weyl et al.’s (2022) concept of “Decentralized Society,” incorporates Soulbound Tokens (SBT) into the reputation governance framework, enriching the supervision dimension of power operation. However, existing research still has a noticeable gap: the value of blockchain in power constraint mostly remains at the level of theoretical deduction and qualitative description, lacking a systematic theoretical construction that takes ‘Reversible Authorization’ as the core analytical concept. This prevents its governance advantages from being effectively isolated and empirically measured from the traditional paradigm.

2.2 Construction and Operationalization of the Power Reversibility Index (PRI)

2.2.1 Indicator Dimension Design

Based on the “Cost — Efficiency — Security” triangular framework, the PRI includes 4 core dimensions, covering the full-process characteristics of power revocation:

Table 2 Indicator Dimensions and Measurement Methods of the Power Reversibility Index (PRI)

on the above dimensions, the core functional expression of the Power Reversibility Index is:PRI = f(-T,-C,+E,-D)(1).

Through this model, governance systems can be classified into four ideal types:

Table 3 Ideal Types of Governance Systems Based on PRI

ical Dilemma: The Dual Origin of Power, the Logic of Alienation, and the Limitations of Traditional Taming Paths

3.1 The Dual Origin of Power and the Paradox of Legitimacy

Power originates from two interwoven dimensions:

Functional Origin: As a natural product of social division of labor (Weber, 1922) , power spontaneously forms due to differences in ability, knowledge, or resources, such as the command authority of a tribal chief or the technical authority of an artisan.

Contractual Origin: As a result of political authorization (Locke, 1689) , power is voluntarily surrendered to public institutions through a social contract, such as the executive power of a modern government.

This dual origin creates a paradox of legitimacy : functional power is easily transformed into “hereditary privilege” (e.g., European medieval nobility), and contractual power easily breaks through the boundary of the mandate (e.g., modern absolute monarchy). Patterson (1982), in Slavery and Social Death, reveals that the ultimate alienation of power is “complete and perpetual domination of the individual” — whether the personal ownership of slavery or the total control of a totalitarian regime, the essence is an extreme form of “Irreversible Authorization”.

3.2 Self-Reinforcing Mechanism of Power Alienation

Once power is generated, it achieves self-reinforcement through a triple path:

Monopoly of Violence: Controlling the state apparatus (military, police) to suppress revocation demands (e.g., “L’État, c’est moi” of Louis XIV in 17th-century France).

Ideological Manipulation: Constructing a narrative of “power sacralization” (e.g., Divine Right of Kings, cult of personality) to reduce the public’s willingness to revoke.

Information Monopoly: Blocking data on power operation (e.g., the “internal document” system of traditional governments) to increase the information cost of revocation.

Acemoglu and Robinson (2012), in Why Nations Fail, point out that this self-reinforcement ultimately forms “Extractive Institutions” — such as the oligarchic regimes in 19th-century Latin America, which maintained power by manipulating elections, with revocation costs as high as 15%-20% of GDP, leading to long-term economic stagnation.

3.3 Fundamental Limitations of Traditional Taming Paths

The two main taming paths throughout human history have failed to break through the “Irreversible Dilemma” : those based on the “goodness or evil of human nature” for moral constraint, and those based on the “public or private nature of human nature” for institutional separation of powers. The former relies on the moral self-discipline of the ruler, such as Plato’s “Philosopher King” or the concept of “Sage Rulers and Virtuous Prime Ministers” in ancient China; the latter achieves checks and balances through the separation of powers, such as Montesquieu’s design of the tripartite system. However, both paths face the same fundamental dilemma — once authorization is given, it is difficult to revoke. Whether through electoral turnover or revolutionary overthrow, the process of power revocation is fraught with enormous friction, cost, and uncertainty, making the corrective cost extremely high once power spirals out of control.

IV. Algorithmic Governance: Technical Breakthrough and Empirical Verification of Power Reversibility

The emergence of blockchain and smart contract technologies for the first time technically achieves the symmetry of “Authorization — Revocation,” constructing a new paradigm of algorithmic governance.

4.1 Technical Realization Mechanism of Algorithmic Governance

4.1.1 Smart Contracts: Programmable Encoding of Power

Smart contracts transform power relations into precise code through the logic of “condition trigger — automatic execution”. The core mechanisms include:

Atomic Authorization: Based on the ERC-1155 standard, traditional blanket powers (e.g., “Administrative Authority”) are disaggregated into discrete permission units (e.g., “Fund Approval Authority — 001,” “Data Access Authority — 002”), clearly defining the subject of revocation.

Multi-Layer Trigger Mechanism: Rule trigger (automatic revocation upon violation), consensus trigger (execution upon reaching community vote threshold), and emergency trigger (activation by a multi-signature committee), covering different scenario needs.

Immutable Record: All power operations (authorization, exercise, revocation) are recorded on the chain, verifiable in real-time through tools like Etherscan, reducing information asymmetry.

4.2 Empirical Comparison: PRI Comparison of Traditional Governance and Algorithmic Governance

In contrast to the characteristics of traditional political systems — centralized authorization, slow revocation, and delayed feedback — algorithmic governance exhibits “anti-traditional” features: instant feedback, transparent execution, procedural autonomy, and minimal destructiveness.

Table 4 PRI Indicator Comparison of Different Governance Models

4.2.1 Case Study Verification: MakerDAO’s “Black Thursday” Response

During the “Black Thursday” market crash in March 2020, the ETH price plummeted by 58%, and MakerDAO faced the risk of insufficient collateral. The community completed three key operations through on-chain governance within 48 hours:

Revoked the authorization for the original “Single Collateral Dai”.

Granted the permission for “Multi-Collateral Dai (MCD)”.

Adjusted the liquidation ratio parameter (from 150% to 175%).

Compared to similar operations by traditional central banks (e.g., the US Federal Reserve’s Quantitative Easing in 2008 took 30 days and cost about $200 million), MakerDAO reduced the time cost of power restructuring by 97% and the economic cost by 99.99% (only $12,000 in Gas fees).

4.2.2 Industry Data Corroboration

According to DeepDAO statistics (2024), as of Q2 2024, the top 50 DAOs by market capitalization handle an average of 5.7 major governance proposals per month, 15% of which are rejected by community vote due to “risks of power abuse”. This indicates that power adjustment and revocation have become high-frequency, regular operations in the DAO ecosystem, which stands in stark contrast to the “once every 4–6 years election turnover” in traditional politics.

4.2.3 Core Findings

Transformation of Accountability Model: Traditional politics relies on “event-based accountability” (discrete, periodic), while algorithmic governance constructs “process-based accountability” (real-time, continuous), transforming Locke’s “Right of Resistance” from a high-cost natural right into a low-cost procedural right.

Restructuring of the Concept of Sovereignty: “Programmable Constitutionalism” transforms sovereignty from “centralized rule” into “distributed, revocable consensus,” such as the dual structure of Optimism Collective’s “Citizens’ House + Token House,” which balances the influence of capital and contribution through SBT reputation weight.

V. Challenges and Response Strategies for Algorithmic Governance

5.1 Risk of Rule Rigidity and the Elastic Mechanism

The certainty of “code is law” may sacrifice the system’s flexibility in responding to black swan events. Response strategies include:

Upgradeable Contracts: Allowing the iteration of governance rules through community voting (e.g., Aave V3’s “Governance Parameter Dynamic Adjustment Module”).

Emergency Switch: Setting up a “circuit breaker mechanism” controlled by a multi-signature committee to pause power execution in extreme risks (e.g., Compound’s “Guardian Role”).

5.2 Technical Elitism and Monopoly Risk

The technical threshold for code development and auditing may lead to the concentration of power in the hands of a few teams. Solutions:

Multi-Party Auditing: Mandatory requirement for smart contracts to be audited by more than 3 independent institutions (e.g., OpenZeppelin, Trail of Bits).

Open Source Transparency: Core code is fully open source, encouraging community vulnerability submissions (e.g., MakerDAO’s “Code Bounty Program”).

5.3 Plutocracy Risk and Fairness Mechanism

The concentration of governance tokens may lead to “capital dictatorship”. Response paths:

Quadratic Voting: Suppressing manipulation by large holders by making “voting cost proportional to the square of the votes” (e.g., Gitcoin Grants funding voting).

SBT Reputation Weight: Linking governance weight to non-transferable contribution records (code submissions, community service) to balance capital and capability (e.g., Optimism’s “Citizen Score”).

5.4 Legal Uncertainty and Compliance Adaptation

The ambiguity of DAO’s legal status and the pending legal validity of smart contracts can be solved through a “Hybrid Model”:

Off-Chain Entity Anchoring: Referring to the US Wyoming “DAO Law,” establishing a “DAO Limited Liability Company” as the legal entity.

Compliance Plugin: Smart contracts integrate regional regulation adaptation modules (e.g., triggering GDPR data deletion clauses for EU users).

5.5 Insufficient Participation and Incentive Mechanism

The problem of low governance voting rates (most DAOs have a voting rate < 20%) can be improved through the following ways:

Delegated Voting: Allowing users to delegate their voting rights to professional representatives (e.g., Delegates.app DAO delegation market).

Participation Rewards: Issuing governance token rewards to voters (e.g., Uniswap’s “Voting Incentive Pool”); Aragon data shows this mechanism can increase the voting rate by over 30%.

VI. Conclusion and Future Outlook

6.1 Research Conclusion

Theoretical Breakthrough: Power reversibility is the core indicator for measuring governance effectiveness; the traditional paradigm is trapped by “high revocation costs,” while algorithmic governance achieves “low-cost, high-certainty” reversible authorization through technical means, restructuring the logic of power constraint.

Empirical Finding: The ‘Power Revocation Spectrum’ model constructed in this paper, starting from the ‘terminal mechanism’ of power operation, provides a new scientific benchmark for diagnosing and designing governance systems.

Practical Value: “Programmable Constitutionalism” offers solutions for new problems like AI governance and transnational digital sovereignty — for example, controlling AI decision-making authority through reversible authorization to avoid algorithmic tyranny.

6.2 Research Limitations and Future Directions

This research still has two limitations : first, the weighting of the PRI indicators needs subsequent quantification through big data to achieve quantitative analysis of governance models; second, the case studies are concentrated in the Web3 ecosystem, with insufficient coverage of traditional government scenarios. Future research can focus on three major directions:

Cross-Chain Governance Interoperability: Exploring the PRI collaboration mechanisms between different blockchain systems to achieve cross-network uniformity of power reversibility.

AI — Human Hybrid Governance: Studying the rules for power authorization and revocation of AI agents, constructing a “human-machine collaboration” reversible governance framework.

Ethical Encoding Technology: Developing “ethical modules” that can be embedded in smart contracts to resolve value conflicts (e.g., prioritizing the right to life in medical resource allocation).

6.3 Governance Enlightenment

The revolutionary significance of algorithmic governance lies not only in the efficiency improvement at the technical level but also in restructuring the relationship between “power and the people” — from “one-time authorization” to “continuous verification,” and from “passive supervision” to “active revocation”. As Madison said, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary”. In the age of algorithms, humanity has finally obtained a technical tool that can respond in real-time to the reality that “men are not angels” — the reversible authorization mechanism. This mechanism allows the “Taming of the Leviathan” to no longer rely on ambition counteracting ambition, but on code counteracting power alienation, opening up a new technical path for humanity’s eternal pursuit of freedom and good governance.

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