Ethereum Foundation opens portal for digital public infrastructure

A portal for public-interest institutions

The Ethereum Foundation opened a portal dedicated to digital public infrastructure on November 3, 2026. The site is aimed at governments, multilateral organizations, NGOs and other public-interest institutions assessing the use of a public network. It gathers explanations, case studies and technical resources. This launch is a documentation initiative from the Foundation; it does not announce a new Ethereum protocol or a public service automatically adopted by any government.

The portal presents Ethereum as shared infrastructure that can verify records without dependence on a single operator. The Foundation emphasizes open-source software, institutions’ ability to run their own network access and the continued authority of their internal policies. It also states that it does not control Ethereum. The proposed benefits—resilience, reduced vendor dependence and verifiability—must therefore be assessed against the costs, governance and obligations of each project.

Bhutan illustrates the separation between registry and data

The most detailed case study concerns Bhutan’s national digital identity. The portal says 449,549 people had been onboarded by the end of 2025, up from 172,922 a year earlier. More than 70 public services, all five of the country’s banks and both telecom operators were connected to the system, according to the cited annual report. Bhutan Development Bank is also said to have remotely onboarded more than 7,000 customers using the identity system.

Ethereum’s role is narrower than storing identities in general. A shared registry contains information about recognized credential issuers and expected formats, while personal credentials remain in users’ NDI wallets. A service can verify a document’s signature and validity without publishing its contents on the blockchain. Bhutanese authorities remain responsible for deciding who may issue or verify a credential; Ethereum does not certify the accuracy of administrative information.

Prototypes that still need evaluation

The Foundation also publishes work on humanitarian-aid coordination. One proof of concept combines decentralized identity, zero-knowledge proofs and private payments so several organizations can coordinate assistance without exchanging their complete personal records. Other resources examine credential revocation, cryptographic-proof performance on lower-end Android phones and transaction-fee sponsorship without revealing which member of a group acted.

These materials describe architectures and prototypes, not widespread deployments. Their usefulness will depend on account recovery, support for people with limited connectivity, wallet security, costs and the allocation of responsibilities. The portal’s figures come from the organizations and reports cited by the Foundation and should be followed in those sources. The verifiable event on November 3 is the opening of a documentation entry point; the next evidence will be new deployments, independent audits and results measured by the institutions using them.