When Ethereum launched in 2015, it sparked a vision of the internet that felt next-level: programmable, ownable, and built for people rather than platforms. Smart contracts would remake everything from finance to governance, and digital ownership would extend beyond speculation to identity, creativity, and coordination.
Nearly a decade later, it’s clear that innovative protocols alone don’t create transformative experiences. The tools we built first, like wallets, tokens, and NFTs, reflected our early understanding of what blockchain could do, not necessarily what it should do.
This is exactly the thinking behind LUKSO: not to compete with Ethereum, but to create a dedicated space for its evolution, a place to develop and test the new standards Web3 actually needs.
“The irony is that ERC-20, which I co-created with Vitalik, unintentionally set the focus on financial applications for nearly a decade,” explains Fabian Vogelsteller, LUKSO’s founder and former Ethereum lead DApp developer. “It almost seemed as if what excited us all initially was forgotten, using this technology as a foundation for new societies that put the individual at the center.”
Why Standards Evolution Needed Its Own Environment
Ethereum’s standards were designed to be immutable and backward-compatible, essential for financial stability, but restrictive for experimentation. Trying to radically reimagine accounts, identity, and interactions within the constraints of ERCs was like remodeling a house with the foundation still in place.
What we’ve normalized as ‘how blockchain works’ like: anonymous key-pairs, non-reactive wallets, token silos, and isolated dApps, aren’t immutable truths. These were early design choices, not immutable laws of cryptography. And today, they actively constrain evolution.
To deal with these constraints, LUKSO didn’t just build features, it built an entirely new standards layer for Web3. LUKSO introduced its own standards track: LUKSO Standard Proposals (LSPs), as a clean slate to rethink Ethereum’s smart contract architecture. Over 25 LSPs have been developed so far, many building on ERC725 and introducing entirely new capabilities for accounts, permissions, metadata, and assets. Some are foundational, like LSP0 (Universal Profile) and LSP6 (Key Manager), while others are composable layers that extend functionality without fragmenting compatibility.
LUKSO acknowledges something many Web3 find uncomfortable: sometimes you need a clean slate to prototype the next generation. It shares Ethereum’s core ethos while providing room for holistic standards reinvention that would be impossible to achieve within Ethereum’s framework.
Universal Profiles: Rethinking Identity from First Principles
LUKSO centers around the Universal Profile, a completely new on-chain identity system designed to tackle blockchain’s most persistent limitations.
Unlike traditional wallets that are merely key pairs, Universal Profiles are smart contract accounts that combine identity, permissions, and wallet functionality into a single system. This creates fundamentally different capabilities:
- Evolving permissions and multi-device control: Profiles can be controlled by any combination of devices, individuals, groups, or even governance systems, without changing the profile itself.
- Reactive capabilities: With LSP1 Universal Receiver, profiles can respond to incoming transactions, enabling automation and interactions that are impossible with traditional wallets.
- Extensible metadata: Profiles store rich, evolving information through ERC725Y, creating consistent identity across applications.
- Gasless transactions: Through LSP25 Execute Relay Call, users can interact with applications without first acquiring tokens, significantly lowering onboarding barriers.
Token Standards for People, Not Just Protocols
The limitations of ERC-20 and ERC-721 became clear as the ecosystem grew. These standards were designed before we understood how tokens would actually be used, and their rigidity has created significant UX challenges.
LUKSO’s LSP7 (Digital Asset) and LSP8 (Identifiable Digital Asset) standards represent a comprehensive evolution:
- Rich, extensible metadata directly in the token contract
- Built-in notifications for both sender and recipient when assets transfer
- A “force” parameter for more secure transfers that prevents common attack vectors
- Consistent interfaces across fungible and non-fungible assets
These are foundational improvements that enable more sophisticated applications and address security vulnerabilities in existing standards.
A Laboratory, Not a Competitor
LUKSO’s approach is a standards laboratory instead of a competing ecosystem. It’s built with full EVM compatibility and uses Ethereum’s Proof of Stake consensus, maintaining developer tooling compatibility. LUKSO isn’t about replacing Ethereum but providing a controlled environment where the next generation of standards can be developed, tested, and refined.
“Standards come from someone, but are not owned by anyone,” as the LUKSO team puts it. The goal isn’t to create a walled garden, but to develop open standards that could eventually benefit the entire ecosystem.
Universal Everything, LUKSO’s experimental hub, brings Universal Profiles, LSP standards, and Mini-Apps together in a composable interface. It offers a glimpse into how these new standards interoperate across identity, assets, and social interaction. It’s a tangible proof-of-concept, showing what’s possible when you rebuild blockchain interaction from the ground up.
The Cultural Engineers
LUKSO is designed for what Vogelsteller calls “cultural engineers”—builders who see code and culture as equally foundational to creating the next internet. These developers, creators, and protocol designers understand that compelling user experiences require both technical excellence and cultural relevance.
This focus explains why LUKSO was initially associated with creative industries like fashion and art. These were strategic entry points to demonstrate how blockchain could serve creative expression beyond financial speculation.
Rather than focusing only on financial applications, LUKSO prioritizes identity, coordination, and creative expression, building infrastructure for social and cultural applications that have struggled elsewhere.
Beyond Maximalism: An Invitation, Not a Competition
While the blockchain space often turns into tribal competitions, LUKSO takes a more nuanced view of ecosystem evolution. Some problems require coordinated changes to foundational standards. These are nearly impossible to implement on established chains with billions in locked value.
The invitation is open: explore these standards, build with them, and help shape what comes next. The LSP ecosystem isn’t exclusive to LUKSO. It’s built to be adopted by any EVM chain that sees value in these foundations.
For developers frustrated with today’s account limitations, for creators looking for seamless digital identity, and for communities designing new forms of coordination, LUKSO offers something different: a bottom-up rethinking of blockchain infrastructure, built around people, not protocols.
As account abstraction changes how wallets work, and onchain social enters serious discussion, LUKSO doesn’t read as just another alt-EVM play. Its standards-first approach shifts perspectives on what blockchain infrastructure can be, not just programmable money, but programmable identity, interaction, and culture.
If Web3 is going to grow up, it needs spaces built for more than speculation. It needs places like this. The laboratory is open. The experiments have begun. And the results might just show us what the next generation of Web3 will look like.
Final Words
LUKSO revives Ethereum’s original vision by building a standards-first blockchain for identity, culture, and interaction—proving innovation thrives when we rethink infrastructure with people, not just protocols, at the core.
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