Verifiable Cities
Examining where coordination and verifiability constraints are most acute in urban systems and how public blockchains can meaningfully expand civic and state capacity.
Verifiable Cities
The Use Case Lab is an applied research initiative at the Ethereum Foundation focused on advancing under-explored, high-impact use cases for Ethereum through collaborative prototyping, pilots, and standards. Verifiable Cities is an open call for implementations that examine where coordination and verifiability constraints are most acute in urban systems, and where public blockchains can meaningfully expand civic and state capacity.
Downloadable PDF: EFUCL_Verifiable_Cities_Program_Brief.pdf
Contact
Program Team
This following brief serves as a map of the current use case landscape and resource to support further inquiry as the space evolves.
Overview
Cities are increasingly expected to deliver public services with greater effectiveness and accountability. While many are beginning to adopt AI and data-driven systems, a shared digital foundation to support coordination and verifiability across organizations and domains remains largely absent. As a result, long-standing public-sector challenges—such as fragmented data sharing, citizen privacy concerns, slow financial flows, and high compliance and reporting costs—continue to divert institutional capacity away from improving services and outcomes.
Rather than introduce new fully centralized or closed platforms, recent advances in public blockchains make it possible to transparently embed verification, accountability, and coordination capabilities directly into how public rules and finances operate. These technologies offer a practical path to increasing state capacity without expanding state power and vendor control, or adding further administrative overhead.
Why Cities
- HYPOTHESIS #1: Cities are the primary institutional level where coordination and service delivery must happen in real time due to their proximity to operational pressure.
- HYPOTHESIS #2: Cities face immediate service demands, operate across dense networks of public and private actors, and contend with real implications and constraints that require equally pragmatic solutions.
- HYPOTHESIS #3: Thousands of municipal governments and service providers worldwide face common operational needs, creating clear opportunities for experimentation and knowledge transfer.
- HYPOTHESIS #4: Together these conditions make cities powerful levers for public sector innovation, offering a scalable pathway for modernizing civic and state capacity.
Call for Implementations
The Ethereum Foundation Use Case Lab is issuing an open call for implementations. Priority will be given to implementations that are narrowly scoped, aware of real-world constraints, and test approaches that can inform broader adoption over time.
Implementations may take several forms:
- Sandboxed/Focused Pilots
- Policy Frameworks & Regulatory Guidance
- Technical Primitives & Open Standards
We anticipate supporting a select number of implementations through a combination of technical support, exploratory funding, and connections to relevant collaborators.
If you are currently working in or are interested in learning more about this space, we invite you to submit an Expression of Interest.
Inspiration
AI & Programmability
- How Blockchain & AI are Solving Each others Biggest Challenges - Tonya M. Evans
- The Agentic State: Rethinking Government for the Era of Agentic AI - Ilves et al.
- Rules as Code Demonstration - MIT Law
- Gap Map: Manual Policy Creation and Evaluation - Convergent Research
Trust & Cryptographic Verifiability
- The Importance of Full-Stack Openness and Verifiability - Vitalik Buterin
- Trust in Public Institutions - UNDP
- Atoms, Institutions, and Blockchains - Josh Stark
- Trust Everything Everywhere Programme Opportunity Space - ARIA
- A Primer to Cryptography Primitives - Nothing Research
City & Policy Innovation
- Can Cities Be the Source of Scalable Innovations? - Christof Brandtner
- Administration Markets - Chris Beiser
- Crypto Cities - Vitalik Buterin
- An Organizational Theory of State Capacity - Erik Snowberg & Michael M. Ting
- The New Problem-Solving Skills That All Cities Need - James Anderson
Government & Digital Public Infrastructure
- How Government Procurement Creates Tech Stack Chaos - Joy Bonaguro
- The Future of Planning | Rules-Based Planning - Alastair Parvin
- Further Thoughts on a New Local Government Digital Service - Theo Blackwell MBE
- The Path to a Sovereign Tech Stack Is via a Commodified Tech Stack - David Eaves
- How to Digitize the Government - Statecraft
Use Case Radar
- California DMV: 42 million car titles on blockchain to fight fraud.
- Bhutan: Launches national digital identity on Ethereum.
- Zoning: How blockchain could make zoning work for people.
- NYC: Plural voting for participatory budgeting.
- Quincy, MA: First U.S. city to issue blockchain-based municipal bonds.
- Shreveport, LA: Low-cost public WiFi network using blockchain.
- Madrid, Spain: Unifying public transport payments via blockchain.
- Buenos Aires: Digital ID on Ethereum.
- Water Management: Blockchain-enabled water metering.
- Bellpuig, Spain: Town referendum on Ethereum.
- Public Procurement: Reducing corruption through blockchain.
- Seoul: Blockchain voting system launch.
- Oakland: Quadratic funding pilot for non-profits.
- Dubai Customs: Blockchain platform for supply chain transparency.
WANT TO DISCUSS THIS PILOT?
Get in touch →