Background & Problem Definition

Email remains the most universal communication protocol in the world, but its foundations are outdated and fragile:

Centralized Hosting → Mailboxes are controlled by corporations like Google or Microsoft, creating choke points for censorship, surveillance, and lock-in.
Surveillance by Default → Metadata and even message content are harvested for profiling, ads, and government requests.
Weak Authentication → Legacy standards like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are optional and inconsistent, leaving users vulnerable to impersonation and spoofing.
Spam & Phishing Epidemic → Billions of spam emails cost the world billions in fraud, scams, and lost productivity.

👉 Despite being universal, email is neither private, nor secure, nor owned by its users.

Web3 today suffers from disconnected identity silos:

Wallets → hold assets and sign transactions, but cannot natively communicate.
Domains (e.g., .sol, ENS, .com) → provide names, but lack universal communication or trust guarantees.
Email → remains separate from both, forcing users to juggle multiple accounts, identifiers, and credentials.

This creates friction and value leakage:

A DAO might use Discord, a domain, and multiple wallets to coordinate.
An enterprise juggles Google Workspace for communication, plus a wallet for treasury, plus custom tools for contracts.
An individual may have multiple wallet addresses, a .sol name, and several emails — but no unified identity.

👉 There is no standard, verifiable identity + communication system that bridges Web3 and the familiar email metaphor.

Legacy email and identity systems are fundamentally incapable of serving Web3’s needs. They lack:

On-Chain Provenance → No cryptographic proof of who actually sent a message. Reputation is off-chain and easily faked.
Programmable Settlement → Payments, contracts, and invoices are disconnected from communication, forcing users into risky off-platform links.
Immutable Audit Trails → No tamper-proof history of communication or agreements.
Sovereignty → Identities are rented from providers, not owned by users.

👉 Web3 requires communication as a native primitive, secured by private keys and enforced on-chain.

For communication and identity to be native to Web3, SolMail establishes four non-negotiable requirements:

Cryptographic Identity → Usernames, inboxes, and domains must be secured by private keys, not rented accounts.
End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) by Default → Messages and attachments are encrypted client-side; only sender and receiver can access them.
Composability → Communication must seamlessly integrate with DeFi, NFTs, DAOs, payments, and decentralized storage.
Final Settlement → Messages, invoices, and agreements must settle on-chain, with the same security guarantees as asset transfers.

Last updated 1 month ago