The Birth of EthSign and The Big Pivot
Sign actually started back in 2021 as EthSign which was this simple idea. a blockchain based document signing platform like DocuSign but on chain where you could verify signatures and contracts permanently . the team founded by Xin Yan Potter Li and Jack Xu built it through hackathons and got some traction in places like Indonesia Turkey and Nigeria where crypto adoption was high but traditional e-signatures weren't popular .
but heres the thing they realized pure Web3 apps werent onboarding mass users fast enough. Xin Yan the CEO wrote this honest post about how they "burned millions of dollars iterating products" trying to find product market fit . the problem was most users dont care about privacy as much as crypto people think and they definitely dont want to manage seed phrases.
so in 2024 they made a huge pivot. rebranded from EthSign to just Sign and launched Sign Protocol an "omni-chain attestation system" . instead of just signing documents they built infrastructure for verifying any kind of credential identity or claim across multiple blockchains. the name change signaled they werent just about Ethereum anymore and they werent just about document signing. they were becoming a chain agnostic trust layer.
From Protocol to National Infrastructure Giant
the pivot worked better than anyone expected. by end of 2024 Sign had processed over 6 million attestations and distributed more than 4 billion dollars in tokens to 40 million wallets across 200+ projects . TokenTable their distribution engine became the go to for TON ecosystem projects like Notcoin which onboarded millions with simple tap to earn mechanics .
in 2025 they raised 16 million from YZi Labs following earlier 12 million from Sequoia and Mirana . but the craziest evolution happened late 2025. Sign went from crypto protocol to actual government infrastructure provider. they signed deals with Kyrgyzstan's National Bank for Digital SOM CBDC serving 7.2 million citizens and with Sierra Leone for digital ID and stablecoin infrastructure . even CZ showed up at the Kyrgyzstan signing ceremony.
they launched "Sovereign Layer 2 Stack" based on opBNB letting governments run compliant blockchain infrastructure while connecting to global liquidity . today Sign processes over 4 billion in assets distributed 55 million users served and partnerships across Middle East Asia and Africa . from simple signing tool to sovereign infrastructure giant thats quite the glow up fr.