Identity protocol v1

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Revision as of 05:35, 28 June 2013 by Jgarzik (talk | contribs) (Creating sacrifice transactions)
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Design goals

Decentralized identity.

  • Has some creation cost
  • Sacrifice may be digitally proven, bootstrapping root of trust from blockchain data
  • Start as anonymous; opt out of anonymity by attaching identifying key-value pairs (real.name = "John Smith").


Creating sacrifice transactions

An implementation of Announce/Commit Sacrifices. That author's feedback on this protocol was very helpful.

  1. MPK = master public key
  2. TM = current block height
  3. Create and sign transaction T2. Broadcast if desired.
    1. must include Hash160(MPK) OP_TRUE anyone-can-spend output with value >= 0.001BTC
    2. nlocktime = TM + 144 blocks
    3. no more than 1000 bytes in size
  4. Create, sign and broadcast transaction T1
    1. must include OP_RETURN serialized(T2) output as last txout

Creating a SIN

A SIN ("System Identification Number") is the unique record identifier by which this identity will be known.

  1. Prefix = 0x18
  2. SIN_Version = 0x01
  3. MD = Hash160(MPK)
  4. SIN = base58_encode_check( Prefix + SIN_Version + MD )
  5. Hyphenate or space SIN for easier human reading

Validating the root identity information

  1. B1 = block w/ T1, B2 = block w/ T2
  2. Verify B2 height - 144 >= B1 height.
  3. Verify announced T2 is valid
  4. Verify mined T2 spends same inputs as announced T2 (not equal to account for Transaction Malleability)
  5. Fail and waste sacrifice if not.


Thus a minimal root record is MPK and is provably

  • linked to the sacrifices
  • MPK starts a new chain of digital signature trust, for further record updates

After that, additional key-value pairs may be associated with the root record via updates verified by PPK, stored in an alt-blockchain or DHT somewhere. That is outside the scope of this minimal document.