XID

Sistema / Diseño de Identidad

Novel decentralized identifier architecture — "eXtensible IDentifier" — defined as a unique 32-byte identifier for a subject entity (person, organization, device, or any abstract subject), generated from the SHA-256 hash of an inception key. XIDs resolve to XID Documents — Gordian-Envelope-encoded controller documents that bind the identifier to public keys, permissions, endpoints, and delegation rules — and inherit Envelopes selective elision so the controller document can be tailored per-recipient. The defining architectural insight is that holders, not issuers, control which parts of the controller document are revealed to which counterparties. Intentionally not W3C DID-conformant: XIDs are research/architectural exploration positioned alongside (not within) the W3C DID paradigm. Recently extended with "Edges" (BCR-2026-003) to support web-of-trust attestations between XIDs

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Licencia BSD-2-Clause Plus Patent License — bc-xid-rust reference library; bc-envelope-cli tooling supports XID operations
Estado de Desarrollo 🔬 Beta
Detalle del Estado de Desarrollo Research / pre-spec — partial reference implementation in bc-xid-rust; "open for community feedback"; Q1 2026 Blockchain Commons report describes XIDs as "one of our largest current projects"
Propietario Blockchain Commons LLC (not-for-profit benefit corporation founded by Christopher Allen, April 25, 2019; Berkeley, California). Specification author: Wolf McNally, Lead Researcher
Órgano de Gobierno Blockchain Commons LLC (not-for-profit benefit corporation)
País USA (Berkeley, California)
Año de Inicio 2024
Stack Rust (bc-xid-rust); integrated with bc-envelope, provenance-mark crates
Financiamiento Blockchain Commons donations and patron sponsorships
Última Investigación 1 jul 2026

Dominios de Caso de Uso

Identidad y Confianza

Sistema / Diseño de Identidad Atributos

Orígenes Blockchain Commons; built on the Gordian Envelope architecture; influenced by but explicitly diverging from W3C DID Core
Base de Datos N/A — controller documents are Envelope artifacts; persistence is implementation concern (registry, web URL, blockchain, peer-shared via Garner)
Lenguaje de Consulta N/A directly — Envelope's selective-disclosure mechanism via inclusion proofs effectively functions as the query model; recipients receive only the parts of the controller document the holder chooses to reveal
Formatos de Datos CBOR (deterministic via dCBOR); 32-byte identifier tagged with CBOR tag #6.40024; XID Documents as Gordian Envelopes
Soporte Móvil Yes — libraries cross-compile to mobile platforms; Envelope tooling on mobile via BCSwiftEnvelope
Soporte Web Yes — TypeScript library (xid by Leonardo Custodio); web-compatible Envelope serialization
Aplicaciones Nativas CLI tooling (bc-envelope-cli with XID operations); Garner system for publishing identity content
Términos Open research, BSD-2-Clause Plus Patent License
Fondos Unknown — funded under Blockchain Commons general operating budget; specific XID allocation not separately published
Basado En Gordian Envelope (controller documents); dCBOR (deterministic encoding); SHA-256 (inception-key-derived identifier); Provenance Marks (versioning); FROST (group signing); SSKR (recovery)
Autenticación e Identidad Self-certifying identifier — the XID is the SHA-256 hash of an inception public key, providing cryptographic proof of origin while allowing keys to be rotated without changing the identifier
Modelo de Almacenamiento XID Documents resolved via dereferenceVia assertions (HTTPS resolvers, BTCR, IPFS, Hubert dead-drops, etc.); decentralized resolution; holders can publish elided versions to different recipients
Interoperabilidad Inspired by but intentionally not conformant to W3C DID Core; standalone architecture leveraging Gordian stack; can encode dereferenceVia URIs to existing W3C DID resolvers as a bridge
Portabilidad de Datos By design — identifier is portable (hash of inception key, no registry binding); controller document portable via Envelope encoding; selective-disclosure subsets cryptographically verifiable independent of full document
Gobernanza y Toma de Decisiones Holder-controlled — architectural commitment that the identifier holder, not the issuer, controls disclosure; this is fundamentally a different governance model from issuer-mediated SSI flows
Estándares de Identidad Self-defined (Blockchain Commons Research papers BCR-2024-010 and BCR-2026-003); not W3C DID Core; not OIDC
Métodos DID Soportados XIDs are not a DID method; XID Documents can reference other DID-resolvable URIs via dereferenceVia
Gestión de Claves Inception key + rotated keys with permission flags; FROST threshold signing for group XIDs; SSKR recovery shares
Tipos de Credenciales Edges (BCR-2026-003) — signed Envelope-wrapped attestations between XIDs forming a web-of-trust graph; can carry any Envelope-encodable credential format
Método de Verificación Cryptographic verification via Envelope signatures; controller document elision preserves Merkle digest for proof of original content
Funciones de Privacidad Selective elision per recipient (Merkle-tree privacy); holder-controlled disclosure rather than issuer-controlled; non-correlation across contexts via tailored documents
Métodos de Autenticación Public-key signatures rooted in XID-document keys; Permits (Envelope encryption) for confidential exchanges
Mecanismo de Revocación Key rotation (XID stable across rotations); permission flag updates in controller document; provenance-mark-chained Editions track XID Document versions
Tipos de Agentes Soportados People, organizations, devices, applications, abstract entities — domain-agnostic
Tipos de Billetera/Cliente CLI tooling; reference apps in development; Garner publishing system
Mecanismos de Recuperación SSKR-based shard recovery; FROST threshold-based recovery; multi-key inception possible
Cumplimiento / Regulaciones Not yet evaluated — XID is a research note (BCR-2024-010) rather than a standardized identity protocol; architectural design supports privacy-by-design and data-minimization principles compatible with GDPR
Protocolos de Intercambio de Credenciales Envelope-native — assertions exchanged as Envelope artifacts; could be carried over DIDComm or other credential exchange protocols if wrapped in those formats
Marco de Confianza Self-sovereign — no central authority; web-of-trust via Edges (BCR-2026-003); Permits for context-specific trust
Modelo de Costos No cost (self-generated); resolution costs depend on chosen dereferenceVia method
Resistencia a la Censura High — autonomous identifier generation, decentralized resolution options including Hubert dead-drops on BitTorrent/IPFS