First Public Working Draft: Use Cases and Requirements for Decentralized Identifiers

The Decentralized Identifier Working Group has published a First Public Working Draft of Use Cases and Requirements for Decentralized Identifiers. This document sets out use cases and requirements for a new type of identifier that has 4 essential characteristics:

• decentralized: there should be no central issuing agency;
• persistent: the identifier should be inherently persistent, not requiring the continued operation of an underling organization;
• cryptographically verifiable: it should be possible to prove control of the identifier cryptographically;
• resolvable: it should be possible to discover metadata about the identifier.

Although existing identifiers may display some of these characteristics, none currently displays all four.