Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs)

DID is a W3C draft for decentralized digital identity.

DIDs are URIs that associate a DID subject with a DID document allowing trustable interactions associated with that subject.

did:[method]:{imethod-specific-dentifier]

A DID URL extends the syntax of a basic DID to incorporate other standard URI components such as path, query, and fragment in order to locate a particular resource e.g a cryptographic public key inside a DID document.

DID documents contain information associated with a DID. They typically express verification methods, such as cryptographic public keys.

DIDs are typically recorded on an underlying system or network of some kind. Regardless of the specific technology used, any such system that supports recording DIDs and returning data necessary to produce DID documents is called a verifiable data registry.