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Blockchain ID Wikipedia

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John Light edited this page Oct 29, 2015 · 1 revision

A blockchain ID is a unique identifier that is secured by a blockchain. A user can cryptographically link their blockchain ID to a profile containing arbitrary information e.g. name, biography, website link, public key, social graph, etc. Blockchain IDs are simultaneously secure, human-meaningful, and decentralized, thereby squaring Zooko's triangle.

Uses

Potential uses for blockchain IDs include:

Namecoin

In September 2010 a discussion was started in the Bitcointalk forum about a hypothetical system called BitDNS and generalizing bitcoin, based on a talk at IRC at 14 November 2010. Gavin Andresen and Satoshi Nakamoto joined the discussion in the Bitcointalk forum and supported the idea of BitDNS.[1][2][3] A reward for implementing BitDNS was announced on the Bitcointalk forum in December 2010.[4] Soon a developer decided to implement the BitDNS idea to earn the bounty.[5] On April 18, 2011 Namecoin was introduced by vinced as a multipurpose and distributed naming system based on Bitcoin.[6] WikiLeaks mentioned the Namecoin project via Twitter in June 2011.[7]

Several namespaces were created on Namecoin that let users register blockchain IDs:

  • d/
  • i/
  • u/

In June 2013 the NameID project launched.[8] NameID links blockchain IDs to an OpenID provider so that users can log in to websites that support OpenID without a password. NameID released a Firefox extension called Easy Login which automated the authentication process to make it easier to use.[9]

In March 2014 the company Onename started the u/ namespace and launched a service that let users register a blockchain ID in the u/ namespace.[10] The original name for this system was also “OneName” but has since been generalized, with identifiers registered on the blockchain being referred to as “blockchain IDs.”[11] On September 15, 2015 Onename announced that they were deprecating the u/ namespace and switching their blockchain ID registration service to the Bitcoin blockchain using the Blockstore software.[12][13]

Bitshares

  • .p2p[14]
  • KeyID
  • Account names
    • Subaccounts

Bitcoin

In January 2015 Onename introduced Blockstore, a key-value store built on the Bitcoin blockchain.[15] On September 15, 2015 Onename announced that they were migrating their blockchain ID registration system and the entire u/ namespace on Namecoin over to .id namespace on Bitcoin using Blockstore.[16]

  • id: protocol specifications
    • .id namespace rules

On June 7, 2015 Yanislav Georgiev Malahov announced the BitAlias protocol.[17][18] BitAlias uses OP_RETURN transactions to register aliases which are then associated with a Bitcoin address. A Bitalias is transferable to other Bitcoin addresses.

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1790.0
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20101118020511/http://veritas.maximilianeum.ch/bitcoin/irc/logs/2010/11/14#l1150
[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20101118033208/http://veritas.maximilianeum.ch/bitcoin/irc/logs/2010/11/15
[4] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2072.0;all
[5] https://github.com/vinced/namecoin
[6] https://bitcointalk.org/?topic=6017.0
[7] https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/78906603948093440
[8] https://nameid.org
[9] https://nameid.org/?view=addon
[10] http://www.coindesk.com/onename-makes-bitcoin-payments-simple-facebook-sharing/
[11] https://forum.blockstack.org/t/blockchain-id-for-identity/143
[12] http://cointelegraph.com/news/115270/onename-drops-namecoin-switches-to-bitcoin
[13] http://www.newsbtc.com/2015/09/15/identity-protocol-provider-onename-to-utilize-bitcoin/
[14] http://wiki.bitshares.org/index.php/.p2p_(BitShares_DNS)
[15] http://blog.onename.com/blockstore-bitcoin/
[16] http://blog.onename.com/namecoin-to-bitcoin/
[17] https://medium.com/@yanislav/bitalias-7b66bffed9d8#.rmitcaa7r [18] https://bitalias.github.io/

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