Decentralized Namespace
Meta-domains and personal identifiers give you sovereign, portable identity–owned by you, not a platform.
5 Second Call alignments
2 extensions
1 clarifications
Overview
The meta-layer introduces meta-domains and personal identifiers, serving as tradable assets that anchor identity and ownership in a decentralized ecosystem. These innovations enable seamless integration with the web, fostering interoperability and supporting vibrant virtual economies.
Why It Matters
The Meta-Layer introduces a decentralized namespace system where your identity isn’t rented–it’s anchored. Meta-domains and personal identifiers act as unique, tradable assets that link people, ideas, and spaces across the open web.
Key Elements
Meta-Domains and Personal Identifiers
Meta-domains address virtual spaces within the Metaweb, similar to traditional domains. Personal identifiers address participants and personas, similar to emails. Digital artifacts serve as identifiers, assets, or NFTs that can be bought, sold, and transferred.
Interoperability and Tradeability
Tradeable meta-assets allow participants to exchange digital spaces or objects, fostering virtual commerce. Meta-domains link seamlessly to the broader web while functioning within the Metaweb's overlay framework.
Simple Naming Systems (SNS)
Participants can claim meta-domains (e.g., boeing.com.web4 or apple.com.web4) and personal identifiers (e.g., shiftshapr.web4).
Unique Digital Identity
Meta-domains and personal identifiers can be tied to decentralized identifiers (DIDs), offering verifiable identities across multiple spaces.
Current Draft
Workgroup
Developing decentralized naming systems that provide persistent, user-controlled identifiers and namespaces independent of centralized authorities.
Second Call for Input
Community submissions from the Second Meta-Layer Call for Input that aligned with, clarified, or extended this property. These are historical provenance–not live governance votes or comments.
5 alignments
2 extensions
1 clarifications
Aligned submissions
- Secure, Organic Community Formation on the Meta-layeron-chain
By Liz Sweigart
Protects community identifiers from seizure or censorship.
- Navigator User Interfaces (NUI) as a Coordination Layer for a Post-Search, Post-Feed Webon-chain
By Chris Santos-Lang
Decentralized IDs and tags for posts, paths, and navigation objects.
- Name Chain–Anchored Digital Artifacts with Interoperable Authentication Markson-chain
By Anon
Utilizes name chains (@user/object) as decentralized pointers with verifiable semantics and conflict resolution logic.
- Towards Decentralized Applications: Rethinking Control Power and Data Exchange in Named-Data Networkingon-chain
By Anon
NDN supports hierarchical, semantically meaningful naming that maps directly to users and their data, independent of physical nodes.
- Governance for Advanced Non-Human Agents and AI Systemson-chain
By Anon
Addresses namespace rights and management for non-human entities in interoperable systems.
Clarifications
Trust Schema-Driven Semantics
This work exemplifies how semantic, hierarchical namespaces can be coupled with enforceable trust schemas, allowing context-aware permissions and auditability without DNS or platform dependency.
Why it matters: This approach empowers communities to create and evolve naming structures meaningful to their use cases, with security guarantees that scale organically.
Extensions
Interoperable Navigation Identifiers
From Navigator User Interfaces (NUI) as a Coordination Layer for a Post-Search, Post-Feed Webon-chain
Define a decentralized naming system for posts, paths, and navigator components.
Why it matters: Enables search, recomposition, and reuse without central indexing.
Name Chains as URI-Resolvable Trust Anchors
From Name Chain–Anchored Digital Artifacts with Interoperable Authentication Markson-chain
Name chains (e.g., @jaime/artifact99) function as semantic, URI-like identifiers with resolution pathways that combine identity verification and object authentication.
Why it matters: This extends DNS-style naming into the trust layer of the Metaweb, enabling structured reference to people, objects, and assertions in a verifiable and user-controlled manner.
Early PCI Conversations
People Centered Internet email threads (Sep–Nov 2023) that contributed to this property’s development. Each is permanently inscribed on Bitcoin via Ordinals.
Vandana explicitly discusses context-dependent multiple identities: 'There may not be one identity but multiple identities depending on context and usage.' She uses the SIM authentication analogy. This directly resonates with DP5's decentralized namespace and personal identifiers — notably absent from the draft.
Discusses multiple identities and identifiers that vary by context.