Object Identifier

Objects need to point to other objects and these links are like the URLs on the Web. The major difference, as you would expect, is that there is no central authority, so there is no DNS, and no host names. Objects are identified by their content, like bittorrent magnet links and in a way, like images in the human brain.

We will use the hash of the object as its identifier. One problem though, as the object changes its hash changes. Yet we need to refer to this object from other objects even after it got modified. Thus we decided the Object ID to have two hashes, hash of the first version of the object and the hash of the current version of the object. This provides an interesting point-in-time property. A reference to a changing id is important for contractual relationships to indicate the exact state when the agreement was made.

Links

Objects live on-chain and thus an Object Identifier must contain the chain, like bitcoin: or ethereum: and the ID of the Object on this chain. Should Object ID be specific to a chain, or should it be portable across the chains? It would be a great if it was. For example, we could then save the same object on several chains for safety. The full id of the object will look like this: bitcoin:hash0:hash25. A hash of its version 0, and a hash of the current version. A permanent, immutable id and a changing id.

Slinky

We are considering to define a special type of link: slinky. A slinky is a special kind of a link that is an observation made on some objects. These links can take a form of a review, an attestation of a validity of someone's Identity, an attestation of vendor's products or the machinery capable of making these products. Slinkies can also connect two objects, like a product and an accessory. Why is this needed? In centralized market an owner of that market, like Amazon, provides such services, in a decentralized market, or an un-market, it is up to its users to become service providers. This is just an idea, please let us know if you like it by posting a comment on this issue.