Re: did:cel - a cryptographic event log-based DID Method

On Sat, Dec 13, 2025 at 11:23 PM Otto Mora <omora@privado.id> wrote:

> *...*
> Could you suggest what would be the economical or other type of incentives
> that would motivate an organization make a witness server available?
>

Hi,
that is the question I am trying to answer as well: who would be motivated
to run witness services, ideally at little or no direct cost?

The combination of the heartbeat mechanism and witness services is the core
innovation. For this model to work, there must be a sufficient number of
independent witness services available to support a reasonable threshold,
e.g. 3-to-10, and diversity.

Totally blind witness services should be inexpensive to operate and carry
minimal risk. Identity managers and wallet operators are likely to be the
most motivated participants. e.g. “Use our identity manager to gain access
to a large and diverse set of witness services (and, on top of that, use
our "AI" to select the right set for you ;).”

Verifiers and infrastructure providers may be less directly motivated, but
their participation adds diversity to the ecosystem and makes it function
effectively.

Just loud thoughts,
Filip
https://www.linkedin.com/in/filipkolarik/

I have often wondered how proponents of did:keri and similar methods like
> to claim that they do not need to use a blockchain VDR, but instead they
> swap out the blockchain VDR with a network of witnesses that need to exist
> and it's not always clear what would motivate entities or organizations to
> make such infrastructure available. In public blockchains it is a bit more
> clear to me, because there is an associated transaction fee that you pay
> for submitting transactions to the VDR such that they are recorded.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Otto Mora
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 8, 2025 at 9:57 AM Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> The DID Methods WG Charter is going up for a W3C Member vote soon and
>> one of the DID Method types it contemplates standardizing is a fully
>> decentralized DID Method. The Cryptographic Event Log[1] was adopted
>> as a Credentials CG work item earlier this year, is listed in the new
>> DID Methods WG charter, and hinted at a DID Method that was powered by
>> the technology.
>>
>> This email is to introduce did:cel, a fully decentralized,
>> cryptographic event log-based DID Method:
>>
>> https://digitalbazaar.github.io/did-cel-spec/
>>
>> The goals of this DID Method are:
>>
>> Minimal Infrastructure - A single individual with a file hosting
>> location can create and control multiple DIDs in a way that the
>> identifiers are highly-available and globally recognized.
>>
>> Near-zero Cost - The cost to create and control multiple DIDs is not
>> burdensome to at least 70% of the world's population, which are the
>> number of people that have access to the Internet as of 2025.
>>
>> Censorship and Coercion Resistant - The oblivious witness and file
>> storage services used to manage a DID cannot censor or coerce an
>> individual or organization to any significant degree.
>>
>> No Centralization - Witness and file storage services are abundant,
>> easy to operate at scale, and are easily interchangeable if they
>> become non-responsive or compromised.
>>
>> Over the years, there are many of us that have invested in DLT-based
>> DID Methods and have not seen their usage grow at the rate we would
>> wish. There are a number of reasons for this, but many of them boil
>> down to implementation and operational complexity as well as
>> significant infrastructure and transaction costs. The did:cel DID
>> method focuses on reducing each of those costs as much as possible.
>>
>> Please take a look at the spec and let us know what you think. Raise
>> issues here if you find anything of concern:
>>
>> https://github.com/digitalbazaar/did-cel-spec/issues
>>
>> We are currently looking for support and co-editors for this work item
>> in the W3C CCG and will raise an issue to call for adoption once we
>> have a week or two of discussion on this mailing list. If you are
>> supportive of this work, please let us know via the mailing list.
>> Happy to answer questions and concerns in the meantime. :)
>>
>> -- manu
>>
>> [1] https://w3c-ccg.github.io/cel-spec/
>>
>> --
>> Manu Sporny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manusporny/
>> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
>> https://www.digitalbazaar.com/
>>
>>