Re: Introduction and update on Universal DID-Native Addressing (UDNA)

Thanks again for the references—they’re really helpful. I wanted to clarify
how *UDNA* relates to *did:nostr*, since they actually operate at different
layers.

At a high level:

   -

   *did:nostr* is a DID Method. It defines how a DID is created, resolved,
   and managed on the Nostr network. It’s all about identity—proving who you
   are and which keys belong to you—not about routing data.
   -

   *UDNA* is a networking framework. It treats DIDs as first-class
   primitives for *addressing and routing*, effectively replacing IPs. It
   doesn’t care how the DID is created—you could use did:nostr or any other
   DID—but focuses on how to send messages to that DID across the network.

You can think of it like this: a did:nostr is a “phone number” you control,
and UDNA is the “phone network” that actually routes the calls.

A UDNA packet uses DIDs in its header and can include fields like
RouteHint, KeyHint, Nonce, and Signature. Routing and discovery are handled
dynamically via a *DHT overlay*, so the underlying IPs can change without
affecting reachability.

UDNA and did:nostr aren’t competing—they’re complementary. UDNA could even
use did:nostr as its identity layer while providing a *secure,
transport-agnostic, identity-native network layer*.

Best,
Amir Hameed

On Sat, 20 Sept 2025 at 07:04, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>
wrote:

> On Sat, Sep 20, 2025 at 9:41 AM Amir Hameed <amsaalegal@gmail.com> wrote:
> > At a high level, the minimal viable implementation of UDNA would focus
> on addressing and routing based on cryptographic identities (DIDs) rather
> than network locations. This doesn’t require building a full alternative to
> TCP/IP or UDP, but rather an overlay layer on top of existing transport
> protocols in a transport-agnostic way.
>
> Got it, the screen shots helped. That makes sense.
>
> The work you're doing reminds me a lot of Telehash, which we built the
> first DID implementation on top of many years ago:
>
>
> https://github.com/telehash/telehash.github.io/blob/master/v3/spec/v3.0.0-stable.pdf
>
> It also reminds me of what the did:nostr folks are trying to do, some
> of whom are on this mailing list. How would you characterize what you
> are working as it relates to nostr?
>
> -- manu
>
> --
> Manu Sporny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manusporny/
> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
> https://www.digitalbazaar.com/
>