RE: [PROPOSAL] Standardizing DID Key Recovery: Three Viable Architectures (Social, Temporal, and Distributed)

Here’s an open, extensible model/concept that supports DID Methods of all/any kind…
Web 7.0: DID Method Open Multiple Inheritance Model 0.1<https://hyperonomy.com/2026/02/23/did-method-open-inheritance-model-0-1/>

@Stephen Curran<mailto:swcurran@gmail.com> you might like this.

Michael Herman
Chief Digital Officer
Web 7.0 Foundation

From: Amir Hameed <amsaalegal@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2026 12:49 PM
To: Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>
Cc: W3C Credentials CG <public-credentials@w3.org>
Subject: Re: [PROPOSAL] Standardizing DID Key Recovery: Three Viable Architectures (Social, Temporal, and Distributed)


Manu,

Thank you for the detailed feedback and the encouraging support. Having Digital Bazaar’s interest in co-sponsorship and future wallet implementation for this work.

Addressing your specific points:

Changelog and Documentation

Regarding the "hallucinated" changelog—good catch! We noticed some date inconsistencies in an earlier draft generated during our documentation phase. We have since stripped those out to ensure the record is clean and will re-populate it manually as we move into formal revision cycles. We appreciate the sharp eye.

Cryptographic Integrity and Testing

We hear you on the complexity of VDFs and MPC. While the underlying mathematics are derived from established academic protocols (Wesolowski for VDFs and fROST for MPC), we have prioritized empirical validation.

I have attached a console log screenshot showing our current test suite in action. We are achieving a full pass rate, including stress tests for the 256-bit prime field arithmetic in our VSS implementation. We look forward to having community experts poke at the code to ensure it meets the rigorous standards of the CCG.

Infrastructure and Economic Drivers

Your questions regarding infrastructure and economic incentives are exactly where we need to focus next.

  *   Infrastructure: We are currently modeling the "Distributed-Provider" model to see how it might run on existing DID infrastructure without requiring massive new overhead.
  *   Economics: We are exploring "Recovery-as-a-Service" models and how social recovery can be incentivized without introducing perverse security incentives.

We are thrilled to take you up on the offer of co-sponsorship. We will also be reaching out to Christopher Allen regarding SSKR to ensure we are building upon the existing foundations of the ecosystem rather than reinventing them.

Our goal is precisely what you stated: to advance the DID ecosystem and solve the recovery hurdle once and for all. We will begin consolidating these into a single draft for the CCG over the coming weeks.

Thank you for the support, and for helping us move this concrete proposal forward.

Best regards,

Amir Hameed Mir

On Mon, 23 Feb 2026 at 08:01, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com<mailto:msporny@digitalbazaar.com>> wrote:
On Mon, Feb 23, 2026 at 9:53 AM Amir Hameed <amsaalegal@gmail.com<mailto:amsaalegal@gmail.com>> wrote:
> Questions for the Community

I did a quick scan of the spec, looks good as a start with the
following caveats:

* I have no idea if the math or cryptographic protocols work out,
you'll need some experts in VDF and MPC
* The changelog looks like it was hallucinated by the LLM you used to
generate the spec. :)

> Do these three models cover the majority of use cases the community is currently seeing?

I think they cover enough to be worth pursuing. The biggest questions
I have are: What are the downsides for each approach? How much
infrastructure is required to be set up for them to actually work in
practice? What are the economic drivers that will drive the sort of
behavior that each recovery method depends on?

> Should these be specified as separate extensions or unified under a single recovery verification relationship?

I think publishing a single recovery spec that contains the first
three recovery mechanisms is a good way to proceed. I expect that we'd
merge it into the core DID spec in time (which would probably need to
wait until the next DID WG recharter).

> Are there existing CCG work items we should align with or build upon?

You should take a look at the work Christopher has done in this area.
SSKR being the first thing that comes to mind... I'm sure he has other
pointers for you.

> Are there DID Method implementers interested in testing these recovery hooks or reviewing a draft?

Our organization (Digital Bazaar) would be interested in reviewing
drafts and doing an implementation or two (in time). As Adrian and
Christopher mentioned, recovery is an important aspects of DIDs that
we need to finish.

> We are seeking initial feedback over the next two weeks to determine interest in a unified specification. Pending community interest, we intend to submit this as a formal CCG Work Item and move toward registering these as a DID Extension.

Sounds good, that's a productive approach.

> We are looking for implementers interested in building wallet support, use case contributors with additional scenarios, and co-editors , co-sponsors to help shape the specification.

DB is happy to eventually build wallet support, provide use cases and
additional scenarios, and be a co-sponsor of the work. I'll leave it
to others from our organization to volunteer to be co-editor -- our
spec queue is pretty deep right now, so we might not be able to help
on that front just yet.

Thank you for putting something concrete forward, Amir! I think this
is going to be a really important contribution to the ecosystem!

-- manu

--
Manu Sporny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manusporny/

Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
https://www.digitalbazaar.com/