Nostr and DID: Exploring Potential Alignments

Hi all,

Nostr currently doesn’t have a registered DID method, and it might be worth
taking a closer look at existing efforts in this space to see if we can
agree on a sensible approach that aligns with Nostr's principles.

So far, Nostr has been fine without a DID method, thanks to its native PKI
using the "pubkey" event primitive, along with taproot and schnorr from
Bitcoin BIP-340 [1]. However, as we think about interoperability and
future-proofing, it could be interesting to consider a DID method that
mirrors what we’re already doing.

Given Nostr’s emphasis on simplicity, we might consider modeling something
on the did:key [2] method as a baseline. I’ve put together an unofficial
draft based on did:key here:

https://nostr-labs.github.io/did-nostr/

This could be a starting point, and we can always add more features based
on community input.

There’s also a "Thought Experiment" by TBDev from a year ago:

https://github.com/TBD54566975/did-nostr

It introduces some interesting ideas. There have been various discussions
on this across Nostr, the Fediverse, and Twitter over time.  Microstrategy
are also looking at a did:btc method, which might offer some ideas.

I don’t have a strong stance on this and think we should gather thoughts
from the group. Whatever we decide, it should reflect what Nostr currently
uses and stay true to our principles of simplicity and interoperability.

Best,
Melvin

[1] https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0340.mediawiki
[2] https://w3c-ccg.github.io/did-method-key/