ILP Addresses and Blockcerts

[westurner]

How can or should a Blockcert indicate an ILP Interledger Protocol address or a Payment Pointer?

• Interledger works with any type of traditional ledger or distributed ledger technology (DLT; blockchain)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interledger_Foundation
• https://interledger.org/developers/
  • https://github.com/interledger/rfcs
    • "ILP Addresses - v2.0.0"
      https://github.com/interledger/rfcs/blob/main/0015-ilp-addresses/0015-ilp-addresses.md
    • "SPSP: Simple Payment Setup Protocol"
      https://github.com/interledger/rfcs/blob/main/0009-simple-payment-setup-protocol/0009-simple-payment-setup-protocol.md
    • "Payment Pointers"
      https://github.com/interledger/rfcs/blob/main/0026-payment-pointers/0026-payment-pointers.md
      • https://paymentpointers.org/

        • Payment pointers can be used as a persistent identifier on Interledger. Payment pointers can also be used as a unique identifier for an invoice to be paid or for a pull payment agreement.

    • "Peering, Clearing and Settling" describes how ~EFT on Interledger works:
      https://github.com/interledger/rfcs/blob/main/0032-peering-clearing-settlement/0032-peering-clearing-settlement.md
      • https://interledger.org/developers/rfcs/peering-clearing-settling/
• A more comprehensive summary of FedNow, ILP Interledger Protocol, optionally XRP, and RippleCorp from a different service provider: https://supra.com/academy/fednow-and-ripple/
• Notes on ACH, ILP from: "Anatomy of an ACH transaction" (GPG over FTP)
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36503888 from "ILP Addresses - v2.0.0"
  https://github.com/interledger/rfcs/blob/main/0015-ilp-addresses/0015-ilp-addresses.md#allocation-schemes :

Example Global Allocation Scheme Addresses :

g.acme.bob - a destination address to the account "bob" held with the connector "acme"

g.us-fed.ach.0.acmebank.swx0a0.acmecorp.sales.199.~ipr.cdfa5e16-e759-4ba3-88f6-8b9dc83c1868.2 - a destination address for a particular invoice:

• Neighborhoods: us-fed., ach., 0.
• Account identifiers: acmebank., swx0a0., acmecorp., sales, 199 (An ACME Corp sales account at ACME Bank)
• Interactions: ~ipr, cdfa5e16-e759-4ba3-88f6-8b9dc83c1868, 2*

And from [ https://paymentpointers.org/ ] "Payment Pointers and Payment Setup Protocols":

The following payment pointers resolve to the specified endpoint URLS:

• $example.com -> https://example.com/.well-known/pay
• $example.com/invoices/12345 -> https://example.com/invoices/12345
• $bob.example.com -> https://bob.example.com/.well-known/pay
• $example.com/bob -> https://example.com/bob

ILP specifies SPSP Simple Payment Setup Protocol for exchanging Payment pointers over HTTPS.
https://interledger.org/developers/rfcs/simple-payment-setup-protocol/

ILP Web Monetization https://webmonetization.org/ specifies Payment Pointers over HTTPS in HTML with a <link> node.

In Web3, there's EDNS Ethereum DNS and no HTTPS.

W3C DIDs and Blockcerts should work over any set of request-response capable protocols.

• How to W3C DIDs with Blockcerts with Interledger ILP

Blockcerts are verifiable; how could blockcerts also indicate payment pointers and/or ILP addresses?

Couldn't Blockcerts also be written to and verified from ripplenet just like Bitcoin or Ethereum, which typically have significantly higher tx fees? But that's not even necessary to add a payment pointer to a blockcert, but then HTTPS without blockcert verification (or CT Log verification) would be used by SPSP FWIU?

[lemoustachiste]

Hi @westurner,

that's a very comprehensive issue you opened and I am not familiar with most of the technologies you are listing.

I believe Blockcerts could be plugged into any blockchain, provided you can register a transaction with some data, and retrieve it later in the verifier.

I have seen some blockcerts anchored to the Polygon chain, granted that is somewhat "easy" as Polygon is an EVM chain and follows the same patterns as ETH.

Now, if you are familiar with ILP internals, you will need:

• a funded address
• a way to broadcast the transaction (see https://github.com/blockchain-certificates/cert-issuer/tree/master/cert_issuer/blockchain_handlers)

And in the verifier (actually https://github.com/blockchain-certificates/explorer-lookup):

• a way to retrieve a transaction
• parse it in an understandable way to communicate the required data

If you want DIDs in the mix, you'll need to represent the public key associated to the issuing address into a DID document (and reference said key as your verification method). You'll probably need to implement a Public Key to Blockchain address converter, as in https://github.com/blockchain-certificates/jsonld-signatures-merkleproof2019/blob/master/src/inspectors/deriveIssuingAddressFromPublicKey.ts.

As for payment pointers I have no idea how they work and what they do at this point so I cannot advise.