Decentralized Identity and W3C Standards — Cryptography, Key Management, Post-Quantum, Sovereign AI, and Post-Cloud Architecture (Mf+So)

Abstract

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) decentralized identity standards and their relationship to the MF+SO sovereign identity vault architecture. We examine the W3C Decentralized Identifier (DID) Core specification (W3C, 2022), the Verifiable Credential (VC) Data Model (W3C, 2022), and related standards including DID Resolution, DID URL dereferencing, and the Verifiable Credential Proof Formats. The paper provides a taxonomic analysis of DID methods (did:key, did:ethr, did:ion, did:web, did:indy) in terms of their trust assumptions, ledger requirements, latency, cost, and privacy properties. We compare MF+SO's identity model—which uses Ed25519 public keys as self-certifying identifiers with a local hash chain for state verification—against the W3C DID Core model, identifying both alignments and divergences. Key findings include: MF+SO identifiers are functionally equivalent to DIDs but use a simplified resolution mechanism that does not require a distributed ledger or external registry; MF+SO's hash chain audit trail provides state verification properties comparable to DID Document versioning on a ledger; and MF+SO's selective disclosure mechanisms using zero-knowledge proofs (see Paper VII) directly implement the W3C Verifiable Credential selective disclosure and data minimization requirements. We analyze the interoperability implications of MF+SO's architecture, demonstrating how MF+SO DIDs can be registered on external DID methods for cross-system interoperability while maintaining the local hash chain as the authoritative state source. The paper also examines the Verifiable Credential lifecycle within MF+SO: issuance, storage, presentation, and revocation, with attention to the credential schema registry, proof format compatibility (Data Integrity Proofs, JSON Web Signatures), and the holder-binding mechanisms that prevent credential sharing. A comparative assessment evaluates MF+SO against three alternative decentra... Part of The Anticloud research corpus by Lois-Kleinner Alpasan (ORCID: 0009-0009-2233-6107). This work explores cryptography, key management in the context of sovereign AI infrastructure, post-cloud computing architectures, and transparent, blackbox-free systems.