DARP: Cardano's Address Name Servce

The Decentralised Address Resolution Protocol (DARP) uses easy to remember address names to help mitigate risks & improve user experience.

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The DARP protocol will empower developers by addressing a challenge faced by many cryptocurrencies and decentralised applications, the use of complex addresses. The protocol will provide an easy to integrate decentralised lookup service, giving developers a head start in providing a quality end user experience and simplifying smart contract upgrades.

While some services already exist which focus on simplifying the use of cryptocurrency addresses (e.g. Unstoppable Domains, Ethereum Name Service), these services are not implemented on a third generation blockchain, that is provably secure, has been designed using peer reviewed scientific research and developed using formal methods (in case you weren't sure Cardano is all of those). As well as being built on ageing technology with scaling problems, these services also use smart contracts to store records on the blockchain that map a friendly name to an address. While this technically "decentralises" the name resolution service, it unnecessarily adds bloat to the blockchain with data that doesn't necessarily need to be immutable and can also cost through the use of gas.

This proposal is requesting funding for a new service provider called Any Address to implement and test the Decentralised Address Resolution Protocol (as described at https://docs.darp.tech),,) to decentralise the control over Address Names without needing to write as much data to the blockchain or incurring gas costs through smart contracts.

Deliverables

The requested funds will be used as follows:
1. Develop all the capabilities of a Decentralised Address Name Registrar, which will:

• Allow users to register a DID/DID Document
• Allow users to register an Address Name
• Allow users to edit and store their Address Resolver Document
• Issue a Verifiable Credential for a registered Address Name

2. Test querying the registry, verifying Address Name ownership and resolving an address using the ARD
3. Document the DARP protocol and how developers can build support for its use in their applications
4. Make code used to build a Decentralised Address Name Registrar open source so others can provide the same service

Timeframes

Work is expected to be completed within 4 - 6 months, however specific timeframes are subject to completion of support for Decentralised Identity artefacts (i.e. DID Documents, Verifiable Credential Templates, DID resolution, etc.) on Cardano. While we are liaising with the Atala PRISM team, they don't currently have a published target date.

Cardano Community Implementers

While we have a network of IT professionals (developers, architects, project managers, etc.) that we can leverage, we would be keen to engage implementers in the Cardano community that would like to participate in this project. We would like to use the opportunity that Catalyst is providing to start building implementation teams from the community, so long term we aren't reliant on the original core 3 Cardano entities.