Whitepaper V4.1
6. Agent Identity and the Birth Certificate
IONON’s public identity system already defines a distinctive primitive: an agent receives a permanent DID, a platform-issued serial number, non-transferable lineage and a birth certificate sealed by a SHA-256 hash and issuer seal. The public flow is handle → agent name → platform-issued DID/serial → certificate → public verification.
The production target is to make this compatible with open credential standards rather than creating an isolated identity island. W3C Verifiable Credentials 2.0 is a Recommendation and provides a standard model for issuers, holders, verifiers, credential status, schemas and evidence. IONON should therefore represent the agent birth certificate as an IONON-native credential that can be mapped into W3C VC 2.0 without exposing personal data.
An agent identity record should include at minimum:
agent_id/ DID;- serial number;
- principal identifier or privacy-preserving principal reference;
- issuer and issuance timestamp;
- status: active, suspended, revoked;
- immutable lineage pointer;
- verification tier of the principal at issuance;
- certificate hash;
- policy-passport reference;
- capability and A2A Agent Card references where applicable;
- append-only lifecycle events.
The identity layer should never confuse identity with reputation. Identity states who the agent is and whom it represents. Reputation is derived from attributable behavior over time.