https://ssimeetup.org/identity-centric-interoperability-ceramic-protocol-joel-thorstensson-webinar-57/ Ceramic is a new permissionless protocol for creating and accessing unstoppable documents that serve as the foundation for a connected, interoperable web without silos. Joel Thorstensson is the founder and CTO of 3Box and the primary author of the ceramic protocol as well as several Ethereum standards for identity and will provide a conceptual and technical intro to Ceramic. At the root of many of the internet’s problems is that apps and services today are built primarily in silos. This includes identity registries and credentials, user data and access permissions, infrastructure, and services. It not only puts control over data and identities in the wrong hands, but it’s a fundamentally outdated and inefficient model for building digital products. Ceramic unlocks information interoperability between all platforms and services across the web, allowing participants to create and resolve documents for any type of information without any centralized service. Ceramic uses DIDs (Decentralized Identifiers), IPLD (InterPlanetary Linked Data), signed messages, and blockchain anchoring to create a trusted and shared graph of verifiable documents. While flexible, these documents are especially well-suited for self-sovereign identity systems, user-centric data ecosystems, and open web services.

1. Ceramic Protocol
Interoperability built around Identities
Joel Thorstensson
Founder & CTO, 3Box
Primary author, Ceramic Protocol
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2. 1. Empower global SSI communities
2. Open to everyone interested in SSI
3. All content is shared with CC BY SA
SSIMeetup.org
Alex Preukschat @SSIMeetup @AlexPreukschat
Coordinating Node SSIMeetup.org
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
SSIMeetup objectives

3. Ceramic is a protocol for unstoppable documents.
Documents are flexible, can
store any kind of info.
Updates encoded in IPLD,
forming individual “doc chains”.
Docs have permalinks and
versioning is supported.
Verifiable Documents
Documents can reference other
docs to form a graph.
Network is public, permissionless,
and censorship-resistant.
Network is secure, resilient, and
never down.
Universal Graph
Documents can be anchored in
any blockchain.
Updates are batched into a
merkle tree providing scale.
Nodes can choose their own
persistence method.
Configurable Anchoring
Documents need to be signed
by a DID. Any DID will work.
3ID is a complete DID system
entirely built on Ceramic.
3IDs unifies accounts across all
blockchains.
Flexible Accounts
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4. The Ceramic Network.
- Nodes decide which
blockchain to trust
BLOCKCHAIN ANCHORS
- No built in persistence
(similar to ipfs)
- Configurable backup
DATA PERSISTENCE
- Updates over libp2p
- IPFS used to sync data
- Only replicate relevant
documents
ONE NETWORK
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5. How does it work?
Decentralized Identity standard
provides interoperability.
Documents in Ceramic can
represent DIDs.
Documents in Ceramic can be
owned by DIDs.
DID
InterPlanetary Linked Data,
structured content addressable
data.
Can be used to represent any
linked data structure.
Content addressing provides
native integrity checking.
IPLD
Peer-to-peer stack used by
many decentralized systems.
Peer discovery and message
propagation.
Works across many languages
and environments.
Libp2p
Blockchain agnostic. Ethereum
first.
Used to determine ordering in
Ceramic.
3IDs unifies accounts across all
blockchains.
Blockchain
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6. Anatomy of a Ceramic document.
- CID of Anchor Record
- Immutable references
DOCUMENT VERSIONS
- Ordering with anchors
- Earliest anchor wins
CONFLICT RESOLUTION
- Contract / DAO records
RECORD TYPES
- DocId: ceramic://bafy...
- Owned by DID
- Replication over libp2p
DOCUMENT BASICS
v2v1v0
Anchor
Record
Signature
Record
Anchor
Record
Signature
Record
Genesis
Record
Anchor
Record
Proof
Metadata
Blockchain
Transaction
Proof
Metadata
Blockchain
Transaction
Proof
Metadata
Blockchain
Transaction
Blockchain
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7. Doctypes.
Generic doctype that supports
any content.
Owned by one or multiple DIDs.
Great for: Schemas, Policies,
Profiles, Metadata, Pinsets
Tiles
DID method built on Ceramic.
Lightweight & scalable.
Secure key revocation.
3ID
Used to link a blockchain
account to a DID.
Allows you to associate your
accounts across blockchains to
one common identifier
Account Links
A doctype defines the state
transition logic used to validate
if an update to a Ceramic
document is valid.
E.g. Verifiable Credential,
Dynamic ruleset, etc...
Your doctype
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8. 3ID: connecting identity across blockchains.
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9. 3ID Account template.
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10. 10
Service Policies.
Image Resizing Service Policy Tile
- Payment options
- Restrictions
- SLA
- Other settings?
SERVICE PROVIDER SETTINGS
- A document that
represents the service
SERVICE DESCRIPTION{
“description”: “Resize images and encode the result using IPLD.”,
“request-endpoint”: {
“url”: “https://image.resize/api/resize-image”,
“request-schema”: “ceramic://bafy1…”,
“response-schema”: “ceramic://bafy2…”
},
“payment”: {
“type”: “payment-channel-connext”,
“address”: “0x12345…”
}
}
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11. Ceramic development is lead by 3Box.
1111
A connected metadata layer
for Web 3
● Metadata around blockchains,
p2p databases, and traditional
web2 services
● Let users bring their data
across ecosystems
Community first collaboration.
● Always open source
● Specifications:
https://github.com/ceramicnet
work/specs
PoC protocol implementation in
typescript
● CLI tool & web native
● https://github.com/ceramicnet
work/js-ceramic
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12. Join us in building a web without silos
Made byJoel Thorstensson, @oedth