Merkle Tree Attestations with Privacy enabled
ERC-1387 proposes a method for Ethereum smart contracts to verify claims attested by a valid attester in a privacy-enabled manner. The attestation is signed and issued off the blockchain in a Merkle Tree format, with only a part of the Merkle tree revealed by the user at each use to avoid privacy issues. The proposal includes an interface and reference implementation for smart contracts that need users to provide and validate attestations. The implementation includes a struct for attestation, with fields for merklePath, valid, attester, recipient, salt, key, and val. The proposal also includes relevant implementation examples and related ERCs. The purpose of ERC-1387 is to provide a standardized method for attestation verification that is both secure and privacy-enabled.
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Original
Introduction
It's often needed that an Ethereum smart contract must verify a claim (I live in Australia) attested by a valid attester.
For example, an ICO contract might require that the participant, Alice, lives in Australia before she participates. Alice's claim of residency could come from a local Justice of the Peace who could attest that "Alice is a resident of Australia in NSW".
Unlike previous attempts, we assume that the attestation is signed and issued off the blockchain in a Merkle Tree format. Only a part of the Merkle tree is revealed by Alice at each use. Therefore we avoid the privacy problem often associated with issuing attestations on chain. We also assume that Alice has multiple signed Merkle Trees for the same factual claim to avoid her transactions being linkable.
Purpose
This ERC provides an interface and reference implementation for smart contracts that need users to provide an attestation and validate it.
Draft implementation
contract MerkleTreeAttestationInterface { struct Attestation { bytes32[] merklePath; bool valid; uint8 v; bytes32 r; bytes32 s; address attester; address recipient; bytes32 salt; bytes32 key; bytes32 val; } function validate(Attestation attestation) public returns(bool); }
Relevant implementation examples
Here is an example implementation of the MerkleTreeAttestationInterface Here is an example service which would use such a merkle tree attestation
Related ERC's
#1388 #1386
Adopted by projects
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