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This comprehensive explanation has been generated from 191 GitHub source documents. All source documents are searchable here.
Last updated: October 7, 2025
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For authoritative documentation, please consult the official GLEIF vLEI trainings and the ToIP Glossary.
An entity who participates or is concerned in an action, proceeding, plan, or transaction. In KERI/ACDC contexts, parties are typically categorized as first party (initiator), second party (direct counterparty), or third party (external entity providing services or verification).
A party is an entity that participates in or is concerned with an action, proceeding, plan, or transaction within a system. In the KERI/ACDC ecosystem, the concept of "party" is foundational to understanding trust relationships, credential exchanges, and authorization flows.
Key characteristics:
In KERI-based systems, parties are the fundamental actors in all identity and credential operations:
Trust Relationships: The KERI ecosystem employs a three-party model for analyzing security and trust:
Credential Workflows: In ACDC credential exchanges:
Governance Context: Within vLEI and other governance frameworks:
Identity Assurance: In vLEI and similar ecosystems, parties must undergo identity verification processes appropriate to their role (e.g., NIST IAL2 for authorized representatives).
Multi-Party Coordination: Group multi-sig AIDs require coordination between multiple parties, each controlling distinct keys. The KAACE (KERI's Agreement Algorithm for Control Establishment) protocol ensures parties reach consensus on key events.
Privacy and Correlation: The three-party exploitation model helps analyze privacy risks. Third parties may attempt to correlate identifiers or exploit disclosed information, requiring careful consideration of selective disclosure and chain-link confidentiality mechanisms.
Legal Accountability: In regulated contexts (e.g., vLEI), parties are legally accountable entities with defined responsibilities under governance frameworks. The distinction between technical roles (controller, issuer) and legal roles (Legal Entity, Authorized Representative) must be carefully maintained.
Delegation Chains: Parties may delegate authority through cooperative delegation mechanisms, creating hierarchical trust structures where delegator and delegate parties must both participate in establishment events.
Key Management: Parties control Autonomic Identifiers (AIDs) through:
Why it matters:
Controller: A party that cryptographically proves control authority over an AID through possession of private keys.
Principal: The party for whom an agent acts; establishes delegation relationships.
Agent: A party that executes actions on behalf of a principal.
Custodian: A third party assigned rights and duties for managing a principal's cryptographic assets.
Relying Party: A party that consumes claims or trust graphs to make trust decisions (also called verifier in decentralized contexts).