📘Architecture

NibID consists of two main components: the registry and resolvers.

The registry is a single smart contract that maintains a list of all domains and subdomains. It stores three critical pieces of information for each:

• The owner of the domain

• The resolver for the domain

• The caching time-to-live for all records under the domain

Domain owners can be external accounts (users) or smart contracts. Registrars are smart contracts that own domains and issue subdomains following defined rules.

Resolvers are responsible for translating names into addresses. Any contract adhering to the relevant standards can act as a resolver. General-purpose resolver implementations are available for users with straightforward needs.

Each record type, such as cryptocurrency addresses or IPFS content hashes, defines methods that resolvers must implement to provide records of that type. New record types can be introduced at any time.

Resolving a name involves two steps: First, query the registry to determine the responsible resolver, and second, query that resolver for the desired information.