Instead of using OP_RETURN could a sidechain be considered?

[tim-peterson]

Because some people speculate that OP_RETURN might not persist in the Bitcoin Blockchain, I was wondering about a dedicated sidechain that would authenticate digital objects.

Of course I'm referring to the emergence of interest in the Sidechain concept as brought forth by Blockstream raising lots of $$$.

Any interest for POE considering this?

[maraoz]

Yes, I'm very interested in sidechains and I'm thinking about using them for PoE :)

[tim-peterson]

A sidechain seems perfect for the metadata associated with a Bitcoin address. You could even make a Sidechain which implements some kind of Proof of Identity algorithm like in https://onename.io (Namecoin-based), @keybase, or @OpenBazaar (Proof of Burn reputation) are aiming towards. Proof of Existence seems less broadly applicable than some kind of digital object authentication protocol. Thoughts? I'm building @Onarbor which has these issues at its core, so deeply interested in this space.

Anyway, I've tried to reaching out to @Blockstream but am not known in the Bitcoin space. Perhaps your notoriety would help?