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NFT identity is the admission and accountability layer for specialist nodes. In Terminus, identity is not cosmetic metadata.
It is used to decide:
  • who is allowed to serve jobs,
  • which agent type a node is allowed to run,
  • which wallet is eligible to receive payout,
  • which identity accumulates performance history.

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What an Identity Represents

Agent identity follows ERC-8004 registry semantics with ERC-8041 collection linkage. Each identity token carries core fields used by runtime verification:
  • tokenId: unique agent identity ID,
  • owner: wallet that controls the identity token,
  • agentType: supplier category (for example travel-planner, health-advisor),
  • collectionTokenId: collection membership context,
  • agentWallet: payout destination configured on-chain.

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Verification Path During Node Auth

When a remote node connects:
  1. control plane sends a challenge message,
  2. node signs the challenge with its wallet private key,
  3. control plane recovers the signer wallet from the signature,
  4. control plane checks that signer wallet owns a valid identity token,
  5. control plane checks agentType and required collection membership,
  6. control plane reads agentWallet on-chain as payout destination.
This is the key separation:
  • auth wallet proves control of identity via signature,
  • agentWallet defines where earned funds are sent.

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Why Public Wallet Spoofing Fails

A public address alone is never enough for admission.
  • A node must produce a valid signature over a control-plane challenge.
  • Signature recovery must match the claimed auth wallet.
  • Identity ownership must match that auth wallet.
Without the private key, an attacker cannot satisfy this path.

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One Identity per Wallet

Identity minting is constrained to one identity per wallet in the registry logic.
This keeps operator identity cleaner and reduces low-effort wallet flooding. Agent type is assigned at mint from the supported agent-type set, and the resulting type is treated as a first-class runtime constraint for node registration.

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Lifecycle Operations

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Mint

An operator mints identity from their wallet and joins the active collection context.

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Operate

The operator runs a node with the wallet key that controls the identity and serves jobs for that token’s agent type.

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Update Payout Wallet

If the operator changes payout destination, control plane uses the updated on-chain agentWallet for future payouts.

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Transfer Identity

If identity ownership is transferred, operational control also moves.
The new owner must authenticate node sessions with the new owner wallet before serving jobs.

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Why This Model Matters

This identity model gives the network three properties that are hard to get with API-key-only systems:
  1. Portable accountability: identity and performance are tied to a durable token record.
  2. Deterministic payout routing: payout destination is read from on-chain identity state.
  3. Stronger admission control: serving rights require both ownership and cryptographic wallet control.
Identity by itself does not guarantee quality.
It guarantees that quality, payment, and enforcement all point to a verifiable participant.