CIDs - Content IDentifiers

CIDs - Content IDentifiers

For most objects referenced by Filecoin, a Content Identifier (CID for short) is used. Any pointer inclusions in the Filecoin spec id files (e.g. &Object) denotes the CID of said object. Some objects explicitly name a CID field. The spec treats these notations interchangeably. This is effectively a hash value, prefixed with its hash function (multihash) as well as extra labels to inform applications about how to deserialize the given data.

For a more detailed specification, we refer the reader to the IPLD repository.