Decentralized Science (#DeSci) is a nascent web-native movement seeking to deploy scientific applications on decentralized internet protocols that are autonomous and community owned. The automation of scientific web services — such as permission-less publishing, laboratory protocol marketplaces, and grant making — requires a portable persistent identifier that links data across applications, verifies credentials, and maximizes the discoverability of research activity. Most importantly, this identifier must be controlled by who it describes and protect against impersonation. Current infrastructure for assigning identifiers to academic entities falls short of this requirement list, yet there is a chance to bridge existing tooling with new technology to solve these problems.