The Multibase Data Format
Juan Benet, Manu Sporny · 2018
Raw binary data is often encoded using a mechanism that enables the data to be included in human-readable text-based formats. This mechanism is often referred to as base-encoding the Base- encoding is often used when expressing binary data in hyperlinks, cryptographic keys in web pages, or security tokens in application software. There are a variety of base-encodings, such as base32, base58, and base64. It is not always possible to differentiate one base-encoding from another. The purpose of this specification is to provide a mechanism to be able to deterministically identify the base- encoding for a particular string of data.