>I think a separate property could be used instead, despite it adding more cruft
With a separate property it will be difficult to create links. Take for example inReplyTo property, if you use a separate property the reply will look like this:
{ "type": "Note", "id": "https://alice.example/objects/123", "didUrl": "did🔑xyz/objects/123", "content": "This note has two IDs", "inReplyTo": { "id": "https://bob.example/objects/567", "didUrl": "did🔑ijk/objects/567" }, ... }Mastodon probably won't accept such inReplyTo value, so you'll get a separate fediverse either way. I think single ID approach is cleaner