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2026-05-09 04:24:11 UTC

Akamaister on Nostr: 5/8/2025 - Another interesting direction is the idea of a “composite signer.” ...

5/8/2025 - Another interesting direction is the idea of a “composite signer.”

Right now, identities are mostly treated independently:
- one Nostr identity
- one PGP identity
- one Bitcoin identity
- one SSH identity

But increasingly I’m thinking about a higher-level abstraction:

a composite signing authority composed of multiple underlying identities.

For example:

“Andrew Stanton”
could internally contain:
- several Nostr identities
- multiple PGP fingerprints
- Bitcoin signing identities
- SSH identities

all grouped into a single composite signer profile.

Then when signing an artifact, Continuum could:
- apply all configured proofs automatically
- generate a unified manifest
- preserve identity relationships
- support optional proof policies

This becomes especially interesting because different ecosystems trust different proof systems.

Some people may only care about:
- PGP
- Bitcoin
- SSH
- Nostr

The composite signer allows all of those identities to travel together coherently.

And importantly:
the abstraction shifts away from “accounts”
toward “cryptographic authority groups.”

That feels much closer to how identity actually works in the real world.

A person, organization, or project rarely has:
- one key
- one identity
- one trust system

Instead they operate through overlapping cryptographic authorities.

The composite signer starts modeling that reality much more directly.

#Continuum #Nostr #Bitcoin #OpenSource #LocalFirst #PGP #SSH #Cryptography #Sovereignty