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
