0x06 / 0x0eHow do I own my identity, my audience and my reputation?
Identity, Social and Trust
Keys instead of accounts. Nostr, AT Protocol, DIDs, verifiable credentials, remote signers and webs of trust, plus the hard part, which is recovering when keys are lost.
Start here
Guides
Building a ZK membership proofProve that an accepted group member submitted a message without naming the member.
intermediate
None
Getting Started on Nostr SafelyOn Nostr your identity is a key pair, not an account. Nobody can ban you from the protocol, and nobody can recover your key if you lose it.
beginner
30 minutes
Nostr Key Custody and RecoveryThe hard part of key-rooted identity is not generating a key. It is keeping the key usable for years without turning every phone, web app, browser extension, and backup file into an account-takeover risk. Nostr is the best live laboratory for this problem because the public key is the account.
Guide
None
Technologies
The OpenPGP Web of Trust
Deep dive
✓ Battle-tested
ActivityPub
Deep dive
Usable
AT Protocol and did:plc
Deep dive
Usable
Biscuit authorization tokens
Deep dive
Usable
ENS as Identity
Deep dive
Usable
Nostr as an Identity Layer
Deep dive
Usable
Passkeys and Security Keysalso in opsec
Deep dive
Usable
PKARR: Public-Key Addressable Resource Recordsalso in naming
Deep dive
Usable
Remote Signing (NIP-46 and Friends)
Deep dive
Usable
Secure Scuttlebutt
Deep dive
Usable
Semaphorealso in zero-knowledge
Deep dive
Usable
Verifiable Credentials
Deep dive
Usable
AI Agent Identity on Nostr
Deep dive
Experimental
BBS+ Signaturesalso in cryptography
Deep dive
Experimental
Blossom: Blob Storage on Nostralso in storage
Deep dive
Experimental
Buzz
Deep dive
Experimental
Cordnalso in messaging
Deep dive
Experimental
KERI (Key Event Receipt Infrastructure)
Deep dive
Experimental
Marmot: MLS over Nostralso in messaging
Deep dive
Experimental
Nostr VPNalso in off-grid
Deep dive
Experimental
Pubky
Deep dive
Experimental
TLSNotaryalso in zero-knowledge
Deep dive
Experimental
Web of Trust on Nostr
Deep dive
Experimental
White Noisealso in messaging
Deep dive
Experimental
ZK Emailalso in zero-knowledge
Deep dive
Experimental
Slashtagsalso in naming
Deep dive
Historical
Radiclealso in storage
Deep dive
! Cautionary
Reference and research
Directory81 curated links
Nostr: Nostr Protocol
- nak — Command-line tool for creating, signing, querying, and publishing Nostr events
- Nostr — Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays — minimalist decentralized social protocol
- NIP-01 — Core protocol specification: events, kinds, relays
- nostr-protocol/nips — Nostr Implementation Possibilities — protocol extension proposals
- nostr-tools — JavaScript library for building Nostr clients
- nostr-rs — Rust Nostr library with FFI bindings
- nostr.how — Comprehensive Chinese documentation on Nostr protocol
Nostr: Nostr Clients
- Damus — iOS Nostr client (Swift)
- Amethyst — Android Nostr client - v1.06.0 released early 2026 with NIP-100 support
- Primal — Cross-platform Nostr client with social feed - v3.0 released early 2026
- Snort — Web-based Nostr client (React)
- Gossip — Native desktop Nostr client in Rust
- Coracle — Web Nostr client with relay management
- Notedeck — Nostr client v0.8 released early 2026
Nostr: Nostr Relays
- Bloom — Cross-platform bundled Blossom media server and Nostr relay for self-hosting
- nostr-rs-relay — Rust-based Nostr relay with SQLite storage
- strfry — High-performance C++ Nostr relay
- nostr-ts-relay — TypeScript relay implementation
- nostrcheck-server — Self-hostable Nostr service server with relay, NIP-96/Blossom file hosting, NIP-05, NWC, and WoT
- NostrGator — Docker stack for sovereign Nostr relays, file hosting, Lightning wallet integration, and monitoring
Nostr: Nostr Ecosystem
- nostr-build — Media hosting for Nostr
- nostr-band — Nostr search engine and analytics
- nsecbunkerd — Remote key signing for Nostr
- awesome-nostr — Curated list of Nostr projects and resources
- NostrHub — NIPs, apps, and repos discovery platform
- zap.store — Decentralized app distribution for Nostr
- Blossom — HTTP blob-storage specification using Nostr keys for identity and authorization
- NIP-96 — HTTP file storage integration for Nostr clients, deprecated in favor of NIP-B7
- nostr-idb — IndexedDB-backed event store with a relay-like API for local-first Nostr apps
Nostr: Nostr Payments & Compute
- Cashu NUTs — Protocol specifications for Cashu ecash wallets and mints, including Nostr mint backup
- Routstr Core — Nostr discovery plus Cashu micropayments for permissionless API/inference routing
- NIP-47 — Nostr Wallet Connect specification for controlling Lightning wallets over Nostr
- Nostr Wallet Connect Docs — Official NWC protocol documentation and implementation guidance
- Alby NWC App — Go application for connecting apps to a Lightning node or wallet over Nostr
Nostr: Nostr & Identity
Nostr: Nostr vs ATProto
- Nostr vs ATProto Comparison — Developer comparison between Nostr and Bluesky's ATProto protocol
Identity: W3C Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs)
- W3C DID Core v1.0 — Decentralized Identifiers specification — globally unique, self-owned identifiers
- W3C DID v1.1 — Updated DID specification with improved verification methods
- did:key Method — Simple DID method based on expanding a cryptographic public key into a DID Document
- Microsoft ION — Decentralized DID network built on Bitcoin (Sidetree protocol)
- did:web Method — DID method using web domains for DID Document resolution
- did:ethr Method — Ethereum-based DID method for blockchain identity
Identity: Verifiable Credentials
- W3C Verifiable Credentials — Standard for cryptographically verifiable digital credentials
- W3C VC Data Model v2.1 — Latest working draft extending the VC standard (2026)
- W3C VC Implementations — Comprehensive list of VC implementations across languages
- OpenID4VP / OpenID4VCI — OpenID standards for verifiable presentations and credential issuance
- Microsoft Decentralized Identity — Reference implementations and documentation for DID/VC
- Dock — Self-sovereign identity platform for creating DIDs and Verifiable Credentials
- Decentralized Identity Foundation — Open ecosystem for decentralized identity standards and interoperability
- did-jwt-vc — Create and verify W3C Verifiable Credentials JWTs
- Credo (TypeScript) — TypeScript framework for building decentralized identity and VC solutions (OpenWallet Foundation)
- Veridian Wallet — Open-source identity wallet using KERI and ACDC protocols
Identity: Decentralized PKI
- DPKI Overview — Decentralized PKI: replacing Certificate Authorities with blockchain-based trust
- Namecoin — Blockchain-based naming system that can serve as decentralized PKI and TLS certificate anchoring
- PKARR — Public Key Addressable Resource Records — DNS-like records signed by public keys
- KERI — Key Event Receipt Infrastructure for decentralized identifier key management
Identity: Identity & Privacy
- ZK Identity — Polygon ID — zero-knowledge identity protocol for privacy-preserving verification
- anon-aadhaar — ZK protocol to prove possession of Aadhaar (Indian ID) without revealing identity
- World ID — Privacy-preserving proof of personhood via iris biometrics with ZK proofs
- EUDI Wallet — European Digital Identity Wallet under eIDAS 2.0 regulation (2026)
Web of Trust
Web of Trust: Nostr Web of Trust
- nostr-wot/nostr-wot — Nostr Web of Trust toolkit: query social graph distance between pubkeys, includes browser extension and oracle API
- nostr-wot/nostr-wot-extension — Browser extension for Nostr WoT: query custom trust scores and social distances
- barrydeen/wot-relay — Archive every note in your Nostr web of trust (82 stars)
- Pretty-Good-Freedom-Tech/brainstorm — Personalized Nostr relay featuring the Grapevine web of trust
Web of Trust: GPG Web of Trust
- mricon/wotmate — Web of trust grapher and analyzer (40 stars)
Web of Trust: Modern OpenPGP
- Sequoia PGP — Modern, safe OpenPGP implementation in Rust
- OpenPGP.js — JavaScript OpenPGP implementation (maintained by Proton, RFC 9580)
- Gopenpgp — High-level Go wrapper for OpenPGP encryption and signing
- rPGP — OpenPGP implementation in pure Rust
- age — Modern file encryption replacing GPG for most use cases (Go)
- minisign — Minimalistic file signing and verification tool
Federation
- ActivityPub — W3C Recommendation for actor inboxes, outboxes and social federation
- ForgeFed — ActivityPub extension for federation between code collaboration services
Code and Collaboration
- Radicle protocol — Peer replication of Git repositories and collaborative objects; read the transport-security warning
Replicated identities and feeds
- Secure Scuttlebutt protocol — Signed feeds, gossip replication, pubs and rooms
Authorization
- Biscuit — Public-key authorization tokens with offline attenuation and Datalog policy