1.Why Pkarr?

This note explores the motivation behind PKARR, addressing the challenges of distributed semantics, databases, and discovery.

In pursuit of a sovereign, distributed, and open web, we identify three challenges:

1. Distributed Semantics Everything expressed as keys and metadata Developing interoperable semantics for verifiable metadata about a set of public-keys that form a digital identity, complete with reputation, social graph, credentials, and more.

2. Distributed Database(s) Anyone can host the data Verifiable data alone is insufficient; a host-agnostic database is essential for an open web, as opposed to walled gardens.

3. Distributed Discovery Where is the data? But before that, you need to efficiently and consistently discover the multiple hosts for a given data-set.

Addressing Distributed Discovery first makes the most sense for several reasons:

• The difficulty of these three challenges inversely correlates with their order.

• The marginal utility of solving these challenges positively correlates with their order.

  In existing and emerging open social network protocols, users do tolerate limited interoperability between clients, second-class identifiers controlled by hosting or domain servers, inefficient or non-existent conflict-free replication between data stores, and the absence of local-first or offline support. However, their most common complaints involve unavailability, censorship, deplatforming, and difficulty in securely managing keys.

• Distributed Discovery offers the greatest assured leverage by abstracting over current and emerging solutions for (1) and (2) as they compete, complement, and develop independently, all while maintaining the same long lasting identifier, so you don’t have to start from scratch or be locked in.