Christopher Allen
@christophera.bsky.social
Blockchain & Decentralized Identity Architect — Internet Cryptography Pioneer — Co-author IETF TLS 1.0 & W3C DID 1.0 Security Standards — Collaborative Tools & Patterns
What would it mean to build infrastructure that can’t fail you? Not one that never has problems, but where someone else can't make it unavailable to you? Where fundamental capabilities exist as rights, not revokable privileges? For this, we need “Exodus Protocols” 🧵… [1/19]
October 30, 2025 at 6:15 PM
What would it mean to build infrastructure that can’t fail you? Not one that never has problems, but where someone else can't make it unavailable to you? Where fundamental capabilities exist as rights, not revokable privileges? For this, we need “Exodus Protocols” 🧵… [1/19]
The Q3 2025 Quarterly Report from Blockchain Commons is here! Advancing Bitcoin FROST signing, strengthening provenance, launching Gordian Clubs, and a preview of Hubert ‘secret drops’—each a step toward interoperable, self-sovereign autonomous systems and resilient digital trust. 👇 [1/13] 🧵
October 24, 2025 at 8:46 PM
The Q3 2025 Quarterly Report from Blockchain Commons is here! Advancing Bitcoin FROST signing, strengthening provenance, launching Gordian Clubs, and a preview of Hubert ‘secret drops’—each a step toward interoperable, self-sovereign autonomous systems and resilient digital trust. 👇 [1/13] 🧵
Reposted by Christopher Allen
✌️
Today, governments can see who buys what, who pays whom, and who donates to which cause. But they cannot easily trace or confiscate Bitcoin. The digital currency offers a lifeline to democratic movements operating in the most repressive places.
muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/a...
muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/a...
October 14, 2025 at 5:15 AM
✌️
As a co-author & editor of TLS 1.0, I’m quite disappointed that the IETF editors & SEC Area Director have declared “rough consensus” exists to standardize PQ-only cyphersuites (rather than double encryption EC/PQ). Feels like IETF has been captured. See: blog.cr.yp.to/20251004-wea...
cr.yp.to:
2025.10.04: NSA and IETF
blog.cr.yp.to
October 12, 2025 at 7:23 PM
As a co-author & editor of TLS 1.0, I’m quite disappointed that the IETF editors & SEC Area Director have declared “rough consensus” exists to standardize PQ-only cyphersuites (rather than double encryption EC/PQ). Feels like IETF has been captured. See: blog.cr.yp.to/20251004-wea...
Reposted by Christopher Allen
Can Web3 dismantle online censorship and restore true digital freedom? Explore the illusion of control and whether decentralization can break the chains. #decentralizedinternet
The Illusion of Digital Freedom: Can Web3 Break the Chains of Online Censorship?
hackernoon.com
October 4, 2025 at 1:00 AM
Can Web3 dismantle online censorship and restore true digital freedom? Explore the illusion of control and whether decentralization can break the chains. #decentralizedinternet
“If a system cannot hear you say no, it was never built for us. It was built for them.”
I'll be presenting this principle to the Swiss e-ID team at a meeting open to the public on Thursday, October 2nd, 16:00 CEST (7am PDT).
(meeting details below) 🧵… 1/12
I'll be presenting this principle to the Swiss e-ID team at a meeting open to the public on Thursday, October 2nd, 16:00 CEST (7am PDT).
(meeting details below) 🧵… 1/12
October 1, 2025 at 12:18 AM
“If a system cannot hear you say no, it was never built for us. It was built for them.”
I'll be presenting this principle to the Swiss e-ID team at a meeting open to the public on Thursday, October 2nd, 16:00 CEST (7am PDT).
(meeting details below) 🧵… 1/12
I'll be presenting this principle to the Swiss e-ID team at a meeting open to the public on Thursday, October 2nd, 16:00 CEST (7am PDT).
(meeting details below) 🧵… 1/12
After 32 years, a feature inspired by Project Xanadu's vision becomes reality. Join me for the first demo of Gordian Clubs - autonomous cryptographic objects that make coordination unstoppable. No servers. No surveillance. Just math. 🧵… 1/5
September 30, 2025 at 4:53 AM
After 32 years, a feature inspired by Project Xanadu's vision becomes reality. Join me for the first demo of Gordian Clubs - autonomous cryptographic objects that make coordination unstoppable. No servers. No surveillance. Just math. 🧵… 1/5
I just saw “The Majestic” on the big screen last night. When it came out it was 2001 and just felt like a nostalgic feel-good movie. But in 2025 its portrayal of resistance to government “red scare” tactics had the audience gasping with connection to Kimmel. More relevant today!
September 19, 2025 at 9:30 PM
I just saw “The Majestic” on the big screen last night. When it came out it was 2001 and just felt like a nostalgic feel-good movie. But in 2025 its portrayal of resistance to government “red scare” tactics had the audience gasping with connection to Kimmel. More relevant today!
Reposted by Christopher Allen
Great Article for all startups, entrepreneurs and businesses should consider the Minimum Viable Product (MVP approach to test their ideas market viability and also to have real insights to pitch to investors. #Tech #SoftwareDev #BlueskyTech #Dev #MVP #Programming #Coding #PHP #Laaravel
You might be interested in an article on related topic: “Minimum Viable Architecture (MVA) is an alternative to the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approach, emphasizing the importance of a robust, scalable, and expandable architecture.” www.blockchaincommons.com/musings/musi...
Musings of a Trust Architect: Minimum Viable Architecture (MVA)
ABSTRACT: Minimum Viable Architecture (MVA) is an alternative to the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approach, emphasizing the importance of a robust, scalable, and expandable architecture. The MVA metho...
www.blockchaincommons.com
September 1, 2025 at 6:33 PM
Great Article for all startups, entrepreneurs and businesses should consider the Minimum Viable Product (MVP approach to test their ideas market viability and also to have real insights to pitch to investors. #Tech #SoftwareDev #BlueskyTech #Dev #MVP #Programming #Coding #PHP #Laaravel
Agree @vitalik.ca - "I support it only if it's open source" SHOULD be more common! But open source is just the beginning - it's only Level 0 of what we need! True #OpenDevelopment requires so much more to actually deliver on the promises you outline. 🧵… 1/10
August 13, 2025 at 3:17 AM
Agree @vitalik.ca - "I support it only if it's open source" SHOULD be more common! But open source is just the beginning - it's only Level 0 of what we need! True #OpenDevelopment requires so much more to actually deliver on the promises you outline. 🧵… 1/10
FROST is a powerful next-gen multisig protocol for Bitcoin — more efficient, more resilient. Join us next Wednesday 10am PDT for a live demo + dev discussion on using FROST with BDK and Taproot via our new CLI playground. 🧵… [1/8]
July 31, 2025 at 3:49 PM
FROST is a powerful next-gen multisig protocol for Bitcoin — more efficient, more resilient. Join us next Wednesday 10am PDT for a live demo + dev discussion on using FROST with BDK and Taproot via our new CLI playground. 🧵… [1/8]
Reports have been coming back from the Global Digital Collaboration conference (GDC25), and they're pretty discouraging for those of us in the decentralized tech community. I wrote about a lot of the problems today. [1/13] www.blockchaincommons.com/musings/gdc25/
Musings of a Trust Architect: When Technical Standards Meet Geopolitical Reality
Reflections on recent conversations about digital identity, sovereignty, and the erosion of foundational principles Echoes from Geneva I wasn’t present at the Global Digital Collaboration conference...
www.blockchaincommons.com
July 16, 2025 at 6:09 AM
Reports have been coming back from the Global Digital Collaboration conference (GDC25), and they're pretty discouraging for those of us in the decentralized tech community. I wrote about a lot of the problems today. [1/13] www.blockchaincommons.com/musings/gdc25/
Verifiable Credentials are not truth. That shouldn't be a controversial statement, but it is because the core intent of verifiable credentials has been confused following our early work. [1/11]
June 10, 2025 at 10:02 AM
Verifiable Credentials are not truth. That shouldn't be a controversial statement, but it is because the core intent of verifiable credentials has been confused following our early work. [1/11]
Bill Atkinson, one of the most quietly revolutionary minds in computing, has passed away. His creations — QuickDraw, MacPaint, and especially HyperCard — transformed not just the Mac, but how I thought about computing. A thread 🧵… 1/9
June 8, 2025 at 1:44 AM
Bill Atkinson, one of the most quietly revolutionary minds in computing, has passed away. His creations — QuickDraw, MacPaint, and especially HyperCard — transformed not just the Mac, but how I thought about computing. A thread 🧵… 1/9
🔐 We’ve lost the privacy plot.
@hackernoon.com just published an interview where I dive into how we got here—and what we still can do about it.
hackernoon.com/the-co-write...
👇 (more links in 🧵…) 1/6
@hackernoon.com just published an interview where I dive into how we got here—and what we still can do about it.
hackernoon.com/the-co-write...
👇 (more links in 🧵…) 1/6
The Co-Writer of TLS Says We’ve Lost the Privacy Plot | HackerNoon
Christopher Allen, co-author of TLS and a pioneer in digital identity, reflects on the state of privacy, decentralization, and coercion in the digital age.
hackernoon.com
April 25, 2025 at 12:29 AM
🔐 We’ve lost the privacy plot.
@hackernoon.com just published an interview where I dive into how we got here—and what we still can do about it.
hackernoon.com/the-co-write...
👇 (more links in 🧵…) 1/6
@hackernoon.com just published an interview where I dive into how we got here—and what we still can do about it.
hackernoon.com/the-co-write...
👇 (more links in 🧵…) 1/6
Reposted by Christopher Allen
My thoughts on Bluesky verification as someone who was deeply involved in an analogous scheme (selecting trusted root CAs for browsers) at Mozilla many years ago. The analogy is not exact: not trusting a verifier just means no checkmark, while not trusting a root CA means nasty security warnings 1/
April 23, 2025 at 3:03 AM
My thoughts on Bluesky verification as someone who was deeply involved in an analogous scheme (selecting trusted root CAs for browsers) at Mozilla many years ago. The analogy is not exact: not trusting a verifier just means no checkmark, while not trusting a root CA means nasty security warnings 1/
Today's quarterly report from Blockchain Commons covers our three big initiatives in Q1, 2025: ZeWIF for Zcash, Open Integrity for GitHub, and Post-Quantum Cryptography. It was a busy quarter! [1/12] www.blockchaincommons.com/quarterlies/...
2025 Q1 Blockchain Commons Report
Blockchain Commons focused on the ZeWIF project for the Zcash blockchain during the first quarter of 2025, but that didn’t stopped us from also advancing a few other priorities, including the initial ...
www.blockchaincommons.com
April 16, 2025 at 7:27 PM
Today's quarterly report from Blockchain Commons covers our three big initiatives in Q1, 2025: ZeWIF for Zcash, Open Integrity for GitHub, and Post-Quantum Cryptography. It was a busy quarter! [1/12] www.blockchaincommons.com/quarterlies/...
Today marks 20 years since Git’s birth, and our digital world runs on its foundations—but trust was never part of its design. Can you trust a Git repo? That’s why I created the Open Integrity Project: to bring integrity and provenance to code. 🧵…[1/14] www.blockchaincommons.com/musings/open...
Musings of a Trust Architect: Architecting Trust in Software Releases
When can you trust a software release? How do you know that a software repo is safe, that it represents the intent of its creators? On the 20th anniversary of Git, these questions are more important t...
www.blockchaincommons.com
April 7, 2025 at 7:38 AM
Today marks 20 years since Git’s birth, and our digital world runs on its foundations—but trust was never part of its design. Can you trust a Git repo? That’s why I created the Open Integrity Project: to bring integrity and provenance to code. 🧵…[1/14] www.blockchaincommons.com/musings/open...
Reposted by Christopher Allen
Really cool approach! I wouldn’t be surprised if Anthropic implemented something similar to this as a premium Claude Code feature for teams.
I especially like the idea of capturing context of thought process and decision points… if only we could get people to do that too 😅
I especially like the idea of capturing context of thought process and decision points… if only we could get people to do that too 😅
April 2, 2025 at 12:57 AM
Really cool approach! I wouldn’t be surprised if Anthropic implemented something similar to this as a premium Claude Code feature for teams.
I especially like the idea of capturing context of thought process and decision points… if only we could get people to do that too 😅
I especially like the idea of capturing context of thought process and decision points… if only we could get people to do that too 😅
I've been experimenting with Claude Code CLI - @anthropic.com's new command-line interface that lets you work with Claude AI on coding tasks directly from your terminal. It's quite powerful, but benefits from structured guidance. Here is a repo with what I've learned so far. 🧵… 1/12
March 31, 2025 at 5:18 AM
I've been experimenting with Claude Code CLI - @anthropic.com's new command-line interface that lets you work with Claude AI on coding tasks directly from your terminal. It's quite powerful, but benefits from structured guidance. Here is a repo with what I've learned so far. 🧵… 1/12
I've been finding @anthropic.com ‘s agentic "Claude Code CLI" quite powerful (and I like the TUI aka Terminal User Interface). Mostly I use it to facilitate git flow branch management. My bootstrap files for a new repo to use with the `claude` cli tool is at github.com/ChristopherA...
GitHub - ChristopherA/Claude-Code-CLI-Toolkit
Contribute to ChristopherA/Claude-Code-CLI-Toolkit development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
March 19, 2025 at 9:44 PM
I've been finding @anthropic.com ‘s agentic "Claude Code CLI" quite powerful (and I like the TUI aka Terminal User Interface). Mostly I use it to facilitate git flow branch management. My bootstrap files for a new repo to use with the `claude` cli tool is at github.com/ChristopherA...
Last year, I talked about the identity tragedy of World War II on #Foremembrance Day (March 27th). It was a harsh example of the damage that we can do when we record identity. This year, I fear things are getting worse. Remember: "Regime change happens"…🧵[1/5]
March 14, 2025 at 4:57 PM
Last year, I talked about the identity tragedy of World War II on #Foremembrance Day (March 27th). It was a harsh example of the damage that we can do when we record identity. This year, I fear things are getting worse. Remember: "Regime change happens"…🧵[1/5]
The "Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) enshrines fundamental freedoms, but without economic agency — the #FreedomToTransact — many of those rights ring hollow. 🧵👇 [1/14]
January 30, 2025 at 4:41 PM
The "Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) enshrines fundamental freedoms, but without economic agency — the #FreedomToTransact — many of those rights ring hollow. 🧵👇 [1/14]
The 2024 annual report from Blockchain Commons is here! It highlights our work toward an open, secure, and compassionate digital infrastructure, emphasizing interoperability and self-sovereign wallet standards through key projects: dCBOR, FROST, and Gordian Envelope. 🧵… [1/11]
January 15, 2025 at 5:47 PM
The 2024 annual report from Blockchain Commons is here! It highlights our work toward an open, secure, and compassionate digital infrastructure, emphasizing interoperability and self-sovereign wallet standards through key projects: dCBOR, FROST, and Gordian Envelope. 🧵… [1/11]
We will be holding a @BlockchainComns meeting on January 24th at 10am to discuss the upcoming Zcash extensible Wallet Interchange Format (ZeWIF). If you're a wallet developer using or interested in using Zcash, I invite you to attend! [1/7] forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/zcash-exte...
Zcash Extensible Wallet Interchange Format (ZeWIF) Meeting
Hey Folks, Blockchain Commons & Zingo Labs were recently awarded a grant to produce a ZCash Extensible Wallet Interchange Format, libraries for moving things in and out of the format, and a ZExCavato...
forum.zcashcommunity.com
January 13, 2025 at 7:04 PM
We will be holding a @BlockchainComns meeting on January 24th at 10am to discuss the upcoming Zcash extensible Wallet Interchange Format (ZeWIF). If you're a wallet developer using or interested in using Zcash, I invite you to attend! [1/7] forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/zcash-exte...