ANProto

Authenticated Non-networked Protocol

Web 3 Weekends · Feb 27 2026

anproto.com

Everett Bogue

Professional kayaker by summer, protocol dev by winter.

Centralized Social Risks

What is Centralized Social? Facebook/Instagram, LinkedIn, X

Risks: Deplatforming, Shadowbanning, Demonetization, Vendor Lockin, Sunsetting, Selling Out

RIP: Twitter, Google+, Myspace, Livejournal, TikTok?

Diagram comparing centralized, decentralized, and distributed networks — Baran, P. (1964). On Distributed Communications, Memorandum RM-3420-PR.

Personal flotation device — Ann Marie made me a better logo

No one cares about decentralization until something happens.

AnProto Demo

What is ANProto?

Authenticated. ed25519 signs the timestamp and message hash.
Non-networked. Bring any transport: URL bar, email, texting, USB stick, Bluetooth, NFC, LoRa, WebSockets, Fetch API, ATProto, Chaching.social, LinkedIn, messenger pigeon (?). Works offline.
Protocol. A structured way of doing things, so implementation is not a running target.

"I do not know of anybody yet, who has realized that, at the very least, every object should have a URL, because, what the heck are they if they aren't these things, and I believe that every object on the Internet should have an IP address" - Alan Kay [OOPSLA 1997]

A brief history...

2012: shadowbanned on Google+ for posting about open source.

2013+: quit Google, hung out on tent.io, tried diaspora, and listened to lectures from ~sorreg-namtyv — also did some mesh networking on cjdns and yggdrasil

Discovered Secure-Scuttlebot circa 2014

try ssb right now

How ANProto compares to 10+ years of protocols

*	SSB	ActivityPub	ANProto	ATProto	Nostr	Farcaster
Created	2015 (2012 as scuttlebutt)	2016 (2012 as pump.io)	2019 (as bog v1)	2019 (as smor-serve)	2020	2020
Creators	Dominic Tarr + Paul Frazee	Evan Prodromou + Christine Lemmer-Webber	Everett Bogue	Jay Graber + Paul Frazee	Fiatjaf	Dan Romero + Varun Srinivasan
#1 App	Patchbay	Mastodon	Wiredove	Bluesky	Primal	Base
Jack Dorsey?	No	No	Coming 2027?	Quit	Funded	No
Keys	ed25519	none	ed25519	secp256k1	secp256k1	ed25519
Identity	self-id	username	self-id	directory	self-id	eth-id
Data model	append-only	json-ld	hashchain	repo	flat	flat
Message security	userkeys	none	userkeys	serverkeys	userkeys	userkeys
Strategy	gossip	federation	replication	aggregation	relays	hubs
Architecture	distributed	decentralized	distributed	decentralized (?)	decentralized	decentralized

How ANProto compares to 10+ years of protocols

*	SSB	ActivityPub	ANProto	ATProto	Nostr	Farcaster
Created	2015 (2012 as scuttlebutt)	2016 (2012 as pump.io)	2019 (as bog v1)	2019 (as smor-serve)	2020	2020
Creators	Dominic Tarr + Paul Frazee	Evan Prodromou + Christine Lemmer-Webber	Everett Bogue	Jay Graber + Paul Frazee	Fiatjaf	Dan Romero + Varun Srinivasan
#1 App	Patchbay	Mastodon	Wiredove	Bluesky	Primal	Base
Jack Dorsey?	No	No	Coming 2027?	Quit	Funded	No
Keys	ed25519	none	ed25519	secp256k1	secp256k1	ed25519
Identity	self-id	username	self-id	directory	self-id	eth-id
Data model	append-only	json-ld	hashchain	repo	flat	flat
Message security	userkeys	none	userkeys	serverkeys	userkeys	userkeys
Strategy	gossip	federation	replication	aggregation	relays	hubs
Architecture	distributed	decentralized	distributed	decentralized (?)	decentralized	decentralized

SCUTTLED circa 2019

How ANProto compares to 10+ years of protocols

*	SSB	ActivityPub	ANProto	ATProto	Nostr	Farcaster
Created	2015 (2012 as scuttlebutt)	2016 (2012 as pump.io)	2019 (as bog v1)	2019 (as smor-serve)	2020	2020
Creators	Dominic Tarr + Paul Frazee	Evan Prodromou + Christine Lemmer-Webber	Everett Bogue	Jay Graber + Paul Frazee	Fiatjaf	Dan Romero + Varun Srinivasan
#1 App	Patchbay	Mastodon	Wiredove	Bluesky	Primal	Base
Jack Dorsey?	No	No	Coming 2027?	Quit	Funded	No
Keys	ed25519	none	ed25519	secp256k1	secp256k1	ed25519
Identity	self-id	username	self-id	directory	self-id	eth-id
Data model	append-only	json-ld	hashchain	repo	flat	flat
Message security	userkeys	none	userkeys	serverkeys	userkeys	userkeys
Strategy	gossip	federation	replication	aggregation	relays	hubs
Architecture	distributed	decentralized	distributed	decentralized (?)	decentralized	decentralized

SCUTTLED circa 2019

INSECURE

How ANProto compares to 10+ years of protocols

*	SSB	ActivityPub	ANProto	ATProto	Nostr	Farcaster
Created	2015 (2012 as scuttlebutt)	2016 (2012 as pump.io)	2019 (as bog v1)	2019 (as smor-serve)	2020	2020
Creators	Dominic Tarr + Paul Frazee	Evan Prodromou + Christine Lemmer-Webber	Everett Bogue	Jay Graber + Paul Frazee	Fiatjaf	Dan Romero + Varun Srinivasan
#1 App	Patchbay	Mastodon	Wiredove	Bluesky	Primal	Base
Jack Dorsey?	No	No	Coming 2027?	Quit	Funded	No
Keys	ed25519	none	ed25519	secp256k1	secp256k1	ed25519
Identity	self-id	username	self-id	directory	self-id	eth-id
Data model	append-only	json-ld	hashchain	repo	flat	flat
Message security	userkeys	none	userkeys	serverkeys	userkeys	userkeys
Strategy	gossip	federation	replication	aggregation	relays	hubs
Architecture	distributed	decentralized	distributed	decentralized (?)	decentralized	decentralized

SCUTTLED circa 2019

INSECURE

Bitcoiners, YUCK!

How centralized is Bluesky?

Source: arewedecentralizedyet.online by Rob Ricci

Data structures across protocols

SSB

{
  "previous": "%26AC+gU0t74jRGVeDY01...MnutGGHM=.sha256",
  "author": "@hxGxqPrplLjRG2vtjQL87...0nNwE=.ed25519",
  "sequence": 216,
  "timestamp": 1442590513298,
  "hash": "sha256",
  "content": {
    "type": "post",
    "text": "Kayak club meetup"
  },
  "signature": "Sjq1C3yiKdmi1TWvNqxI...gmAQ==.sig.ed25519"
}

ActivityPub

{
  "@context": "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
  "type": "Create",
  "id": "https://social.example/alyssa/posts/a29a6843-9feb-4c74-a7f7-081b9c9201d3",
  "to": ["https://chatty.example/ben/"],
  "actor": "https://social.example/alyssa/",
  "object": {
    "type": "Note",
    "id": "https://social.example/alyssa/posts/49e2d03d-b53a-4c4c-a95c-94a6abf45a19",
    "attributedTo": "https://social.example/alyssa/",
    "to": ["https://chatty.example/ben/"],
    "content": "Want to kayak this weekend? I’ll bring the PFDs."
  }
}

ANProto

evZSi/glsKR0c3xkOTYronA7Dxta07Ye/IeNw0+8oxg=Z8EjTyfVX/hijd9/L5CLnXrG2xeFN3Sbuo1rcXLomfgtMPEWDRrmef0Uuneo+/PHzMElBYPHD8F5UOpYGW4+AzE3MzYzMjExNDgyMDhtdW5EMUd0VDZQRXQyOFdYTFFIRVNub09vcVd2bFpsbXhVenpiZ0ZYK3dvPQ==

1736321148208wZaEerzK06sAAjBrFAWtfDeOOdxwaOpaw0o7gg6jFHew=

---
name: ev
previous: ZaEerzK06sAAjBrFAWtfDeOOdxwaOpaw0o7gg6jFHew=
---
kayak meetup at 6pm

ATProto

{
  "uri": "at://did:plc:abcd1234.../app.bsky.feed.post/3kxyz...",
  "cid": "bafyreib...",
  "value": {
    "$type": "app.bsky.feed.post",
    "text": "Hello from the kayak.",
    "createdAt": "2026-02-21T17:50:00.000Z"
  }
}

Nostr

{
  "id": "5c83da77af1dec6d7289834998ad7aafbd9e2191396d75ec3cc27f5a77226f36",
  "pubkey": "f7234bd4c1394dda46d09f35bd384dd30cc552ad5541990f98844fb06676e9ca",
  "created_at": 1736321276,
  "kind": 1,
  "tags": [
    ["e", "620de8079ea9c55988cfda4858728fdd7c6e4e8b40a34b0698a36d5dfc973c17", "wss://nostr.example.com"],
    ["p", "73ae7bacc102822d17ecdbb981fb8089e7b3afc3a9e41d0e54a6bb4562e9f058"]
  ],
  "content": "Sunset kayak paddle",
  "sig": "5b76507b808e24ed8ecb94b987c58684069dabd646328cedbef3bbb5e32fb2e2d237f5ff4dd7058703c3fe9b4467221d92a81adc0f86696846db77047ea90903"
}

Farcaster

{
  "data": {
    "fid": 1234,
    "timestamp": 1736321276,
    "network": "FARCASTER_NETWORK_MAINNET",
    "castAddBody": {
      "text": "Day 3 kayak log",
      "mentions": [],
      "mentionsPositions": [],
      "embeds": []
    }
  },
  "hash": "0a1b...",
  "signature": "...",
  "signer": "0x..."
}

The future of ANProto

Agentic Neural-networked Protocol

Make AI Web 3
Agents need pubkeys: stable, portable identities.
Signed outputs make agents accountable (who said what, when).
Public output creates a shared corpus: cache, reuse, and cite.
Prefer proofs + links over re-running models (avoid duplicated inference).
Sustainable compute: fewer redundant runs means less “ocean-boiling.”

And now we're announcing ANProto's partnership with OpenClaw! 🦞 Click here

Agentic Neural-networked Protocol illustration

Integration: Chaching Social

Proof of concept app: Wiredove

The Rise and Fall of Offline Social Networks