where this is headed
The trajectory.
V3RUM is being built in the open by one person with one project, helped by AI for the parts a single person can't carry alone. This page is what's done, what's next, and what's later — written honestly so the people watching the build can plan around it.
done
The shape gets defined.
The conceptual work — what a verum is, why it works, how the witness constellation provides fabrication-resistance, why the format outlives its components, how it relates to TSL8, what role it plays in the broader ecosystem of identity and IP.
- Witness categories defined: structural, substitutable, decorative
- Additive scoring with diminishing returns and independence requirements
- Tier system: sketch, brief, record, archive
- Substitutability mechanism for witness sources that come and go
- Hybrid registry model: V3RUM canonical, others permitted
- Public site with working v0.1 preview minting
in progress
The model gets right.
The granting/use signature distinction. Identity is established once, ceremoniously, with a paid granting signature. Every signing event after is free, derived, unlimited. The fee model goes from per-document to per-identity. This is the change that makes V3RUM feel like infrastructure rather than a service.
- Granting/use signature model defined
- Pricing rewritten: $30 once for a granting signature, free use signatures forever
- Re-attestation defined: refresh by performing a new granting ceremony
- v1.0 specification draft incorporating granting/use distinction and convergence ceremony
- Verifier page (drop a verum, fetch witnesses, render the score)
- "What would faking this require" page with IMS comparison
starting soon
The phone app.
Granting signatures require the V3RUM phone app. The browser preview is a sketch of what's coming; the real ceremony lives on the device. iOS first, Android close behind. The app handles hardware-backed key custody, sensor fusion, the convergence ceremony with signed video, and use-signature derivation from the granting key.
- iOS app using Secure Enclave for granting-signature key custody
- Sensor fusion: GPS, magnetometer, accelerometer, barometric altitude, ambient acoustics
- Convergence ceremony: human + declared AI co-presence proof with signed video
- w3w + Plus Code geocoding for human-readable location
- Use-signature derivation on-device (no payment, no friction)
- Stripe integration for the granting-signature payment
- Android implementation using StrongBox
the founding moment
The genesis at Half Moon Bay.
The founder's granting signature gets sealed at a beach in Half Moon Bay. The same ceremony seals the V3RUM v1.0 specification document — the spec verifying its own seal, the lineage starting from a single moment in a witnessable place. The verum will be free, public, and recorded as the first entry in the canonical registry.
The witness constellation for the genesis includes everything the location offers: tide state from NOAA, wave height from the nearest NDBC buoy, ambient acoustic signature of surf, barometric pressure, GPS cross-checked against w3w, sunset position from ephemeris. The genesis is the most witness-rich verum that will ever be sealed by V3RUM, on purpose.
- v1.0 spec locked and sealed
- Genesis ceremony performed with prototype phone app
- Genesis verum published, registered, and explicitly noted as the founding gesture
- v1.0 fee schedule activates for new granting signatures (preview participants exempt)
post-launch
The integrations widen.
With v1.0 shipped and the registry running, V3RUM extends into the places where identity and signing actually happen. Each integration is its own piece of work, done as the surrounding tools are ready for it.
- TSL8 verification updates to use V3RUM granting signatures as the default identity layer
- Browser extension for use-signature minting on web pages and documents
- Printed-witness pattern: QR-in-flourish + microtext for paper documents
- Public profile rendering (professional view, creative view, civic view, private view)
- API for third-party registries to interoperate with the canonical registry
- Reputation-points category for identity-bridge witnesses (LinkedIn, GitHub, ORCID, personal domains)
- Open-source verifier libraries for major languages
the larger trajectory
The infrastructure becomes infrastructure.
Past the immediate roadmap, V3RUM has a longer-term direction worth saying out loud. As the registry accumulates real identities and use signatures over years, the cryptographic trail of someone's professional and creative life — owned by them, portable, verifiable, not gateable by any platform — becomes meaningful in its own right.
That's the shape of a tool that could replace the parts of LinkedIn, identity platforms, and notarization systems where the moat is the data they harvest. Not by competing on those companies' terms, but by being the open infrastructure they pretend to be. The longer you use V3RUM, the more your identity chain proves on its own.
- Long-form profile rendering as a serious LinkedIn alternative
- Cross-platform identity continuity (the same V3RUM identity used everywhere)
- Privacy-preserving views for context-specific disclosure
- Federated registry network with no central choke point
- Whatever the world asks for next
The entity, the operator.
V3RUM is being formed as a California LLC. Domiciled where the founder is, where the genesis ceremony will happen, and where the courts handle technology disputes competently. The entity is a wrapper for the infrastructure, not a venture-backed company. The founder is the operator. The LLC exists so the registry, the payment flow, and the eventual support burden have a home that isn't a personal liability surface.
The pricing reflects that. $30 once per granting signature, use signatures free forever. Cheap enough to be ubiquitous, honest enough to be opposed by the right people. No VC. No Series A. No exit strategy. Just a small piece of working infrastructure that's intended to outlive whoever happens to be running it.
Apple, Google, and the platforms.
V3RUM doesn't compete with Apple or Google. It uses their hardware more deeply than most apps do — Secure Enclave for key custody, the biometric APIs for hardware-attested identity, App Attest for app integrity, the sensor fusion stack for the witness constellation. The phone app is being built using platform primitives as designed, with no roll-your-own cryptography and no circumvention of platform security.
What V3RUM offers the platforms in return: a standardized, cross-platform format for identity attestation that interoperates between iOS and Android. A demonstration of what their hardware enables when an app takes the cryptographic story seriously. A private-sector identity primitive that gives both companies a working example to point at when regulators ask about digital identity.
The relationship is collaborative, not adversarial. The website carries a sharper voice for the audience that came for it; the App Store listing will be measured and technically accurate. Both can be true without contradiction.
Watch the build.
Everything here is being made by one person, working with AI as a coding partner, in public, on a small site for a small audience. The roadmap is honest about what's done and what isn't. If you want to see something land sooner, mint a preview verum and tell us what you'd use it for. The shape of the format is being decided by what the early users actually need.