With the news of the secret $100 million investment in Bluesky by Bain, I keep thinking about protocols.
Maybe the perceived "drawbacks" of #ActivityPub are ultimately strengths?
#ATproto handles identity in a way that allows a single sign-in across apps. But wouldn't this make it easier to profile you? Is this why crypto VCs are so attracted to it?
And ATproto has funding in the 100s of millions by VCs but at some point they'll want to turn a profit. There is ZERO pressure here to ensh*tt*fy
In September of 2025, under pressure to show they are really 'decentralized' and to great fanfare #Bluesky announced they were spinning out the "one centralized component" of their network to a new fully independent Switzerland based organization.
Creating an Independent Public Ledger of Credentials (PLC) Directory Organization
https://docs.bsky.app/blog/plc-directory-org
Since then crickets. No information on progress. Structure? Funding? Ownership? Who will it employ? Will the financials be public?
The Bluesky Social app is built on an open network protocol that refers to each user by a unique Decentralized Identifier, or DID (a W3C standard). The most popular supported DID method was developed in-house by Bluesky Social, and is called "Public Ledger of Credentials", or PLC. The PLC identity system currently relies on a global directory service to distribute identity updates, and that directory service has been operated by Bluesky as well.
A little background here. This PLC directory is like the 'phone book' for AT Protocol, that enables this much ballyhooed ability to have a single name/address across all instances and apps. Whoever holds the phone book has total control over the network. Currently that is Bluesky PBC and their VC owners, but they have said they are relinquishing that to this new Swiss organization.
Elena Rossini ⁂
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