Misconceptions
Misconception: Witnesses Control Your KERI Identity
KERI witnesses and watchers support availability and verification, but they do not own or issue the identifier.
Misconception: "KERI just replaces blockchain validators with witnesses and watchers."
Witnesses and watchers are important, but they are not the root of authority. Witnesses receive, sign, and republish key events so a KEL remains available. Watchers independently look for duplicity, such as two conflicting versions of the same KEL.
Summary
What the clips cover
- Thomas Mayfield - witnesses as notaries. Witnesses are designated services that receive, sign, and republish key events. They provide availability and receipts, and the controller chooses them.
- Thomas Mayfield - watchers detect duplicity. Watchers observe for conflicting KEL histories. Their job is detection, not issuing identities or deciding key state by consensus.
- Thomas Mayfield - verify for yourself. Watchers help turn "trust me" into "verify for yourself."
- Ryan Hansen - witness and watcher infrastructure. The conference demo shows these as deployable infrastructure components around KERI, not as a central authority.
Why it matters
Confusing witnesses with validators makes KERI look like another consensus system. KERI's authority model is different: the AID's key events establish state, witnesses make those events reachable and receipted, and watchers help verifiers detect inconsistent histories.