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Progressive Trust, 2024, [developer reference], Christopher Allen, Blockchain Commons. Retrieved from https://developer.blockchaincommons.com/progressive-trust/
Progressive trust rejects the binary trusted/untrusted model. Trust is a progression: initial contact → identity verification → context exchange → commitment → collaboration, with each stage requiring verification before advancing. The framework applies to both human relationships and technical systems — authentication, disclosure, and commitment deepen together rather than being set to maximum strength upfront.
Trust is not binary. Systems that model trust as trusted/untrusted miss the spectrum between first contact and deep collaboration. Progressive trust maps this spectrum explicitly.
Verification before advancement. Each stage of trust deepening requires some form of verification — not necessarily cryptographic, but appropriate to the stage. A shared introduction (Level 0 in IFP terms) is sufficient for initial contact; verified public keys (Level 2) are appropriate for sustained exchange.
Disclosure deepens with trust. What you share is proportional to how much trust has been established. This is not a privacy setting — it is a natural consequence of the relationship stage.
Commitment deepens with trust. Early-stage relationships involve low-commitment exchanges (gossip, context sharing). Deeper trust enables higher-commitment actions (recommendations, collaboration, shared projects).
Applies to both human and technical systems. The same progressive model governs how people build trust in face-to-face relationships and how agents build trust in protocol exchanges.
Progressive trust is the conceptual foundation for two of IFP’s core models: progressive authentication (IFP-5, four levels from shared secret to DID-bound identity) and disclosure tiers (IFP-12, six tiers from public to close). IFP operationalizes progressive trust for agent-to-agent communication.