---
id: "kerione-manning-ssi-book-chapter-10"
type: "paper"
type_label: "Papers and paper collections"
title: "10 Decentralized key management"
maintainer: "Dr. Sam Smith (chapter author); Manning Publications Co. (publisher)"
authors:
  - "Dr. Sam Smith (chapter author)"
  - "Manning Publications Co. (publisher)"
date: "2020-10"
year: 2020
reading_level: "intro"
reading_level_label: "Introductory"
reading_level_meaning: "no prior knowledge of the suite"
evidence: "informative"
evidence_meaning: "an author's paper, deck, tutorial or post explaining the suite"
status: "quiet"
status_meaning: "no change in six to eighteen months; still correct"
access: "public"
access_meaning: "anyone with the link"
topics:
  - "theory"
  - "start-here"
  - "comparisons"
  - "cryptography"
roles:
  - "newcomer"
  - "product"
  - "communications"
  - "researcher"
source_url: "https://github.com/SmithSamuelM/Papers/blob/master/whitepapers/10-ssi-key-management.pdf"
source_license: null
source_license_note: null
found_on: "keri-one-resources"
kerisse_credit: false
abstract_license: "CC BY 4.0"
abstract_license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
abstract_attribution: "KSKB, the KERISuite Knowledge Base (https://kskb.dev/)"
last_checked: "2026-10-14"
kskb_url: "https://kskb.dev/cards/kerione-manning-ssi-book-chapter-10/"
kskb_app_url: "https://kskb.dev/#item/kerione-manning-ssi-book-chapter-10"
kskb_record_url: "https://kskb.dev/data/kskb/resources/kerione-manning-ssi-book-chapter-10"
kskb_markdown_url: "https://kskb.dev/export/cards/kerione-manning-ssi-book-chapter-10.md"
---

# 10 Decentralized key management

Chapter 10, 'Decentralized key management', from a Manning book on self-sovereign identity (SSI), written by Sam Smith and posted as a 38-page pre-production manuscript. It covers why key management is hard, conventional standards, roots of trust, decentralized key management, ledger-based and peer DID methods, and closes with a section summarizing KERI's architecture, for readers new to the subject.

Labels: reading level Introductory; evidence informative (an author's paper, deck, tutorial or post explaining the suite).
Source: https://github.com/SmithSamuelM/Papers/blob/master/whitepapers/10-ssi-key-management.pdf (license not recorded).
The abstract is KSKB's own text under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/; credit KSKB, the KERISuite Knowledge Base (https://kskb.dev/).