At the heart of decentralized systems today is a demoralizing irony. Vast resources---intellect, equipment, and energy---go into avoiding centralized control and creating "trustless" systems like Bitcoin. But hapless users then defeat the whole purpose of these systems by handing over their private keys to centralized entities like Coinbase.

Would it be nice if there were a truly decentralized system that could do the impossible? I.e.,

• Make key management easier for ordinary users.
• Manage secret keys for transparent objects without secret state, like smart contracts.
• Operate seamlessly when nodes come and go.