Private Fish represent your private cryptographic keys. They are distinct from Public Fish, both in function and in appearance.
> A creative metaphor for cryptographic keys.
Unlike the colourful and playful public fish, private fish are imagined with a more subdued and serious appearance — perhaps rendered in black and white — to visually signal their sensitivity and significance.
The aim is to make these digital objects both recognisable and easy to remember, allowing users to identify their private keys at a glance. This metaphor helps bridge the gap between technical detail and intuitive understanding, encouraging users to treat their private keys as something valuable and worth protecting.
More than just a visual tool, the project includes a narrative layer: private fish are said to live in deep, hidden environments, which symbolises the need to store private keys securely and out of reach from others.
The plan is to build a small world of stories or folklore around this idea, helping people to learn safe digital habits through familiar imagery and engaging ideas. By embedding the technical importance of key management in this kind of storytelling, the topic becomes easier to understand and remember.
To bring this idea to life, an application is being developed that runs in environments compatible with WebAssembly (see Fishy). The app will allow users to generate a pair of cryptographic keys, each represented as a unique fish — one private and one public.
The experience is meant to feel personal and approachable, much like creating a custom emoji or icon. From there, users will be guided through simple lessons and visuals to understand how to care for their private fish and why it matters. The goal is to make cryptography both accessible and meaningful.
# Security These fish aren’t just pretty graphics, they’re embodiments of your actual private keys. That means they carry real security risk if mishandled. So part of the concept involves helping users understand the value and sensitivity of these objects.
# Invitation to collaborate
These keys should be stored somewhere safe and private. Imagine a deep-sea cave or a hidden reef, somewhere metaphorically difficult to reach. I'm thinking of building a collaborative narrative or folklore around this: why private fish live in deep water, how they guard secrets, and why they must be protected. At the very least, we want a visual language that immediately signals their importance and role.
# Creation We also want users to be able to generate their own private fish—much like you might create a custom emoji or avatar. The idea is to make key generation feel personal and tangible, not abstract or intimidating. To support this, we’re exploring the development of an app—likely built in a WASM-compatible environment like LiveCode — that could run both on desktop and in a browser.
The app would allow users to generate a public/private key pair, producing two fish: one public, to be shared freely, and one private, to be guarded carefully. From there, the app and surrounding materials would help teach users—through stories, UI design, and practice—how to protect their private fish, why it matters, and what they’re capable of.