Bluesky, mu and AT Protocol for artists: your own domain, verification and portability

Verified as of 27 September 2026. If anything has changed, let me know and I will update it with the date of the change.

In ‘Four separable components’ I explained why AT Protocol, the technology that Bluesky and other apps run on, separates things that conventional social networks keep bundled together: identity, data, algorithm and app. This guide is the practical side of that, for artists.

It explains how to use your own domain as your name, what each form of verification means, what mu offers as a European alternative and how far portability goes today.

Your domain as your name

In AT Protocol, an account has two related identifiers. The DID is the canonical, persistent identifier the network uses. The handle is the readable name people see, and it can be your own domain, such as juanesteban.art.

To configure this from Bluesky:

Go to Settings, Account and Handle, and choose the option to use your own domain.
Copy the value shown by the app, which contains your DID.
In your provider's DNS panel, create a TXT record with the name _atproto and the value did=did:plc: followed by your identifier.
Wait for the record to propagate and return to Bluesky to verify it.

You can also use the /.well-known/atproto-did file, which is useful for services that manage many accounts.

The check works both ways: the domain points to the DID and the DID document points back to the handle. This shows that whoever set up the account had technical control of the domain. On its own, it does not prove their legal identity, their authorship of the works they publish, or that others recognise the domain as their official website.

Three forms of verification

Since 21 April 2025, Bluesky has displayed verification badges:

Domain as handle. Proves the technical link between an account and a domain.
Direct badge. Bluesky verifies accounts it deems authentic and notable.
Trusted verifier. An organisation selected by Bluesky can verify accounts linked to it. The verifier carries a badge with a scalloped edge, and tapping an account’s badge shows who issued it.

Bluesky also reviews the verifications issued by these organisations. None of these signals proves authorship of any particular published work. Verification concerns the account or its relationship with an organisation, not to the content of each post.

Eurosky and mu

Eurosky is an initiative of Stichting Modal, a Dutch non-profit foundation that grew out of the Free Our Feeds movement. It builds European infrastructure for open social apps.

On 11 June 2026 it launched mu, a microblogging app built and hosted in Europe. It is a fork of the Bluesky app, compatible with AT Protocol and independent of Bluesky Social.

If you already have an account in the AT Protocol ecosystem, you can sign in to mu with the same identity. You do not need to rebuild your social profile from scratch to use another app that reads the same network. An account hosted by Eurosky can also be used from other compatible apps.

mu proposes distributed verification: accredited organisations verify their own people or members. Eurosky has also announced a collaboration with SPRIND, the German Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation, to test a recommendation algorithm aimed at connecting communities. It is a work in progress, not a guarantee that polarisation or echo chambers will disappear.

Changing servers without losing your identity

The account repository and its files are hosted on a Personal Data Server or PDS. AT Protocol is designed so that an identity can move to another PDS while keeping its DID. The relationship between the DID, the repository and the new server is updated so that network services keep finding the account.

Migration exists, but it is not yet a simple feature built into the Bluesky app. The official documentation recommends tools such as goat; there are also PDS MOOver and Eurosky’s EU-HAUL. The process can move the repository, files and certain account data, but it depends on the destination server accepting sign-ups and on the migration completing correctly.

Portability does not mean automatic backup, nor perfect compatibility between apps. Some preferences belong to a specific service. If the original server disappears and there is no recoverable copy, the identity may in some cases be kept or recovered, but content can be lost. Export your repository regularly and keep important files elsewhere.

The limits of the PLC directory

Most accounts use did:plc identifiers. These depend on a global directory that keeps track of the link between the DID, its keys and the PDS. In September 2025, plans were announced to create an independent Swiss association to govern it. As of 27 September 2026, I have found no confirmation that the transfer has been completed.

In February 2026, AT Protocol released a system of read replicas to improve availability and allow independent audits of the directory. This reduces some concentration risks, but it is not the same as having done away with the main directory.

AT Protocol also supports did:web, which is linked to a domain and based on HTTPS and DNS. It offers an alternative independent of PLC, although it does not provide the same migration or recovery mechanism if control of the domain is lost.

Your rights over what you publish

The Bluesky terms, updated on 14 August 2025 and effective from 15 September of that year, state that you keep ownership of your content. By publishing it, you grant Bluesky a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to the extent needed to host, reproduce, distribute, adapt, and display the content in the operation, improvement, and promotion of the service, AT Protocol, and its products. It is worth reading the full text before publishing work whose use you want to control strictly.

In November 2024, Bluesky stated that it does not use its users' content to train generative AI and that it has no intention of doing so. That public statement is not the same as a specific clause prohibiting all future use, and it does not bind third parties.

The network is open, and public posts can be collected by outside services. Bluesky has acknowledged that it cannot enforce, outside its own systems, any consent preferences it may develop. Publishing on an open network means keeping two questions apart: the policy of the app you use, and what third parties can do, lawfully or unlawfully, with publicly accessible material.

A few figures, kept apart

Bluesky reported 41.41 million accounts at the end of 2025. At its launch of mu on 11 June 2026, Eurosky cited more than 44 million users across the entire AT Protocol ecosystem. They are not necessarily measuring the same thing: one figure comes from Bluesky’s report, and the other describes the interoperable network in which several apps and providers operate.

On the open conversation

This guide draws on the official documentation of Bluesky and AT Protocol, Eurosky’s public information and my own use of these tools as an artist. The ecosystem changes quickly. If a feature, a contractual condition or a migration procedure has changed, the guide remains open.

Sources

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