I hope the folks at Keybase notice this. It's a perfect use case. He's specifically pointed to his long social media history as a proof that should increase trust. Keybase would let him use their proofs feature to validate that he (well, his account) controls his twitter, that domain and web site[1], and his HN account. I can't think of a better way to reduce the "you can't really trust that I am who I say I am" problem he's struggling with.
Of course, this could be gamed just like every other method of authenticating identity, but it's a nice additional option.
[0] I'm not saying he's not or assuming he's malicious; I tend to err on the side of assuming the best in people.
[1] You can submit proofs for both.