> It seems weird that you would write a formal, generalized protocol specification relying on the idiosyncratic implementation details of JavaScript, for such an important thing as cryptographic signatures, as the Scuttlebutt specification seems to do here.

The Protocol Guide was created after the initial implementation and its protocol were already in wide use, and the quirks were discovered while re-implementing it. More info about implementations here (Node.js, Go, Rust x2, and Python; additionally there are implementations of varying states in Java, C, Haskell, Erlang and probably others): https://dev.scuttlebutt.nz/#/?id=implementations

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If making a new protocol using signatures over JSON objects, one might use this: JWS Clear Text JSON Signature Option (JWS/CT) https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-jordan-jws-ct JWS/CT uses JSON Web Signature (JWS) [RFC7515], JSON Canonicalizion Scheme (JCS) [RFC8785], and I-JSON [RFC7493] (subset of JSON for interoperability)

Or for signatures over JSON-LD objects / RDF datasets: https://w3c-ccg.github.io/ld-proofs/ https://json-ld.github.io/rdf-dataset-canonicalization/spec/