@mix The minimum change would probably be to just ignore all messages without a timestamp. This reworking would then consist of finding all places where things would break without timestamps, and dropping the message instead of handling it. Anything more advanced is completely optional.

Do you have any preference on how ssb-client-js should signal an omitted timestamp? I currently see two reasonable approaches, either completely removing the "timestamp" key from all message objects without a timestamp, or keeping the key but setting the value to NaN. Any thoughts on what would make client adaption easier?

CC @Matt McKegg, would you also be up for looking through the patchwork code base for places that break when timestamps are omitted or NaN?