Pivoting to the related subject of compact textual representations of _typed_ data, check out CESR[0]. Through some careful choices of code prefixes and payload lengths that won't require Base64 padding, it provides a novel encoding scheme for JSON plus cryptographic signatures (all while enabling true concatenative composability). It is at the heart of the KERI[1][2][3], a decentralized identity management scheme, and ACDC[4], a mechanism for verified credentials.