Excerpt
Learn about Nostr and how it enables uncensorable communication as a decentralized social network. I describe how it integrates with the Bitcoin Lightning Network and give recommendations for apps. Watch now to see why Nostr could be the future of social media!
Transcript
WHAT IS NOSTR?
In short, Nostr is Twitter without Elon Musk and without a centralized company. Nostr is similar to the Bitcoin network in that it is a decentralized network protocol, but not for money — it’s for a social networking system. So, there is no centralized company behind Nostr. It’s not a product, just like Bitcoin is not a product. Twitter, or X how it’s now called, is a product of a company.
But Nostr — the name, by the way, stands for notes and other stuff transmitted by relay — a rather complicated name, but Nostr is easy to remember.
HOW NOSTR WORKS
In this decentralized network, anyone can start to run a relay, which is a computer comparable to a node in the Bitcoin network, and anyone can start using it. These relays distribute the information throughout the whole network.
Another big difference from Twitter is that everything you share is uncensorable, meaning that no one can delete what you posted or hinder you from speaking your mind. This is why it might become a communication tool for activists who are otherwise being censored by those in power.
WHY BITCOINERS LIKE NOSTR
From that perspective, Nostr is very interesting, and it’s also very popular with Bitcoin users as it shares the same principles around decentralization and privacy.
Nostr also allows users to zap each other, meaning that authors of a post on Nostr — or a note, how it’s called there — can be immediately paid within the platform just with a click by their readers.
HOW LIGHTNING IS USED ON NOSTR
So if you are on Nostr, you have your profile, and you can connect it with your Lightning address that you can get, for instance, at GetAlby, the Lightning wallet system. So it’s very easy to set up.
When you have connected your wallet with your Nostr profile, you see the notes of other people — just like on Twitter — and you see a small Lightning bolt. If you click it, you can immediately send satoshis to the author of the note, which is great because people get paid for what they are writing, and it’s very easy.
So Nostr and Bitcoin — or let me say Nostr and the Lightning Network — are basically very closely connected to each other.
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE KEYS
Another similarity to Bitcoin is that in Nostr, you also have a public key and a private key. It’s the same with Bitcoin, where you have a public key (which becomes your Bitcoin address) and your private key or private keys, which are basically within the seed phrase — these 12 or 24 words from your self-custody wallet. These are your private keys. The principle is the same on Nostr.
The great thing about that is also that if you have the private key to your profile, you can use any app that you want. So you can switch between apps.
DIFFERENCE FROM CENTRALIZED PLATFORMS
Let me explain this another way: On Twitter, if you have a Twitter account, you go to x.com, and there is your Twitter account, and you need to log in there. You can’t take your Twitter account to Facebook and open it there. The same way, you can’t take your Facebook profile and put it on Twitter. Different systems, different centralized services.
But within Nostr, you can — because the question was also which apps are good to use for Nostr…
WHICH APPS WORK WITH NOSTR
If you have an iPhone, for instance, you can use the Damus app (maybe it’s pronounced Damus, I don’t know), spelled D-A-M-U-S, or you can use Primal, spelled P-R-I-M-A-L. I’m using Damus.
On Android, one of the good apps is called Amethyst, like the stone.
What I wanted to say was, you can then take your private key, which is the basis of your Nostr profile — it gives you the property over your notes and your profile — and use it in any Nostr app. So I can use Damus, and if I don’t want to use it anymore or if I change to an Android phone, I can open up Amethyst, import my private key, and have my own feed again.
So it’s very flexible. I’m very mobile with my feed and my account, and I’m not depending on any companies or any app providers. That’s a great thing about Nostr.
WHY NOSTR MATTERS
I could imagine that Nostr is becoming the next big social network, to be honest. It’s a decentralized network; it has many advantages over the centralized networks, which can censor your posts, shadowban you, and make you totally dependent on a social algorithm.
Take me as an example — from my experience with Twitter and other social media tools — there is an algorithm deciding whether your tweets are shown to more people or fewer. If your work focuses on a niche topic, or if you speak English with a German accent, fewer people might watch your content. Then the algorithm uses that to show even less of your content.
And it’s the other way around — if you are watched by many people because you say controversial things, then the algorithm pushes you up. This is magnified, repeated, and repeated, so those who are the loudest are seen, and those who are not as loud — maybe more reasonable — are not seen.
NOSTR IS ALGORITHM-FREE
This is something that doesn’t happen on Nostr, because Nostr doesn’t have any of these algorithms. So you can basically build your own feed — a feed of people or voices you want to see or hear — and no one is interfering with that.
I believe this is a very positive side of Nostr. And also that it’s a decentralized network and the interaction with Bitcoin might really be something that brings Bitcoin adoption to many people who have never heard about Bitcoin — and who might never even know that the zapping on Nostr is powered by the Lightning Network and, in the future, also by eCash.
