Man-character Note What exactly is Nostr?

Uncovering the Mystery Behind the Man-Character Known as Nostr

Original author: 0x00pluto Source: X (original Twitter) 0x00pluto

This week’s research project is Nostr Protocol in the Social track. After delving into the project, I found it very interesting, and the way the experts think really impresses me.

Question: What exactly is Nostr?

In the process of continuous digging, I found a lot of articles online (special thanks to these article authors), so I organized these materials according to their structure.

On one hand, I hope it will be useful to everyone, and on the other hand, it will serve as a summary to enhance learning effectiveness.

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Let’s start with a layman’s explanation of the project

Nostr Project, imagine an unlimited social square where everyone can freely talk, share, and listen, without a central broadcast tower or dedicated broadcaster. This is a decentralized social network that does not rely on any single server or company to store and manage information. Instead, it uses a decentralized approach, where everyone can set up their own “receiver” (Relay), just like adjusting the radio frequency at home to receive messages from others.

In this network, your identity is protected by a pair of keys – a public key and a private key, somewhat like your home address and key. Your address is public, people know where to send mail to, while the key is private, only you can open the mailbox to retrieve the mail. Every message you send is “signed” with a private key, ensuring that the sender is you, just like personally signing a letter.

Nostr is like a vast ocean made up of countless small mailboxes, where everyone can freely throw messages into the sea, and others can choose to listen to your channel and pick up these messages. There is no central control, everyone is the master of their own voice, creating a social network that truly belongs to everyone.

For those of you who want a simple understanding of the project, this is enough. Below are the complete study notes.

0. Project Overview

Nostr is a decentralized social network protocol that provides an open and permissionless social platform through a distributed network.

1. Key research points

1.1. Core investment logic

Team: Currently, there is not much specific information about the Nostr team. However, based on the project’s open-source nature and decentralized concept, the team may consist of interdisciplinary developers who collaborate to drive the project forward.

Funding: As an open-source protocol, there is no specific funding information for Nostr. Open-source projects typically rely on community support, which may include donations, voluntary contributions, and possible sponsorships.

Technology: Nostr uses a simple data structure and network protocol to implement its functionality. Events are the basic units of data, and Relays are nodes used to transmit events. Users interact with Relays through clients to accomplish tasks such as message publishing and subscribing.

Racing track: The decentralized social networking track where Nostr is located is gradually becoming a hotspot in the blockchain and cryptography field, especially in terms of privacy protection and anti-censorship. The potential of this track continues to grow as users’ awareness of autonomy on social platforms and data ownership increases.

1.2. Valuation

Since Nostr is an open-source project and has not undergone commercial operations, there is currently no clear market valuation. Valuation typically considers factors such as user base, business model, revenue streams, and market potential, but this information is not applicable or completely transparent to Nostr.

1.3. Project Risks

• Technical implementation risk: Nostr relies on the stability and scalability of decentralized technology, and any technical deficiencies may affect user experience and system security.

• Market acceptance: Decentralized social networks have not yet been widely accepted by the public, and user habits and market education may pose challenges.

• Regulatory risk: Different countries and regions have different legal attitudes towards encryption technology and decentralized applications, leading to regulatory uncertainty.

• Security risk: As a decentralized network, Nostr may face security threats, including but not limited to 51% attacks and node collusion.

In summary, as a decentralized social protocol, Nostr demonstrates a unique way of constructing social networks, but it also faces implementation challenges and market risks. When considering support for such projects, investors should comprehensively evaluate these factors.

2. Project Overview

2.1. Basic Project Information

Nostr is a decentralized protocol aimed at creating an anti-censorship global social network. It does not rely on central servers and ensures communication security through encrypted keys and signatures, forwarding posts through multiple relay servers.

2.2. Team Situation

2.2.1. Overall Situation

The overall situation of the Nostr project team appears somewhat mysterious because, as a decentralized open-source project, it does not have a clear team structure like traditional companies. Initially, Nostr’s discussions began in a Telegram group in November 2020, where participants discussed the possibility of decentralized social networks and ways to fund such projects. From the beginning, team members have been thinking about how to effectively promote the Nostr platform.

2.2.2. Core Members

The founder of Nostr is Fiatjaf, who is also a developer of Bitcoin and the Lightning Network. He provided crucial technical support for the establishment of Nostr. Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter, also expressed support for Nostr and joined the project as a supporter and advocate, providing funding. These two individuals are key figures in the project, and their involvement not only increases the visibility of Nostr but also adds trust and credibility to the project’s development.

2.3. Financing Situation

Nostr is an open-source decentralized social networking protocol, so its financing situation is different from traditional commercial companies. Based on the information currently available, Nostr has not gone through traditional financing rounds. In the early stages of development, community members may have participated in the project’s construction and development as volunteers out of love for the project and support for the decentralized ideology. As the project grew, Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter, donated 14 bitcoins to Nostr, which may be one of the ways Nostr obtained funding. Information about other investors is currently unclear.

2.4. Past Developments and Roadmap

2.4.1. Past Developments

The Nostr project started in 2020 and its decentralized nature and resistance to censorship capabilities have attracted attention since its inception. The project’s growth is closely related to active participation from the community, especially when Jack Dorsey’s involvement significantly increased Nostr’s visibility, which had a positive impact on the project’s development.

2.4.2. Current Progress

Currently, the Nostr protocol has multiple client applications, such as Damus, which is designed as a decentralized social platform based on the Nostr protocol. The emergence and development of these applications indicate that the Nostr ecosystem is gradually growing.

2.4.3. Development Plans and Roadmap

Although there are currently no specific details about development plans and roadmap, Nostr’s openness and decentralized nature have attracted many developers and community members for active exploration and innovation. Based on the level of community activity and current development trends, it can be foreseen that the Nostr ecosystem will continue to evolve in the future, possibly with more business models and applications emerging.

3. Project Analysis

3.1. Project Background

The Nostr project has multiple backgrounds. Firstly, it is a reflection and innovation of the existing social media model, especially in terms of resistance to censorship and decentralization. Secondly, the emergence of Nostr is a response to data privacy infringement and censorship policies under centralized social media platforms. In such a context, Nostr aims to redefine people’s online social experience through a decentralized approach that allows users to bypass the control and censorship mechanisms of centralized social media companies.

3.1.1. Development Background

The design concept of the Nostr protocol comes from challenging the existing social media model, especially the pursuit of freedom of speech and resistance to censorship. Due to the censorship and privacy issues of existing social platforms, people are gradually seeking a more open and free social network environment. The core idea of Nostr is to provide users with a censorship-resistant social experience through a decentralized network protocol.

3.1.2. Technical Background

Technically, Nostr adopts an account system based on public-private key pairs, not relying on traditional usernames and passwords. Instead, it uses a public key and private key system similar to cryptocurrencies, which enhances user anonymity and security. The public-private key pair is the core of user identity, where the public key is similar to a username, and the private key is used for signature to ensure the verifiability and security of information. Nostr does not rely on any central server but operates through clients and relays. The relays are responsible for forwarding messages between users without storing any information, thus eliminating the possibility of a single point of failure or censorship.

In this technological context, Nostr seeks to break the control that traditional social media companies have over user data, as well as their potential censorship policies. This design gives users more autonomy and freedom of speech. Additionally, Nostr’s technical architecture and philosophy are closely linked to the concepts of cryptocurrency and Web3, which is one reason it has gained attention.

3.2. Project Principles

The core idea behind the Nostr project is to establish a simple, open-source decentralized social protocol with the goal of creating a global, censorship-resistant social networking platform. Nostr operates on several basic concepts, including public and private key pairs, clients, and relays that together support the operation of the Nostr protocol.

Public and private key pairs form the foundation of Nostr accounts, similar to the authentication method used in cryptocurrency, where the public key serves as the username and the private key acts as the password. This design ensures the security and privacy of user identities and also means that once the private key is lost, it cannot be reset like a traditional password.

Nostr does not rely on any central servers, but rather operates through cryptographic keys and signatures. Each user runs a client, which can be a native or web client, and publishes and updates content through relays. Users need to sign content with their own keys and send it to multiple relays, which can be other users or their own hosted servers. To fetch updates, users can query these relays for information. Nostr’s design allows anyone to run a relay, simplifying the data transmission process and ensuring that relays do not need to be trusted since all signatures are verified on the client side.

Nostr aims to give control of their data to each relay or even each user, reducing reliance on third-party services, which contrasts with the operation of existing social platforms like Twitter. Platforms like Twitter may restrict users due to business models, censorship policies, and other factors, while Nostr attempts to solve these issues through decentralization.

The key principles and core business logic of this project lie in its decentralized structure and key-based user authentication system, which aim to create a persistent social network space free from central authority control and censorship. This approach allows users to freely communicate and publish content without sacrificing privacy and security.

3.3. Project Technical Features

The Nostr project utilizes a series of key technical features to achieve its vision of a decentralized social network. It employs a unique service framework that includes clients and what are known as “Relays.” In this framework, clients can connect to one or multiple Relays distributed in different locations, and these Relays do not directly communicate with each other, remaining independent.

This structure enables clients to operate independently of each other and independently of the Relays, with the Relays serving as the data storage role. Users can privately share their Relay access URLs on centralized social platforms or through other software, allowing other users to load the corresponding data stored in the Relays through the Nostr client software, enabling communication.

Users need to meet two conditions when using the Nostr application: downloading the Nostr client software and subscribing to a Relay. Users can choose to build their own Relay server or subscribe to existing public Relay services. In the Nostr ecosystem, there are also “public Relays” that provide registration functionality. Users can generate key pairs through them without having to build their own Relay server to use the service.

In terms of technical implementation, when the client sends data to the Relay, it needs to send the data to all subscribed Relays. Although not mandatory, this is a protocol requirement. As for accounts, Nostr user accounts do not rely on Relays and can be generated directly on the client side, with the private key used as a password and the public key serving as the account.

In terms of data transmission, the client and the Relay use the WebSocket protocol for data transmission, with the data format being JSON. The standard data format follows a simple structure: “[command, parameter, parameter…]”. For example, when the client publishes an event, it uses the “EVENT” command and attaches event data in JSON format, with the specific action of the event depending on the value of the “kind” parameter.

3.4. Ecosystem Applications

The Nostr ecosystem consists of multiple projects. In addition to Damus, an iOS application based on the Nostr protocol that provides basic social media functions such as a homepage, private messaging, search, and notifications. Another application is Amethyst, which is only available on Android and provides group chat functionality. A key feature of these products is that users do not need an account and password, but instead log in using a private key and use the public key as their identity ID.

In addition to these applications, Nostr also recommends several front-end social applications such as Anigma, Branle, Nostr.ch, and Nostros, each providing users with different styles and different runtime environments for the front-end interface. Overall, the Nostr ecosystem has developed 46 projects so far, including some interesting small applications such as NIP-05 (a unique domain name specification proposal), Jester (an online chess game based on Nostr), Blockcore Notes (a note-taking application supporting Nostr and Web5), and NostrID (a Nostr ID management application developed for iOS).

As for the operation process of the projects, Nostr focuses on the social infrastructure at the protocol layer, while the specific productization capabilities are implemented by third-party apps. Social behavior between users in different apps is interoperable. This design makes the Nostr ecosystem both decentralized and flexible.

3.5. Project Data

The data for the Nostr project has shown a certain growth trend since its launch. On November 16, 2020, discussions about the possibility of a decentralized social network and funding support began in the Nostr project’s Telegram group. The team then continued to explore and develop their browser-based application, discussing technical issues such as using private keys and standardizing event types in December. In December 2022, Jack Dorsey, former CEO of Twitter, joined Nostr as a supporter and spokesperson, bringing significant attention to the project and leading to a significant increase in stars for the Nostr protocol on GitHub. As for social media data, the Damus application surpassed 720,000 users in just a few days. These data demonstrate the development and user acceptance of Nostr from its initial stage to the present.

4. Industry Space and Potential

4.1. Track Analysis

4.1.1. Project Classification

The Nostr project belongs to the category of social media protocols, aiming to address the issues of censorship and data ownership on existing social platforms through decentralized means.

4.1.2. Market (Track) Size

From the early 21st century until now, the rapid development of social media has given rise to numerous social media giants such as Twitter, WeChat, Instagram, etc. With the rise of the decentralization concept, social media protocols have started focusing on censorship resistance and immutability, providing extensive room for development for projects like Nostr.

4.1.3. Core Competitive Factors

Decentralized social media protocols like Nostr have major competitive advantages over traditional social media platforms in terms of decentralization, permissionless nature, censorship resistance, etc. Projects like Nostr utilize these selling points to attract users from the existing market and compete against centralized social media giants.

4.2. Competitor Analysis

As a decentralized social networking protocol, Nostr may face competition from protocols/platforms such as ActivityPub, Farcaster, and Lens Protocol. These protocols/platforms also aim to build decentralized social networking ecosystems, each with different technological features and community development strategies. Nostr’s competitive advantage may lie in its clean and scalable design, and emphasis on privacy and user autonomy.

5. Initial Value Assessment

5.1. Core Questions

Question 1: What stage of operation is the project in?

The Nostr project is currently in the early stages of development. It has been gradually developing its social protocol since its inception in November 2020. By early 2023, the Nostr protocol and its application Damus experience a surge in the number of users, with over 500,000 public keys, indicating a rapid growth trend.

Question 2: What are the main variables in the project’s operation?

The main variables in the operation of the Nostr project include the simplicity of the technical architecture, solutions to issues of user trust, and its tokenless economic model. It operates by using public keys to send messages externally in the simplest way possible. User growth and community formation rely on Nostr’s censorship resistance and openness, but these factors are currently difficult to quantify and measure.

Question 3: What is the project’s management and governance approach?

Regarding Nostr’s management and governance approach, no clear information has been found through searches at this time. Nostr’s design philosophy leans towards decentralization and liberalism, presupposing a simple operational mode for clients and relays, and leaving aspects such as economic incentives to the market.

Question 4: Does the project have reliable competitive advantages?

Nostr’s competitive advantage lies in its minimalist technical design and its ability to resist censorship. Users can freely use multiple relays, change them constantly, and maintain communication freedom and privacy. In addition, the support for Bitcoin and the Lightning Network provide Nostr with a unique advantage.

Question 5: How does the relay work? Who can set it up?

The relay, also known as a node, is an indispensable component of the Nostr protocol. It is responsible for delivering user messages to the network. Any individual or organization with a server can set up their own relay node. The setup process is not complicated; users can choose various cloud servers or VPS hosts and take advantage of free trial services offered by some platforms to run the relay without generating costs. Additionally, a domain name needs to be registered and resolved to the server’s IP address.

The specific operations include using an SSH client to remotely log in to the server, installing the tool called Umbrel, and using a simple command to install the Nostr Relay application with just one click. Once installed, users can enter the domain name in their browser to access the backend, go to the app store, install Nostr Relay, and start using the relay once all settings are in place.

This process not only simplifies the technical threshold but also allows anyone interested in decentralized social networks to contribute their efforts and maintain the health and vitality of the Nostr network.

Question 6: What is the relationship between Nostr and blockchain?

The relationship between Nostr and blockchain technology is indirect. They share the idea of decentralization but operate differently. Nostr is an open-source decentralized social networking protocol, not a blockchain project, and aims to provide infrastructure for decentralized applications. The Nostr protocol consists of a client and a relay. The client is responsible for signing and verifying information and is operated by users. The relay can capture, store, and forward any client information connected to it. Anyone can run a relay, but unlike blockchain, Nostr relays do not communicate directly with each other.

Nostr’s design allows flexible use of various tags and event types, allowing users to customize their interaction based on specific scenarios. For example, adding the IDs of other events in tags to reference content or adding the IDs of events to be deleted to remove published content. This design gives Nostr strong flexibility and scalability in terms of functionality.

The operation of Nostr differs mainly from traditional blockchain projects. Nostr does not rely on blockchain technology to maintain the network or validate transactions. It does not use a chained structure to store data but relies on relays for data transmission and storage. This means that Nostr does not require mining or other cryptocurrency-related mechanisms to operate. Therefore, the decentralization characteristic of the Nostr protocol primarily stems from its network structure and open-source nature, rather than blockchain technology.

In summary, Nostr is a decentralized social protocol independent of blockchain. Its innovation lies in providing an open network that anyone can participate in, but it does not rely on blockchain technology to achieve its decentralization goals. Through its unique client and relay structure, Nostr provides a decentralized platform where anyone can build and run their own relay, supporting the construction of decentralized social media platforms.

6. SWOT Analysis

Strengths

• Nostr is an open social protocol, which means anyone can build or modify clients, encouraging innovation.

• It provides a different economic incentive model compared to traditional social media by using Bitcoin rewards, reducing reliance on advertising.

• The Nostr project has attracted attention and support from notable individuals such as Jack Dorsey, which increases its visibility and credibility.

Weaknesses

• Currently, the applications in the Nostr ecosystem are in an early stage with incomplete functionality and bugs in user experience.

• The lack of sufficient users and content creators joining could limit its growth and influence.

Opportunities

• As a decentralized protocol, Nostr has the opportunity to break existing social media monopolies and attract users with high demand for privacy and freedom of speech.

• It can integrate other technologies such as the Lightning Network to expand its functionality and use cases.

Threats

• Regulatory pressure may pose challenges to cryptocurrencies and decentralized services.

• Existing social media giants may take measures to suppress or imitate Nostr’s unique features, affecting its uniqueness.

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