Nostr (acronym for Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays) is an open protocol for decentralized message transmission, with the intention to be able to resist internet censorship[2] while maintaining session integrity. Nostr consists of users publishing content via a cryptographic key pair to a "relay", a WebSocket server which sends and receives content for users that subscribe to it. This allows the network to verify users and achieve account portability on Nostr, as users have to sign all posts using their key pair to post under its identity and have to maintain access to it themselves.[3]
The Nostr protocol was first written in 2020 by Brazilianopen source developer Giovanni Torres Parra, known by the pseudonym "fiatjaf".[4][5] Nostr was created as a result of Twitter's "increasing propensity to ban users", as well as technical and cultural disagreements with other similar protocols such as ActivityPub and Secure Scuttlebutt.[6]
Data on the Nostr protocol is stored in JSON blobs called Events, which is the only kind of object on the Nostr protocol.[10][3] Users are identified by their public key, tagged as an "npub" key. Different extensions to the Nostr protocol are called Nostr Implementation Possibilities, or "NIPs".[11] One of these provides integration with the Lightning Network, a separate data transfer protocol that operates on the Bitcoin blockchain, allowing Nostr users to send and request small payments (nicknamed "Zaps") to and from other users.[12] Other NIPs include ways to add a human-readable alias to an npub key using a well-known URI hosted on a web server, giving a format similar to ActivityPub's username format.
Users
Nostr is primarily popular with cryptocurrency communities, many of which are Bitcoin users.[13]Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter, has endorsed and financially supported the development of Nostr by donating approximately $250,000 worth of bitcoin to the developers of the project.[13][14]Tidal, a music streaming service owned by Block, Inc. (itself founded by Dorsey and who is its current chairman and CEO), has implemented Nostr support for its music embed widgets, allowing users with a Nostr key linked to their account and an extension that can authenticate Events on Nostr to listen to the full song through the embed.
Some Nostr apps have been banned in China, which developers have described as a success.[15]
As a result of its ability to quickly and discreetly create accounts and publish posts to relays, Nostr can propagate spam much easier. A notable example includes a case where multiple bridges have been used to conduct spam waves on the Bluesky social network (itself a decentralized social network platform using a different protocol) via making posts from Nostr, bridging the post to ActivityPub and bridging it again to Bluesky.[16]
See also
ActivityPub, a decentralized social networking protocol