The third edition of the NostrWorld conference series took place last week in the picturesque city of Riga, Latvia, bringing together proponents and developers of the Nostr protocol. Led by Block CEO and twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, the free NostrWorld meetups are a platform for open source enthusiasts to exchange ideas, foster collaboration, and drive initiatives aimed at shaping a freer, more decentralized version of the Internet.
bitcoin Magazine He was in Riga to explore how the evolution of the Nostr protocol could influence bitcoin’s trajectory. While the nascent Nostr community has attracted prominent bitcoin advocates, Nostriga (as this third NostrWorld conference was dubbed) offered a fresh perspective on the growing synergies between these two technologies. Conversations with attendees and observations throughout the two-day event revealed a clear trend: bitcoin’s path seems increasingly likely to intertwine with Nostr’s promising social networking technology.
What is Nostr?
Our Nostr is an open-source protocol designed to create a decentralized, censorship-resistant social network. Unlike traditional platforms that rely on centralized servers, Nostr operates on a relay network where users can post and receive messages. Nostr is quickly gaining traction as a social layer for bitcoin, enabling features such as micropayments and digital identity management. Beyond social networking, Nostr presents an opportunity to build a new internet architecture that frees users from reliance on centralized platforms. This approach empowers people by eliminating the need for intermediaries who typically own user data, monetize attention, and control or censor access.
Adjusting the micropayments market
A standout moment of the conference came when Strike CEO Jack Mallers shared a personal story about an acquaintance he had been trying to convince of bitcoin’s potential for years. It wasn’t until she joined Nostr and received Zaps in her account that the power of the technology finally clicked for her.
Zaps are small bitcoin payments, typically sent as tips or rewards on Nostr, that allow users to support content creators directly through the Lightning Network. This micropayment feature has become a popular way to demonstrate the utility and value of bitcoin in a social context.
The concept of micropayments predates even bitcoin, but Nostr proponents believe Zaps represent the first successful large-scale implementation of the idea. On a panel alongside Primitive Miljan Braticevic CEO Jack Mallers highlighted the importance of this achievement:
“I think that's very underrated. It's something that's been desired on the web for many decades. From anonymous cyberpunks to the most powerful people in the world, everyone has wanted this use case and it seems like we've achieved it.”
Micropayments through Nostr introduce a new bootstrapping mechanism that could reshape the traditional bitcoin onboarding process. People who are not swayed by bitcoin’s economic or political narrative could appreciate its unique value once they are exposed to casual tipping and microtransactions on the Internet. This shift opens bitcoin to a broader audience by making it accessible in everyday social interactions that are already familiar to Internet users.
Setting the stage for the e-money economy
Ecash, one of bitcoin's emerging technologies, was a recurring theme throughout the event. Cashu protocol developer x.com/callebtc”>BTCStreet made an impassioned argument for the central role Nostr could play in an e-money-driven economy.
Proposed as a private, scalable blind-signature payment system, ecash allows users to transact without revealing their identity, thereby preserving financial privacy. However, this privacy comes with a trade-off: ecash introduces trusted entities known as mints, which hold custody of users’ bitcoin deposits in exchange for tokens, often referred to as notes. For ecash to work effectively, a robust marketplace of mints is necessary to provide users with options to trust. As the concept gains traction, this reliance on multiple mints introduces several coordination and discovery challenges—challenges that developers believe are ideally suited to be addressed by Nostr’s social features.
Examples of this are: es.bitcoinmints.com and cash.spacetwo Nostr-based websites that offer Yelp-like interfaces for users to discover new mint vendors and for mints to advertise their services and build a reputation. Although initial implementations are fairly basic, potential integration of Nostr’s social graph could allow users to make informed decisions about which mints to trust. By leveraging connections within their network and trusted reviews from friends, users could more confidently choose mints based on relationships and experiences shared by those they know. Over time, the expectation is that similar Nostr-based services will be integrated directly into bitcoin e-wallets, offering users a seamless onboarding experience that avoids imposing trust defaults.
Similarly, Nostr’s infrastructure offers various methods to bolster the resilience of e-currencies, allowing future implementations to operate independently of centralized Internet DNS services. This would allow users to establish direct connections to the mints, reducing their exposure to third-party interventions and improving the overall security and decentralization of the e-currency system.
Another fascinating concept that emerges from the convergence of the ecash and Nostr communities is the idea known as “nutsack.” Introduced by Nostr developer PabloF7zNutsack, or NIP-60, allows users to store ecash notes on Nostr relays, effectively distributing them across the network and linking them to the user’s identity. In effect, the scheme allows universal access to a user’s ecash balance via any Nostr client that supports the feature. This means that in the future, users would be able to log into any website or online service and have their ecash balance seamlessly follow them, allowing them to effortlessly spend across multiple platforms.
Communities and network of trust
One of the biggest opportunities (and perhaps the most significant challenge) for Nostr is its ability to reach new internet communities beyond the bitcoin-focused groups that currently dominate the platform. Announcements like the one from the developers Alex Gleason's Idemconducted last week, has the potential to extend Nostr's reach to the broader landscape of existing Internet communities, such as Mastodonpaving the way for wider adoption.
“With Ditto, people find websites they want to join because of a community and then discover Nostr as a side effect, which gives them the opportunity to learn what it is and why it’s important,” Gleason explained in his presentation.
This amplification of Nostr’s network effect could have significant implications for bitcoin adoption. With features like Zaps, Nostr offers a unique opportunity to introduce non-technical users to the power of an internet-native currency, making bitcoin more accessible and relatable in everyday digital interactions.
“bitcoin is revolutionary and I believe it is key to Nostr’s success, but social media needs communities.”
Looking ahead, community formation and the adoption of Nostr as an identity system could pave the way for digital economies based on the concept of a web of trust. By creating social graphs based on cryptographically signed messages, users can broadcast their reputation across the internet, laying the groundwork for secure, decentralized commerce that operates independently of traditional laws, contracts, and enforcement mechanisms — with bitcoin at the center of it all.