Authored by: 0x00pluto

Question: What is Nostr exactly?

In the process of continuous exploration, a large amount of article materials were found online (special thanks to these article authors), so these materials were organized according to structure.

On the one hand, I hope it is useful for everyone, and on the other hand, it is a summary to improve learning efficiency.

Because of love, I am constantly learning and exploring~

First, let's introduce the project in plain language

The Nostr project, imagine an unbounded social square where everyone can freely talk, share, and listen, without a central broadcasting tower or dedicated broadcasters. 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 one and a private one, somewhat like your home address and key. Your address is public, so people know where to send mail, while the key is private, only you can open the mailbox to retrieve the mail. Each message you send is "signed" with a private key, ensuring that the sender is you, just like signing a letter by hand.

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, building a social network that truly belongs to everyone.

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

0. Project Introduction

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 members. However, based on the project's open-source nature and decentralized concept, the team may consist of interdisciplinary developers who advance the project through collaboration.

Financing: As an open-source protocol, there is no specific financing information for the Nostr project. Open-source projects typically rely on community support, which may include donations, voluntary contributions, and possible sponsor support.

Technology: Nostr uses a concise data structure and network protocol to achieve its functionality. Events are the basic data unit, and Relay is the node used to transmit events. Users interact with Relay through the client to complete functions such as publishing and subscribing to information.

Track: The decentralized social network track where Nostr is located is gradually becoming a hot spot in the blockchain and cryptography fields, especially in terms of privacy protection and resistance to censorship. The potential of this track continues to grow as users' awareness of autonomy and data ownership on social platforms increases.

1.2. Valuation

As Nostr is an open-source project and has not undergone commercial operation, there is currently no clear market valuation. Valuation typically needs to consider multiple factors such as user base, business model, revenue streams, and market potential, none of which are applicable or fully transparent for Nostr.

1.3. Project Risks

• Technical Implementation Risk: Nostr relies on the stability and scalability of decentralized technology, and any technical flaws could affect user experience and system security.

• Market Acceptance: Decentralized social networks have not been widely accepted by the public, and user habits and market education may pose a challenge.

• Regulatory Risk: Different countries and regions have varying 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 building 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 a censorship-resistant global social network. It does not rely on central servers, uses encryption keys and signatures to ensure communication security, and forwards posts through multiple relay servers.

2.2. Team Situation

2.2.1. Overall Situation

The overall situation of the Nostr project team seems somewhat mysterious because, as a decentralized open-source project, it does not have a clear team structure like traditional companies. Initially, discussions about Nostr began in a Telegram group in November 2020, where participants discussed the potential of decentralized social networks and ways to fund such projects. From the beginning, team members have been considering 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 important technical support for the establishment of Nostr. Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has also expressed support for Nostr and joined the project as a supporter and endorser, providing funding. Both of them are key figures in the project, and their involvement has not only increased the visibility of Nostr but also added trust and credibility to the project's development.

2.3. Financing Situation

Nostr is an open-source decentralized social network 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 Nostr's 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 concept. As the project developed, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey donated 14 bitcoins to Nostr, which may be one of the ways Nostr has obtained funding. Information about other investors is currently unclear.

2.4. Development History and Roadmap

2.4.1. Development History

The Nostr project began in 2020, and its decentralized nature and censorship resistance capabilities have attracted attention since its inception. The growth of the project is closely related to active community participation, especially when Jack Dorsey's involvement significantly increased Nostr's visibility, positively impacting the project's development.

2.4.2. Current Progress

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

2.4.3. Development Plans and Roadmap

Although there are currently no specific details about development plans and roadmap, the openness and decentralized nature of Nostr have attracted active exploration and innovation from many developers and community members. Based on the level of community activity and current development trends, it is foreseeable that the Nostr ecosystem will continue to develop in the future, potentially leading to the emergence of more business models and applications.

3. Project Analysis

3.1. Project Background

The Nostr project has multiple backgrounds. Firstly, it is a reflection and innovation on the existing social media model, particularly in terms of censorship resistance and decentralization. Secondly, the emergence of Nostr is a response to data privacy violations and censorship policies under the control of centralized social platforms. In this context, Nostr aims to redefine people's online social experience through a decentralized approach, allowing 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 stems from the challenge to the existing social media model, particularly in the pursuit of freedom of speech and censorship resistance. Due to the censorship and privacy issues of existing social platforms, people are increasingly seeking a more open and free social networking 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, but using a public and private key system similar to cryptocurrencies, enhancing 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 signing, ensuring the verifiability and security of information. Nostr does not rely on any central servers, operating through clients and relays, with relays responsible for forwarding messages between users without storing any information, thus eliminating the possibility of single point of failure or censorship.

In this technical background, Nostr aims to break the control of traditional social media companies over user data and their potential implementation of censorship policies. This design gives users more autonomy and freedom of speech. Additionally, the technical architecture and philosophy of Nostr are closely linked to the concepts of cryptocurrency and Web3, and its close integration with the cryptocurrency community is one of the reasons for its attention.

3.2. Project Principles

The core idea of the Nostr project is to establish a concise, open-source decentralized social protocol, aiming to create a global, censorship-resistant social networking platform. The working principle of Nostr is based on several fundamental concepts, including public-private key pairs, clients, and relays, which collectively support the operation of the Nostr protocol.

Public-private key pairs form the foundation of Nostr accounts, similar to the authentication method of cryptocurrencies, where the public key serves as a username and the private key as a password. This design ensures the security and privacy of user identity, also meaning that once the private key is lost, it cannot be reset like traditional passwords.

Nostr does not rely on any central servers, operating 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 self-hosted servers. To retrieve updates, users can query these relays for information.

Nostr's design allows anyone to run relays, simplifying the data transmission process and ensuring that there is no need to trust the relays, as all signatures are verified on the client side. Nostr aims to let each relay, and even each user, control their own data, reducing reliance on third-party services, in contrast to the operation of some existing social platforms such as Twitter. While platforms like Twitter may limit users due to factors like business models and censorship policies, Nostr attempts to address 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, aiming to create a persistent, uncensored social network space not controlled by central authorities. This approach allows users to communicate and publish content freely without sacrificing privacy and security. ### 3.3. Project Technical Features The Nostr project utilizes a series of key technical features to realize its vision of a decentralized social network. The project employs a unique service framework consisting of clients and so-called "Relays." In this framework, clients can connect to one or multiple Relays distributed in different locations, and these Relays do not communicate directly with each other, maintaining independent states. This structure allows clients to operate independently of each other and independently of Relays, with Relays taking on the role of data storage. Users can privately share their Relay access URLs on some centralized social platforms or through other software, allowing other users to load data stored in the respective Relay for communication through the Nostr client software. When using the Nostr application, users need to meet two conditions: downloading the Nostr client software and subscribing to a Relay. Users can choose to set up their own Relay server or subscribe to existing public Relay services. The Nostr ecosystem also features "public Relays" that provide registration functionality, allowing users to generate key pairs through them without the need to set up their own Relay server to use the service. In terms of technical implementation, when clients send data to Relays, they need to send the data to all subscribed Relays, as per the protocol's requirement, although it is not mandatory. Regarding accounts, Nostr's user accounts do not rely on Relays and can be generated locally on the client, with the private key serving as the password and the public key acting as the account. For data transmission, clients and Relays use the WebSocket protocol for data transfer, with the data format being JSON. The standard data format follows a simple structure: "[command, parameter, parameter...]." For example, when clients publish events, they use the "EVENT" command and attach JSON-formatted event data, with the specific action of the event depending on the value of the "kind" parameter. ### 3.4. Project Ecosystem Applications The Nostr ecosystem includes multiple projects, including Damus, an iOS app based on the Nostr protocol, providing basic social media functions such as homepages, private messaging, search, and notifications. Another app is Amethyst, available only on Android, offering group chat functionality. A key feature of these products is that users do not need an account and password, but instead use a private key for login and a public key as their identity ID. In addition to these applications, Nostr also recommends several frontend social applications such as Anigma, Branle, Nostr.ch, and Nostros, each providing users with different frontend interfaces in different operating environments. Overall, the Nostr ecosystem has developed 46 projects to date, including some interesting small applications such as NIP-05 (a unique domain name specification proposal), Jester (an online international chess game based on Nostr), Blockcore Notes (a note-taking app supporting Nostr and Web5), and NostrID (a Nostr ID management app for iOS development). As for the project's operational process, Nostr focuses on the protocol layer of social infrastructure, while the specific product capabilities are implemented by third-party apps, and user social behavior is interoperable between different apps. This design makes the Nostr ecosystem both decentralized and flexible.### 3.5. Project Data Since its launch, the Nostr project has shown a certain growth trend in its data. On November 16, 2020, discussions about the Nostr project began on Telegram, focusing on the possibilities of decentralized social networks and funding support. Subsequently, the team continued to discuss and develop its browser-based application, and in December, they began discussing technical issues such as the use of private keys and standard event types. In December 2022, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey joined Nostr as a supporter and advocate, significantly increasing the project's visibility and leading to a significant increase in stars for the Nostr protocol on GitHub. In terms of social media data, the Damus app surpassed 720,000 users in just a few days. These data points demonstrate the development and user acceptance of Nostr from its initial stages to the present. ### 4. Industry Space and Potential #### 4.1. Track Analysis ##### 4.1.1. Project Classification The Nostr project falls within the category of social media protocols, aiming to address censorship and data ownership issues on existing social platforms through decentralization. ##### 4.1.2. Market (Track) Size Since the early 21st century, the rapid development of social media has given rise to numerous social media giants such as Twitter, WeChat, and Instagram. With the rise of decentralization, social media protocols have begun to focus on censorship resistance and immutability, providing broad development space for projects like Nostr. ##### 4.1.3. Core Competitive Factors Decentralized social media protocols like Nostr have key competitive advantages over traditional social media platforms in terms of decentralization, permissionless operation, and censorship resistance. Projects like Nostr leverage these selling points to attract users from existing centralized social media giants. #### 4.2. Competitor Analysis As a decentralized social network protocol, Nostr may face competition from protocols such as ActivityPub, Farcaster, and Lens Protocol, among others. These protocols or platforms are also dedicated to building decentralized social network ecosystems, each with different technical features and community development strategies. Nostr's competitive advantage may lie in its simple and scalable design, as well as its emphasis on privacy and user autonomy. ### 5. Preliminary Valuation #### 5.1. Core Issues ##### Question 1: What stage is the project in? The Nostr project is currently in the early stages of development. Since its inception in November 2020, Nostr has been gradually developing its social protocol. By early 2023, the Nostr protocol and its Damus application based on Nostr began to experience explosive user growth, with over 500,000 public keys, indicating a rapid growth trend. ##### Question 2: What are the main operational variables of the project? The main operational variables of the Nostr project include the simplicity of the technical architecture, solutions to user trust issues, and its tokenless economic model. It operates by using public keys to send information externally. User growth and community formation depend 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 the management and governance approach of Nostr, clear information has not been found through current searches. Nostr's design philosophy leans towards decentralization and liberalism, presuming a simple operating mode for clients and relays, and leaving aspects such as economic incentives to the market for handling.### 4.4. Does the project have reliable competitive advantages? Nostr's competitive advantage lies in its extremely simple technical design and its ability to resist censorship. Users can freely use multiple relays, which can be changed continuously, maintaining communication freedom and privacy. Additionally, the support of Bitcoin and the Lightning Network also provide Nostr with a unique advantage. ### 4.5. How does the Relay work? Who can build it? The Relay, an essential component of the Nostr protocol, is responsible for transmitting user messages to the network. Any individual or organization with a server can build their own Relay node. The setup process is not complex, and users can choose from various cloud servers or VPS hosts, utilizing some platforms' free trial services to run the Relay without incurring costs. Additionally, registering a domain name and resolving it to the server's IP address is required. The specific process involves remotely logging into the server using an SSH client, installing the Umbrel tool, and using a simple command to install the Nostr Relay application. Once installed, users can access the backend via the browser by entering the domain name, visit the app store, and install Nostr Relay. With everything properly set up, the Relay can be used. This process not only simplifies the technical barriers but also allows anyone interested in decentralized social networks to contribute to maintaining and enhancing the health and vitality of the Nostr network. ### 4.6. What is the relationship between Nostr and blockchain? The relationship between Nostr and blockchain technology is indirect. They share the concept of decentralization but operate differently. Nostr is an open-source decentralized social network protocol; it is not a blockchain project but aims to provide infrastructure for decentralized applications. The Nostr protocol consists of clients and relays. The client is responsible for signing and verifying information, operated by users. The relay can capture, store, and forward information from connected clients. Anyone can run a relay, but unlike blockchain, relays in Nostr do not communicate directly with each other. Nostr's design allows flexible use of various tags and event types, enabling users to customize their interactions based on specific scenarios. This design gives Nostr strong flexibility and scalability in terms of functionality. The main difference between Nostr's operation and traditional blockchain projects is that Nostr does not rely on blockchain technology to maintain the network or validate transactions. It does not use a chain structure to store data but relies on relays to handle data transmission and storage. This means that Nostr does not require mining or other cryptocurrency-related mechanisms to operate. Therefore, the decentralized nature of the Nostr protocol primarily stems from its network structure and open-source nature, rather than blockchain technology. In summary, Nostr is an independent decentralized social protocol that innovatively provides an open network for anyone to participate in. However, it does not rely on blockchain technology to achieve its decentralized goals. Through its unique client and relay structure, Nostr provides a decentralized platform where anyone can build and run their own relay to support the construction of decentralized social media platforms. ### 6. SWOT Analysis #### Strengths - Nostr is an open social protocol, allowing anyone to build or modify clients, encouraging innovation. - It provides an alternative economic incentive model through Bitcoin rewards, reducing reliance on advertising. - The Nostr project has attracted attention and support from notable figures like Jack Dorsey, increasing its visibility and credibility. #### Weaknesses - Currently, the applications in the Nostr ecosystem are in the early stage, with incomplete functionality and bugs affecting user experience.### Weaknesses - Currently, the applications in the Nostr ecosystem are in the early stage, with incomplete functionality and bugs affecting user experience. - Lack of sufficient users and content creators joining may limit its growth and influence. ### Opportunities - As a decentralized protocol, Nostr has the opportunity to break the existing social media monopoly 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 cryptocurrency and decentralized services. - Existing social media giants may take measures to suppress or imitate Nostr's unique features, thereby affecting its uniqueness.

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