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Why I’m betting on Nostr

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Re: Why I’m betting on Nostr

#51

Post by jb55 »

evbogue wrote: post #49
jb55 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zaps just put a signed nostr note inside a lightning invoice so that clients can show that a specific user send some amount of money to some note or profile. clients request lightning invoices via lnurl (an http lightning specification). You could do the same thing for any other fiat or crypto system if you want to, but nostr was mainly build by bitcoiners which is why there is lots of bitcoin tech integrated, but it…

How do you request your Zaps balance to send it somewhere else (like to a Bitcoin wallet)? Maybe this is a Lightning thing and not a Nostr thing. I guess I assumed it was based on the private key you generated when you got started on Nostr and if that private key became compromised then the Zaps could go to whoever had the private key. Perhaps there is a document somewhere that explains this.

There is no "zaps balance". Zaps are just receipts of lightning payments.

The basic idea is that a lightning node will detect when the invoice with a nostr note inside is paid, and then send the receipt to nostr as a nostr note, with the original bolt11 invoice inside with the signature from the user who sent the zap.

It's all described by NIP-57, a spec I put together to support this:

https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/57.md

I was working on c-lightning at the time and I thought it would be really cool to replace the "like" button with an instant bitcoin micro-payment. I think it worked out quite well! There are many sites utilizing zaps in all aspects of the protocol, such as a decentralized market for AI job requests (data vending machines), zapgoals and zap fundraisers. All built on this note type. protocol synergy!

Re: Why I’m betting on Nostr

#52

Post by evbogue »

lovvtide wrote: post #48
evbogue wrote: post #15

I tried Nostr for awhile, and I appreciate that they're picking up where Scuttlebot left off. There are a few things that bug me about it that I wish they'd fix, or that some future protocol will solve. First, I want a replication strategy. Nostr messages get lost in time, and many of the clients end up just blasting an entire message history at your client. Because there's no clue in the protocol how messages are re…

So I've been building of one of the nostr web clients ( https://satellite.earth ) full time since December last year - I agree partially with all these points and will try to add something from my perspective of being perhaps a bit too close to this. 1) With regard to message replication/ordering, the relays are supposed to reject messages that are received with a timestamp that deviates from the server clock beyond…

All good points!

I believe Nostr is doing way better than Bluesky at achieving the goal of being a distributed social network.

Re: Why I’m betting on Nostr

#53

Post by Edes »

Brighthurst wrote: post #23
intotheabyss wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you use Bitcoin lightning when you can use Ethereum L2s?

From a theoretical standpoint, this answer could get very long, but the real answer boils down to the creator of the protocol prefers bitcoin. On the theoretical side, I'd argue that bitcoin PoW is the best choice because it is more resistant to malicious actors. Assuming that a solution to the botting issue requires a small proof-of-work or fee to post, on a PoW chain malicious actors would need to control a large a…

Proof of work also depends on capital, compute isn't free. In fact, it is already incredibly centralized in the Bitcoin blockchain because there's like 3 big players which have already attacked the Bitcoin Cash blockchain. The only reason these huge pools haven't attacked the Bitcoin blockchain is because they have a financial stake on the price being high, which is also the same incentive proof of stake depends on.

Re: Why I’m betting on Nostr

#54

Post by unshavedyak »

clarkmoody wrote: post #34

All the degenerate token-fueled web3 hype of 2021 sold a bunch of dreams about decentralization and owning your social graph to unsuspecting retail and then delivered nothing but rugpulls and bankruptcy letters. Meanwhile, nostr built a system people actually use on top of open protocols. No tokens, no blockchains. Only notes and other stuff transmitted over relays.

The relationship to Bitcoin makes me nervous, though. I don't understand it, but even the mention of it makes me want to write off the whole protocol because i'm just that averse to crypto, and tried of seeing repeated crypto grifts.

Re: Why I’m betting on Nostr

#55

Post by xigoi »

Brighthurst wrote: post #18

I'd like to point out that the apparent "crypto dominance" is mostly due to that group's propensity to be early-adopters of new technology. The apparent crypto spam is actually a good opportunity to squash the bot issue early. Even people "in crypto" hate bots spamming the newest shitcoin. So while that may put some people off, there is non-crypto related communication, and the "crypto dominance" will decrease over t…

Still, cryptocurrency is inherently baked into the network due to the “zaps” mechanism.

Re: Why I’m betting on Nostr

#56

Post by evbogue »

jb55 wrote: post #51
evbogue wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you request your Zaps balance to send it somewhere else (like to a Bitcoin wallet)? Maybe this is a Lightning thing and not a Nostr thing. I guess I assumed it was based on the private key you generated when you got started on Nostr and if that private key became compromised then the Zaps could go to whoever had the private key. Perhaps there is a document somewhere that explains this.

There is no "zaps balance". Zaps are just receipts of lightning payments. The basic idea is that a lightning node will detect when the invoice with a nostr note inside is paid, and then send the receipt to nostr as a nostr note, with the original bolt11 invoice inside with the signature from the user who sent the zap. It's all described by NIP-57, a spec I put together to support this: https://github.com/nostr-protoc…

I read NIP-57 just now.

I guess what confused me is I've used Nostr clients where everyone has a Zap button. Who is holding onto those lighting receive addresses until they specify where they want the funds to go?

Like if someone Zaps me right now, I haven't specified a place for those Zaps to go. Do I call the Damus staff and they send the total of the micropayments Zapped to me over Nostr to a Bitcoin receive address? I don't think anyone has Zapped me, I'm just trying to wrap my mind around how it works since I was wrong earlier.

Maybe I need to set aside an afternoon and read about how Lighting works, perhaps I just don't get that protocol.

Re: Why I’m betting on Nostr

#57

Post by Edes »

mhink wrote: post #41
troupo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> listen for a type of event, do something, emit another. If everything is an event, and you can send any types of events, then you can trivially saturate the network, the clients, and the relays with bogus events. > but are rapidly moving into uncharted territory - people are building music distribution apps, ai agents, and so on. None of this is uncharted territory. Uncharted for Nostr, maybe. But time and again an…

> If everything is an event, and you can send any types of events, then you can trivially saturate the network, the clients, and the relays with bogus events. I agree this is a problem. However, there is at least one protocol addition (that doesn't involve cryptocurrency per se, although it shares some ideas) that tries to address this: proof-of-work requirements. The idea is basically this: message IDs are SHA256 ha…

I don't think there's a trivial amount of computation people would want to perform that would cost too much for bots to advertise. I don't think people would be willing to wait 20 minutes on their phone to post a comment on a website. Assuming it's SHA256 like Bitcoin, from this video [1] a Samsung S22 Ultra does 400Kh/s. On a 6700 XT, the hashrate is 24 MH/s, that is like 50 times faster, or 24 seconds per post. If they use an ASIC it shoots up to the TH level. That's milliseconds. The service would need to be unusable on a phone unless people leased servers to validate their posts on, leading to costs for each post.

[1] https://youtu.be/iXMHKZGVZ0g

Re: Why I’m betting on Nostr

#58

Post by jrm4 »

I tried it for a bit, and for both content and tech, tying it to Bitcoin seems like -- perhaps not a deal-killer, but mostly pointless and trying to hard.

The theory is cool, it makes sense, you have your identity tied to your Bitcoin public key.

But it just seems unnecessary to focus on this particular bit of the technology, when the human relationships via something like Mastodon and federation seem to be just fine.

Re: Why I’m betting on Nostr

#59

Post by zikduruqe »

jrm4 wrote: post #58

I tried it for a bit, and for both content and tech, tying it to Bitcoin seems like -- perhaps not a deal-killer, but mostly pointless and trying to hard. The theory is cool, it makes sense, you have your identity tied to your Bitcoin public key. But it just seems unnecessary to focus on this particular bit of the technology, when the human relationships via something like Mastodon and federation seem to be just fine…

It did some BTC begging and got a bunch of Sats sent to me via the Lightning network. All in all I made "money" from participating.

Then the porn took over.

Re: Why I’m betting on Nostr

#60

Post by clarkmoody »

unshavedyak wrote: post #54
clarkmoody wrote: post #34

All the degenerate token-fueled web3 hype of 2021 sold a bunch of dreams about decentralization and owning your social graph to unsuspecting retail and then delivered nothing but rugpulls and bankruptcy letters. Meanwhile, nostr built a system people actually use on top of open protocols. No tokens, no blockchains. Only notes and other stuff transmitted over relays.

The relationship to Bitcoin makes me nervous, though. I don't understand it, but even the mention of it makes me want to write off the whole protocol because i'm just that averse to crypto, and tried of seeing repeated crypto grifts.

Bitcoin and nostr are completely separate protocols, but they just so happen to have a level of interoperability. You can use either system without ever touching (or caring) about the other.
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