Your signal. Your price.
Marty Bent created a Bitcoin price prediction game using Nostr notes and vibe-coded a tracker with Shakespeare.ai, costing 27,000 sats versus a 5,555 sat prize.
Odell praised DTAN, a distributed torrent archive on Nostr built by Zapstream's Kieran, as a real web3 example combining open protocols without a blockchain.
David Bennett says Nostr is a decentralized communication protocol, not an app or platform, built around public-private key pairs using the same Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) as Bitcoin.
Bennett explains that Nostr's protocol defines a simple 'event' with six components: an ID, a kind (like text), a pub key, a timestamp, content, and a signature from your private key.
Jack Spirico notes Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are walled gardens because they own the protocol, the client, and your identity; Nostr separates these, making your public key your own portable identity.
Bennett warns that anyone can log into Nostr with your public key and see your entire feed exactly as you see it, except for your end-to-end encrypted direct messages.
Bennett states your Nostr user experience depends on your client and which relays you connect to; connecting to many relays can duplicate data and drain your phone's battery and data plan.
Spirico compares Nostr's early friction to Lightning Network's evolution, noting it's a two-year-old protocol where market solutions like paid relays are already emerging to filter spam.
Bennett says Nostr's first major application recreates Twitter, but the protocol enables novel tools combining non-value communication with value transfer, like embedding Lightning invoices in notes for direct sales.
Bennett explains 'zaps' are a distinct Nostr event kind that enable tipping; clients like Damus or web apps with Alby can generate Lightning payments directly to a note or profile.
Bennett notes Nostr notes cannot be deleted once published, analogous to Bitcoin transactions; he cites BTC Gandalf accidentally posting his private key, permanently compromising that account.
Bennett argues Nostr is hard to stop because its protocol is lightweight and open-source, allowing anyone to run a relay; from 20 relays in mid-December 2022, he now sees over 500.
Bennett describes using Nostr's NIP-05 to verify identity by placing protocol data on your own website's `.well-known` directory, providing a layer of trust beyond a basic public key.