Nostr
lastmod 2026-08-31created 2024-05-202 edits
A decentralized social network with a chance of working
Learn about Nostr: A simple, open protocol that enables a truly censorship-resistant and global social network.
Decentralized social network
Features
- Nostr is a simple, open protocol with a minimal design, aimed at building a censorship-resistant, global, decentralized social network
- Uses simple, flexible event objects (delivered as plain JSON) and standard elliptic curve cryptography to handle keys and signatures
- The only supported transport is a WebSocket connection from client to relay
- Makes writing clients and relays easy and promotes software diversity
Advantages of Nostr
Resilience
- Nostr is highly resilient because it does not rely on a small number of trusted servers to move or store data
- The protocol assumes relays will disappear, and lets users connect and publish to any number of relays
Verifiability
- Nostr accounts are based on public key cryptography, so it is easy to verify that a message was actually sent by that user
Characteristics of Nostr
- Like HTTP or TCP-IP, Nostr is a protocol, an open standard anyone can build on
- Nostr is not an app or service you sign up for
Problems with current social media systems
- Exploit users' attention to sell ads
- Use bizarre techniques to make users addicted (see item 1)
- Decide what content to show based on secret algorithms users cannot inspect or change
- Have complete control over who can participate and who gets censored
- Overrun with spam and bots