Connect with us

Opinion

Jack Dorsey-Backed Nostr Emerges as Bitcoin's Social Layer at Riga Conference

Published

4 months ago

on



The third edition of NostrWorld’s unconference series took place last week in the picturesque city of Riga, Latvia, bringing together advocates and developers of the Nostr protocol. Spearheaded by Block CEO and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, NostrWorld’s free gatherings are a platform for open-source enthusiasts to exchange ideas, foster collaboration, and ignite initiatives aimed at shaping a freer, more decentralized version of the internet.

Bitcoin Magazine was on the ground in Riga to explore how the evolution of the Nostr protocol could influence Bitcoin’s trajectory. While Nostr’s budding community has famously attracted prominent Bitcoin advocates, Nostriga—as this third NostrWorld conference was dubbed—offered a fresh lens 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 appears increasingly likely to intertwine with Nostr’s promising social network technology.

What’s Nostr?

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 network of relays where users can publish and receive messages. Nostr is quickly gaining traction as a social layer for Bitcoin, enabling features like micropayments and digital identity management. Beyond social media, Nostr presents an opportunity to build a new internet architecture that frees users from reliance on centralized platforms. This approach empowers individuals by removing the need for intermediaries that typically own user data, monetize attention, and control or censor access.

Micropayments Market Fit

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 got onboarded onto Nostr and received Zaps to her account that the power of the technology finally clicked for her.

Zaps are small Bitcoin payments, often sent as tips or rewards on Nostr, allowing users to support content creators directly through the Lightning Network. This micro-payment feature has become a popular way to demonstrate Bitcoin’s utility and value in a social context

The concept of micropayments predates even Bitcoin, but Nostr advocates believe Zaps represent the first successful large-scale implementation of the idea. On a panel alongside Primal CEO Miljan Braticevic, Jack Mallers emphasized the significance of this achievement:

“I think that’s very underappreciated. Something that has been desired on the web for many decades. From anonymous cypherpunks to the most powerful people in the world, all have desired this use case and we seem to have achieved that.”

Micropayments through Nostr introduce a new bootstrapping mechanism that could reshape the traditional Bitcoin onboarding process. Individuals who might not be swayed by Bitcoin’s economic or political narrative might appreciate its unique value once exposed to casual internet tipping and microtransactions. This shift opens Bitcoin up to a broader audience by making it accessible in everyday social interactions already familiar to internet users.

Setting the stage for the Ecash economy

Ecash, one of Bitcoin’s up-and-coming technologies was a recurring theme throughout the event. Cashu protocol developer CalleBTC made a passionate argument for the central role Nostr could play in an ecash-driven economy.

Proposed as a system for private, scalable payments using blind signatures, ecash enables users to transact without revealing their identities, preserving financial privacy. However, this privacy comes with a tradeoff: ecash introduces trusted entities known as mints, which custody users’ Bitcoin deposits in exchange for tokens, often referred to as notes. For ecash to function effectively, a robust market of mints is necessary to provide users with options for whom to trust. As the concept gains traction, this reliance on multiple mints introduces various coordination and discovery challenges—challenges developers believe are ideally suited to be addressed by Nostr’s social features.

Examples of this are bitcoinmints.com and cashumints.space, two Nostr-based websites that offer a Yelp-like interfaces for users to discover new mint providers and for mints to advertise their services and build a reputation. Although the initial implementations are fairly basic, the potential integration of Nostr’s social graph could enable 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 the relationships and experiences shared by those they know. Eventually, the expectation is that similar Nostr-based services will be integrated directly into Bitcoin ecash wallets, offering users a seamless onboarding experience that avoids imposing trusted defaults.

Similarly, Nostr’s infrastructure provides various methods to bolster the resilience of ecash mints, enabling future implementations to operate independently of the internet’s centralized DNS services. This would allow users to establish direct connections with mints, reducing their exposure to third-party interventions and enhancing the overall security and decentralization of the ecash system.

Another fascinating concept emerging from the convergence of ecash and Nostr communities is the idea known as “nutsack.” Introduced by Nostr developer PabloF7z, Nutsack, or NIP-60, allows users to store ecash notes on Nostr relays, effectively distributing them across the network and tying them to the user’s identity. In effect, the scheme allows universal access to a user’s ecash balance across any Nostr client that supports the feature. This means that, in the future, users could log into any website or online service and have their ecash balance seamlessly follow them, enabling effortless spending across multiple platforms.

Communities and Web-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-centric groups that currently dominate the platform. Announcements like developer Alex Gleason’s Ditto, made last week, have the potential to extend Nostr’s reach into the broader landscape of existing internet communities, such as Mastodon, paving the way for wider adoption.

“With Ditto people find websites they want to join because of a community and then they discover Nostr as a side effect, which gives them the opportunity to learn what it is and why it matters,” explained Gleason 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, the formation of communities and the adoption of Nostr as an identity system could pave the way for digital economies rooted in the web-of-trust concept. By building social graphs based on cryptographically signed messages, users can carry 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.



Source link

Related Topics:
Continue Reading

21 Million

No, BlackRock Can't Change Bitcoin

Published

2 days ago

on

December 21, 2024

By


Recently, BlackRock released an educational video explaining Bitcoin, which I thought was great—it’s amazing to see Bitcoin being discussed on such a massive platform. But, of course, Bitcoin X (Twitter) had a meltdown over one specific line in the video: “There is no guarantee that Bitcoin’s 21 million supply cap will not be changed.”

HealthRnager from Natural News claimed, “Bitcoin has become far too centralized, and now the wrong people largely control its algorithms. They are TELLING you in advance what they plan to do.”

Now, let me be clear: this is total nonsense. The controversy is overhyped, and the idea that BlackRock would—or even could—change bitcoin’s supply is laughable. The statement in their video is technically true, but it’s just a legal disclaimer. It doesn’t mean BlackRock is plotting to inflate bitcoin’s supply. And even if they were, they don’t have the power to pull it off.

Bitcoin’s 21 million cap is fundamental—it’s not up for debate. The entire Bitcoin ecosystem—miners, developers, and nodes—operates on this core principle. Without it, Bitcoin wouldn’t be Bitcoin. And while BlackRock is a financial giant and holds over 500,000 Bitcoin for its ETF, its influence over Bitcoin is practically nonexistent.

Bitcoin is a proof-of-work (PoW) system, not a proof-of-stake (PoS) system. It doesn’t matter how much bitcoin BlackRock owns; economic nodes hold the real power.

Let’s play devil’s advocate for a second. Say BlackRock tries to propose a protocol change to increase bitcoin’s supply. What happens? The vast network of nodes would simply reject it. Bitcoin’s history proves this. Remember Roger Ver and the Bitcoin Cash fork? He had significant influence and holdings, yet his version of bitcoin became irrelevant because the majority of economic actors didn’t follow him.

If Bitcoin could be controlled by a single entity like BlackRock, it would’ve failed a long time ago. The U.S. government, with its endless money printer, could easily acquire 10% of the supply if that’s all it took to control Bitcoin. But that’s not how Bitcoin works. Its decentralized nature ensures no single entity—no matter how powerful—can dictate its terms.

So, stop worrying about BlackRock “changing” Bitcoin. Their influence has hard limits. Even if they tried to push developers to change the protocol, nodes would reject it. Bitcoin’s decentralization is its greatest strength, and no one—not BlackRock, not Michael Saylor—can change that.

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.



Source link

Continue Reading

Opinion

It’s Time to Admit It – There Are Only 2.1 Quadrillion Bitcoins

Published

2 days ago

on

December 21, 2024

By


If the above statement offends you, you might not have read the Bitcoin source code.

Follow Rizzo on X.

https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/

Of course, I’m sure you’ve heard that there are 21 million bitcoin – and this is true, the Bitcoin protocol allows for only “21 million bitcoin” to be created, yet these larger denominations can be subdivided into 100 million sub-units each.

Call them whatever you want, there are only 2.1 quadrillion monetary units in the protocol.

This dollars and cents differential has long been the subject of debate – in the time of Satoshi, Bitcoin’s creator, the dual conventions, Bitcoin having both a bulk denomination, and a smaller unit, was not much of a concern. There were questions about whether the software would work at all, and bitcoin were so worthless, selling them in bulk was the only rational option.

Rehashing this debate is BIP 21Q, a proposal to the Bitcoin users authored by John Carvalho, founder of Synonym, creator of the Pubky social media platform, and a tenured contributor whose work dates back to the days of the influential Bitcoin-assets collective.

In short, the BIP proposes that network actors – the various wallets and exchanges – change how Bitcoin denominations are displayed, with the smallest unit of the protocol renamed “bitcoins,” as opposed to “satoshis,” as they have been commonly called.

Here are the specifics of the BIP:

Redefinition of the Unit:

  • Internally, the smallest indivisible unit remains unchanged.
  • Historically, 1 BTC = 100,000,000 base units. Under this proposal, “1 bitcoin” equals that smallest unit.
  • What was previously referred to as “1 BTC” now corresponds to 100 million bitcoins under the new definition.

Terminology:

  • The informal terms “satoshi” or “sat” are deprecated.
  • All references, interfaces, and documentation SHOULD refer to the base integer unit simply as “bitcoin.”

Display and Formatting:

  • Applications SHOULD present values as whole integers without decimals.
  • Example:
    • Old display: 0.00010000 BTC
    • New display: 10000 BTC (or ₿10000)

Unsurprisingly, the debate around the BIP has been hostile. For one, it’s not a technical BIP, though this is not a requirement of the BIP process. Suffice to say, it’s perhaps the most general BIP that has been proposed under the BIP process to date, as it mainly deals with market conventions and user onboarding logic, not any changes to the software rules.

However, I have to say, I find the proposal compelling. Nik Hoffman, our News Editor, does not, preferring to stick to the market affirmative.

Yet, I think the proposal raises relevant questions: why should new users be forced to compute their Bitcoin balances using only decimals? Surely this has the adverse side effect of making commerce difficult – it’s simply antithetical to how people think and act today.

Also, in terms of savings, at an $100,000 BTC price, it isn’t exactly compelling to think you could be spending a whole year earning 1 BTC, though that may be.

Indeed, there have been various debates for all kinds of units – mBTC, uBTC – that play around with the dollars and cents convention, but Carvalho here is wisely skipping to the end, preferring just to rip the band-aid off. $1 would buy 1,000 bitcoins under his proposal.

What’s to like here, and I argued this during a Lugano debate on the topic in 2023, is that it keeps both the larger BTC denomination and the smaller unit, now bitcoins. They are both important, and serve different functions.

My argument then was that having a larger denomination like BTC (100 million bitcoins) is important. If there was no “BTC unit,” the press and financial media would be faced to reckon that “1 bitcoin” is still worth less than 1 cent. 

How much mainstream coverage and interest do we think there would be? I’d bet not very much.

In this way, BIP 21Q is a best-of-both-worlds approach.

The financial world, press, and media can continue championing the meteoric rise in value of “BTC,” while everyday users can get rid of decimals and complex calculations, trading the only real Bitcoin unit guaranteed to exist in perpetuity. 

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.



Source link

Continue Reading

Bitcoin spot ETF

We Need In-Kind Redemptions For The Spot Bitcoin ETFs

Published

2 days ago

on

December 21, 2024

By


Follow Frank on X.

On a recent episode of the Coinage podcast, guest SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce said that she is open to reconsidering in-kind redemptions for spot bitcoin ETFs.

(For those who aren’t familiar with the term “in-kind redemption,” it refers to the ability to withdraw the bitcoin you’ve purchased via an ETF into your own custody. In essence, it turns a bitcoin IOU into the real thing.)

This makes my heart happy, as bitcoin wasn’t designed to exist trapped within the wrappers of the old system. It was built to set us free from that system.

If Peirce can work with the incoming SEC Chair, Paul Atkins, to facilitate the approval of in-kind redemptions then the spot bitcoin ETFs can serve as some of the biggest on-ramps to Bitcoin, as Bitwise co-founder Hong Kim put it, as opposed to simply existing as speculation vehicles.

Bitcoin was born to exist in the wild. It wasn’t born to exist in a Wall Street zoo.

In-kind redemptions would allow the bitcoin currently trapped within the zoo the ability to return to its natural habitat.

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.





Source link

Continue Reading
Advertisement [ethereumads]

Trending

    wpChatIcon