Nostr - Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays

An open social protocol with a chance of working

Nostr is an inclusive communication commons. A simple standard that defines a scalable<br>architecture of clients and servers that can be used to spread information freely. Not<br>controlled by any corporation or government, anyone can build on Nostr and anyone can use<br>it.

Join Nostr

Watch a presentation

~><br>nak<br>event --sec 7465 -c<br>'this is going to work' nostr.wine relay.damus.io<br>nostr.mom

nostr.wine... ok.

relay.damus.io... ok.

nostr.mom... ok.

{"kind":1,"id":"b9fead6eef87d8400cbc1a5621400b360438affb9760a6a043cc0bddea21dab6","pubkey":"82341f882b6eabcd2ba7f1ef90aad961cf074af15b9ef44a09f9d2a8fbfbe6a2","created_at":1676161639,"tags":[],"content":"this<br>is going to<br>work","sig":"76d19889a803236165a290fa8f3cf5365af8977ee1e002afcfd37063d1355fc755d0293d27ba0ec1c2468acfaf95b7e950e57df275bb32d7a4a3136f8862d2b7"}

publishing to relay.damus.io...<br>success.

publishing to nostr.wine... msg:<br>restricted: not an active paid member

publishing to nostr.mom... success.

All Kinds of Stuff

Like the internet itself: open and chaotic

Nostr embraces the chaos of the early internet—multiple kinds of data, diverse forms of user<br>interaction and different clients providing their own perspectives over the same underlying<br>information.

rebase

Many clients, many servers

The client is the app that is running on your computer or phone, the server is<br>whatever is running on a cloud somewhere with a domain name. In centralized platforms<br>and other protocols, one client talks to a single server. In Nostr clients connect to<br>many.

Learn how Nostr is different

Cryptographically signed notes

Nostr's single unit of information is a cryptographically signed note, these are created<br>by users in their client software and published to one or more relays.

Smart clients as user agents

Clients are smart and act as agents for the users who install them. They decide which<br>relays to connect to and when and what data to request according to the circumstance and<br>user preferences.

Relays as distribution centres

These are the servers that notes are published to and read from. They cannot change the<br>contents of notes (that would invalidate the signature), but they can decide what to<br>store and for how long.

signature

A new paradigm for communication

In Nostr, every user is represented by a secret number called a "key" and every<br>message carries a digital "signature" that proves its authorship authorship and<br>authenticity without the need for any authority to say so. This foundation of trust<br>enables the decentralized broadcasting of information.

Watch a human-friendly explanation

shield Pro-censorship

The protocol is ownerless, relays are not

Nostr doesn't subscribe to political ideals of "free speech" — it simply recognizes that<br>different people have different morals and preferences and each server, being privately<br>owned, can follow their own criteria for rejecting content as they please and users are<br>free to choose what to read and from where.

Read about relay differentiation

handshake

Freedom of association

When the network effect is not tied to a single organization a group of users cannot<br>harm others.

Watch ›

landscape_2

Your own piece of Nostr

If you are a programmer or know how to run servers it is trivial to run your own<br>relay with your own rules.

Write code ›

lightbulb_2 New Ideas

Exploring the commons

Besides being a natural medium for a Twitter-like microblogging social network, Nostr<br>can also be used for other purposes. And not only similar things like sharing<br>videos, longform articles, pictures or voice notes. There<br>are initiatives on Nostr for the development of sub-protocols that power<br>closed groups , decentralized wikipedia , couchsurfing ,<br>marketplaces or web annotations ; as well as protocols that don't use Nostr<br>for the core data but as a coordination and discovery mechanism, such as<br>decentralized code collaboration using git , file hosting ,<br>torrent sharing and video livestreaming .

Browse the NIPs

grass Ecosystem

Still under construction

Nostr is an idea with a lot of open-source software around it and a large userbase, but<br>not a finished, polished product that you can buy without stress. We're still pretty<br>much in the phase where new programmers and early adopters are needed to help us refine<br>the protocol flows and the user experience.

List of repositories on GitHub

comment

Microblogging

The so-called "outbox model" is the canonical way of implementing a<br>censorship-resistant client, but its parameters are fluid.

Learn about it ›

hub

Relay-based groups

NIP-29 describes a way to do closed groups for forums or chat that can be very<br>efficient by relying on a relay but are still censorship-resistant.

Read the guide ›

account_circle<br>Following

How Nostr works

Nostr enables true freedom by allowing users to stay connected to their audience even in<br>adverse scenarios.

User chooses their outbox...