The third edition of NostrWorld’s unconference series took place last week in the picturesque city of Riga, Latvia, bringing together proponents and developers of the Nostr protocol. Led 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 spark initiatives aimed at shaping a freer, more decentralized version of the internet.
Bitcoin Magazine was on-site in Riga to explore how the evolution of the Nostr protocol could impact Bitcoin’s course. While Nostr’s nascent community has been made famous by prominent Bitcoin advocates, Nostriga—as this third NostrWorld conference was dubbed—offered a fresh look at the growing synergies between the two technologies. Conversations with attendees and observations throughout the two-day event revealed a clear trend: Bitcoin’s path seems increasingly likely to intertwine with Nostr’s promising social networking technology.
What is Nostr?
Us 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 popularity as a social layer for Bitcoin, enabling features such as micropayments and digital identity management. Beyond social media, Nostr offers an opportunity to build a new internet architecture that frees users from dependency on centralized platforms. This approach empowers individuals by removing the need for intermediaries who typically own user data, monetize attention, and control or censor access.
Micropayments Market Fit
A standout moment from 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 onboarded Nostr and got Zaps on her account that the power of the technology finally dawned on her.
Zaps are small Bitcoin payments, often sent as tips or rewards on Nostr, that allow users to support content creators directly through the Lightning Network. This micropayment feature has become a popular way to demonstrate the utility and value of Bitcoin in a social context
The concept of micropayments is even older than Bitcoin, but Nostr proponents believe Zaps represent the first successful large-scale implementation of the idea. At a panel alongside Ancient CEO Miljan Braticevic, Jack Mallers emphasized the importance of this achievement:
“I think that’s very underrated. It’s something that’s been desired on the web for decades. From anonymous cypherpunks to the most powerful people in the world, everyone has wanted this use case and it seems like we’ve achieved it.”
Micropayments via Nostr introduce a new bootstrap mechanism that could revolutionize the traditional Bitcoin onboarding process. Individuals who may not be swayed by Bitcoin’s economic or political narrative could appreciate its unique value if exposed to casual internet tipping and microtransactions. This shift opens Bitcoin to a broader audience by making it accessible in everyday social interactions that are already familiar to internet users.
Setting the Stage for the Ecash Economy
Ecash, one of Bitcoin’s emerging technologies, was a recurring theme during the event. Cashu protocol developer BelBTC made an impassioned argument for the central role Nostr could play in a cash-driven economy.
Proposed as a system for private, scalable payments using blind signatures, cash money allows users to transact without revealing their identity, thereby maintaining financial privacy. However, this privacy comes with a downside: ecash introduces trusted entities known as mints, which hold users’ Bitcoin deposits in exchange for tokens, often referred to as notes. For ecash to function effectively, a robust mint marketplace is needed to give users options for who they can trust. As the concept gains traction, this reliance on multiple mints introduces several coordination and discovery challenges—challenges that developers feel are uniquely suited to be addressed by Nostr’s social features.
Examples of these are: bitcoinmints.com And cashumints.spaceTwo Nostr-based websites that provide Yelp-like interfaces for users to discover new mint providers and for mints to advertise their services and build a reputation. While initial implementations are fairly simple, the potential integration of Nostr’s social graph could allow 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, it is expected that similar Nostr-based services will be integrated directly into Bitcoin ecash wallets, providing users with a seamless onboarding experience that avoids imposing familiar defaults.
Similarly, Nostr’s infrastructure offers several methods to strengthen the resilience of ecash mints, allowing future implementations to operate independently of the internet’s centralized DNS services. This would allow users to establish direct connections to mints, reducing their exposure to third-party intervention and improving the overall security and decentralization of the ecash system.
Another fascinating concept that has emerged from the convergence of the ecash and Nostr communities is the idea known as “nutsack.” Introduced by Nostr developer PabloF7zNutsack, 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 provides universal access to a user’s ecash balance via any Nostr client that supports the feature. This means that in the future, users will be able to log into any website or online service and have their ecash balance follow them seamlessly, allowing for effortless spending across multiple platforms.
Communities and Web-Of-Trust
One of the biggest opportunities – and perhaps the biggest challenge – for Nostr is its ability to reach new internet communities outside of the Bitcoin-centric groups that currently dominate the platform. Announcements such as developer Alex Gleason‘S Dittocreated last week have the potential to extend Nostr’s reach into the broader landscape of existing internet communities, such as Mastodonpaving the way for wider acceptance.
“With Ditto, people find websites they want to join for community and then they discover Nostr as a side effect, which gives them the opportunity to learn what it is and why it’s important,” Gleason explained in his presentation.
This strengthening 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 the 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 propagate their reputations across the internet, laying the foundation for secure, decentralized commerce that operates independently of traditional laws, contracts, and enforcement mechanisms—with Bitcoin at the center of it all.