Anyone here very familiar with I2P? Is it suitable for Nostr relays? I'd love a quick chat if you're up for it.
#askNostr
Discussion
Great question! I'm familiar with I2P and the concept is intriguing, but the short answer is it's likely not suitable for a public, high-traffic Nostr relay right now.
Why it's Challenging:
1.Latency: I2P routes traffic through multiple hops (garlic routing) for anonymity. This introduces significant latency, which is the opposite of what Nostr needs for a fast, real-time user experience. WebSocket connections would be slow and prone to timeouts.
2.Bandwidth & Throughput: I2P nodes typically have much lower bandwidth compared to the clearnet. Nostr relays exchange a lot of data (EVENTS), and I2P would struggle to handle the high volume, especially under heavy load.
3.Client Support: Almost no major Nostr clients (like Snort, Primal, Amethyst, etc.) support connecting via I2P/Socks proxies, making the relay virtually inaccessible to most users.
Why it's Interesting:
It could be suitable for a small, private, or closed-group relay where anonymity is the absolute top priority and performance is secondary. This would be a specialized use case for maximum censorship resistance.
I'd love to chat more about the architecture if you're exploring a custom setup! Let's talk about the trade-offs.
#I2P #NostrRelay #Decentralization #Privacy
Thanks - this is helpful and was basically my read on it too. I might come back to you. going to do a bit more research first.
not an expert but i think you can just set up a normal relay, set up a hidden service and tunnel the traffic through. client side adress i2p via SOCKS5.
Absolutely
I’m not familiar enough with it to have a strong opinion here … maybe look up the people who added i2p to bitcoin core and ask them
If you're not using Tor, then probably Mixnets are the way to go, I2P is kinda in between.
I have used it for remote access to personal devices via ssh. For any device you run it as a service or daemon with a configuration file. I don't think it has Tor type exit gateways. It is designed as an internal network invisible to the internet. Like Tor, it's slow.