Is Nostr dependent on bitcoin?

nope. it's a totally independent idea to support free speech. though it does tickle some similar instincts in people

If you drop by Nostr even casually, it can often feel like you’re crashing a bitcoiner dinner party. The memes, the FOSS devs, the topics of conversation often seem to overlap with bitcoin culture. Is this just a case of “birds-of-a-feather” or is there more to it?

Nostr is an open protocol. It’s independent of the use or existence of any cryptocurrency. It uses cryptography, but nothing super fancy there. It’s actually kinda basic, tbh.

So why did so many bitcoiners show up? A simple explanation might be that fiatjaf, the creator of Nostr, was a bitcoiner and brought like-minded people along. But I think there’s more to it than just the initial seed.

The critical feature which Nostr gets right is that you can create an account just by doing math on your own. Of course, you can use a little program on your own computer to help do this math (i.e., creating public-private key pairs). This is cryptography at its best — a tool that empowers the individual.

You don’t have to go to a 3rd-party-issuer to create an account for you. You don’t have to subscribe to a particular cryptocurrency or political ideology. You could identify as a libertarian, anarchist, democrat, republican, labor party, or you may not accept any political labels at all.

On Nostr, you’re welcome to even dislike the concept of bitcoin/cryptocurrencies altogether. As long as you have a curiosity about, or interest in freedom of speech you may find Nostr to be a good place for you to share your thoughts. On Nostr, your ideas and your words are published without being subject to anyone’s permission. The separation of power between clients and data stores is what enforces your rights. It’s baked into the architecture. Not promised and granted to you by a demagogue. That’s the whole idea.