Replying to Avatar Vitor Pamplona

This is why we build protocols, not platforms. SimpleXChat wanted a platform the company can control since day 0. The more they developed, the clearer it got that the game wasn't privacy, but control.

They were all the rage when we were developing NIP-17. Many, many people told us to just use their system instead of building our protocol. It looks silly now, but I am glad we didn't follow their way doing business.

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Azz 2mo ago

To most outsiders, Nostr still looks like just another crypto project, essentially Bitcoin over Lightning. The belief that “Bitcoin has already won” is the main argument for keeping Nostr Bitcoin only. While common within the community, to outsiders it’s indistinguishable from the same maximalist rhetoric used by every other altcoin project, each declaring victory in its own echo chamber.

If Nostr wants to break free from that perception and stand apart as a genuine, censorship resistant communications protocol rather than a Bitcoin marketing arm, it should introduce a NIP allowing users to specify which cryptocurrency they are willing to accept. This would let the free market decide value preference, proving that Nostr supports genuine freedom of choice rather than ideological gatekeeping.

Zaps could continue to function seamlessly: each user sets a default currency, and if the recipient supports it, a one tap zap still works as normal.

By embracing this openness, Nostr would gain a powerful network effect advantage over any single coin ecosystem, becoming the neutral communications layer for the entire decentralised economy rather than a subset of it.

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verbiricha 2mo ago

right on the money. unfortunately most nostr devs and users are Bitcoin maxis and they'll cast you out if you try something like this.

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The Daniel 🖖 2mo ago

Just my two sats, if I wanted to be on a social network full of crypto wankers, I’d just be on Fartcaster or back on Xitter.

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verbiricha 2mo ago

the beauty of nostr is that you can choose to use Bitcoin-only relays and clients. an inflow of users and devs would be a net positive for the protocol imo.

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Azz 2mo ago

It’s not about promoting other coins, it’s about making them irrelevant.

By opening Nostr to any currency, you expose every closed ecosystem to a protocol that doesn’t need a token to survive. That’s how you make the imitators obsolete.

Bitcoin doesn’t need protection; it just needs a fair arena to prove it’s the most sound money.

That’s what Nostr should be, an open protocol where freedom, not ideology, wins.

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Manbyt 2mo ago

As far as I know, no one is stopping anyone from putting shitcoins on Nostr. Its an opensource protocol, the protocol won’t stop them. The problem is that most shitcoin developers are to busy scamming their tokens to actually build it. They know that it wouldn’t really add any value to their pockets.

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Azz 2mo ago

Saying “they can build their own clients” is a copout.

Protocols are about interoperability, if the clients don’t talk to each other, it’s not a protocol, it’s just a bunch of walled gardens sharing a name.

That’s exactly why we need to expand the Zap NIP to read the payment preferences in users’ profile metadata. Profile data should allow more than just a Lightning address. If a user specifies another currency, clients should respect that.

Right now, in response to closed, coin specific ecosystems, we’ve basically created our own version of the same thing, just dressed up as “freedom” and “openness.” If Nostr really wants to lead, it should be open by design, not by slogan.