sipa actually invented the pubkey system, it's taproot
Discussion
Isn't attaching it to social media profiles new? Taproot was for wallets as I understand it
The key pair mechanism + signagure, and attaching social media profiles are slightly different things. One is about cryptographic proofs, and one is about relations. With regard to relations, this is nothing new, we've been doing it for about a decade. You just add some JSON next to the pubkey. In fact nostr has done it in a pretty poor way, compared with other solutions. For example most people would use JSON for a social profile, but nostr uses stringified JSON which is hard to work with. Similarly other system are interoperable and extensible. Take website for example. You might have 2 websites, but nostr doesnt have a mechanism to add more than one website, whereas standardized methods that have existed a long time allow this optionality. Nostr just about works, but most of it was taken from things that came before.
Interesting.
So maybe I should credit fiatjaf and Will with implementing and popularizing keypair logins in the form of npubs, rather than making the invention itself.
They'll still be remembered, and it's still sad that nostr will probably need to be taken from its inventors to grow greater.
Will is credited with npubs which are vanity addresses and zaps. FJ repackaged ssb, and cut out some of the complexity. Nostr is just a proof of concept really. Pepole have been tying social profiles at scale to keypairs since at least 2006, at scale since 2014 (e.g. activitypub), and altcoins do it all the time. I dont think its worth getting hung up on individual contributions, it really was a team effort, for example Greg Heartsfield, who you probably have never heard of, probably did more for nostr than anyone. FJ cared not at all about the ecosystem, which was the most important element. Manyh good devs left due to his caustic attitude. And there are many unsung heroes. I work quite a lot with Tim Berners-Lee, who invented HTTP, HTML, first web server, first web browser, and URI. He ALWAYS describes the web as a team effort. Which is one reason it was successful. You dont hear alot of that in nostr. Many of the celebs did much less than people think, and the people you dont know, did much more. But by far the most important person was Jack, who noticed the pattern and saw the potentially and really breathed life into it.
Didn't know about Greg Heartsfield, curious about him now
It's an honor to talk to someone who works with Tim Berners-Lee
I believe in the long run you and I are more important to nostr than Jack, but you seem to have a knack for remembering and appreciating everyone's work and input