Nostr *chains* do. You just need to recode the way bitcoin chooses the chain and you have scarcity in that chain of events.
Discussion
Unless I've missed some big development in this area, I don't think so. Because a fork can always be created at any point during the lifetime of a given asset. In order to avoid the double spend problem you have to prove a negative — that the asset wasn't spent twice. You need global state for that. If you're saying that the double spend avoidance is just in how you choose the chain, then you've just reinvented centralized (or blockchain-based) state.
When Bitcoin assembles blocks in a chain it chooses which spends are valid EVEN WHEN there are other spends out there, including double spends for the same wallet. The assembly of the chain IS CENTRALIZED by choosing the longest chain. We just agree in that centralization.
You can do the same with a Nostr chain.
I mean, you can, but it's hardly nostr at that point is it? It's like saying you can make bitcoin using a calculator and a sheet of paper, which is technically true but doesn't seem that helpful.
People need consensus in many things in life. I think we will invent ways of encoding that consensus as social scripts that updates the state of the consensus between a group of people in a verifiable chain of events without having to pay for blockspace on bitcoin.
Picture a large group with many admins that don't trust each other. They all have to rely on a script to maintain the group. The script creates a sequence of events that anybody can re-run to verify if it is correct. Voting to change the group admin policy and script can be part of the script itself.
Anyway, there are lots of cool little use cases for social contracts.
What's the difference between this and blockchain?
It is a blockchain. That's the point. We will have trustless consensus on Nostr just like any blockchain would.
This shit of having to trust admin keys, or trusted management of groups or communities, will be over.
But the scope of trust is so small for many of these things a blockchain solution would be indistinguishable from a trusted solution, because only one or two people would be "running nodes". Unless you have validators as a service, but then you're back at a monolithic blockchain, which doesn't scale. I guess a bunch of small blockchains for each discrete thing that needs to be validated would be cool.
Yeap. That's the win. Small chains everywhere. There is no need for global consensus on all chains. The security budget is proportional to the needs of the "small chain use case". And I am sure lots of validators would love to charge some fees to participate in the chain.
Who knows. Maybe we can create a Nostr validator class and have a fee-based model to run or modify Nostr contracts in a trustless fashion with some proof of work to select the winning "miner". If we can have a main VM for every contract type, that could work.
There's still the storage dimension. I guess validators would run a relay too, so the data and logic would be coupled. Interesting.
They can use any relay users want. As long as they can find all events of the chain, it's fine.
This is far more insecure than drivechains… and drivechains are awful… transactions certainly can’t be replaced in this half-baked model of chaos. How do you limit total supply without a global state? Blockchain has to be synced across all nodes to validate total supply.
Probably worth focusing on what Nostr is best at instead of treating it as a cure-all. 😅
hodlbod is right on this one mate, the longest PoW chain wins and #Nostr can’t replicate that unforgeable costliness.