Nostr Web Client

Nostr isn’t peer to peer, it uses relays and that’s why it works.

You don’t pay for relays, but others certainly do.

Accepting satoshis which were undeniably mined by spending energy through computational work (proof of work) for relay access is totally worth it. The proof of work was captured and stored in cyberspace for it to be spent later.

Callum 6mo ago

I thought that night be how you were using PoW but payment using sats mined on a PoW system is not PoW itself, it's simply payment (same as payment with gold coins). And what you were describing is payment gateways - for information to be passed along by a relay payment must be made. Again, same as a toll booth.

> The proof of work was captured and stored in cyberspace for it to be spent later.

This is completely wrong. The amount of work done to generate a Bitcoin in 2009 & 2010 was trivial. When you spend a BTC from that era you are not spending the work done to originally 'create' that BTC. The value is derived from that BTC being one fraction of a limited supply in a system that has been continually secured by PoW from that day forward (none of which you, the 2009 miner may have contributed).

PoW is only meaningful within the BTC system and is what secures the system (and, with the 21 million limit, makes BTC valuable). But the work done to mine BTC at whatever time (trivial once, very large today) does not magically transfer into whatever system uses BTC as payments. All you were talking about is making ppl exchange something of value to pass a gateway. Bringing PoW into the discussion (when it's relevant only to how the Bitcoin system works) is invalid.

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Cameri🐦‍🔥 6mo ago

Callum 6mo ago

That's all you can respond ?

I don't mean to get too personal but it's concerning that someone in your professional position can hold and express such a foundational misunderstanding of what Proof of Work is and, more importantly here, what it isn't.

Cameri🐦‍🔥 6mo ago

Instead of asking clients for direct Proof of Work, relay operators are willing to accept Bitcoin as a proxy, since it *must* have been mined with computational effort. That’s inherent to every satoshi, regardless of when it was mined, energy was spent to create it.

I had hoped we could keep the discussion on the technical merits, but since you brought my professional role into it, I’ll respond briefly on that front too.

Starting with “I don’t mean to get too personal” and then questioning my credibility isn’t a good-faith way to debate. It comes across as condescending and shifts the focus from the topic to the person.

If you believe I’ve misunderstood something about Proof of Work, I welcome clarification based on the facts. But ridiculing someone’s perspective, rather than addressing it, isn’t how sound and strong arguments are made.🤙🏼

Callum 6mo ago

Proof of Work matters in the generation of new coins *within* the Bitcoin sysyem (there is no way to generate new coins without doing work) and the contribution of this work is what secures the blockchain and the security of the system.

The work done to generate the coins *does not transfer* outside the system. It makes Bitcoin hard money, yes, and gives it value, but value is not Proof of Work. Proof of Work is an approach *within* a system to make ppl expend computational effort to be able to do something. Ppl spending satoshis to have a relay pass along a message are not doing proof of work, *nor* is it a proxy for PoW (it doesn't transfer), they are simply spending something of value. They are making a payment. They could spend something else instead that can be transacted digitally such as stablecoins or shitcoins (while they still have value). I understand and aporeciate why ppl might not want to integrate either of these into a system and I would sympathise with their thinking but from the technical point of view, any exchange of value is all that is needed. Bitcoin serves because it has value, not because it is a proxy for PoW. That is a nonsense.

Understanding PoW is fundamental to understanding Bitcoin, in a technical sense. We see a lot of nonsense on Bitcoin social media these days with ppl talking about their own personal 'proof of work' when they've worked to do something. Yes, work can be virtuous but real world work and computer science work (computational effort) are two quite different things. The work chosen for the Bitcoin system is set to be deliberately non useful - it doesn't solve any problem useful to the real world.

Perhaps I'm over explaining now, but I remain surprised at yr misunderstanding of how PoW works. It only works within the system in which the rules for what work matters are made. This PoW then, in Bitcoin's case, creates value for the currency generated. For nostr to utilise PoW, clients would have to expend computational effort "within* nostr. They can't use Bitcoin as a PoW proxy because that is a nonsense; literally it makes no sense in computer science terms. You cannot have a 'proxy' for PoW; you must simply do the work required by the system.

Bitcoins do not represent PoW, they represent value generated from a system which, for sound technical purposes, utilises PoW internally.