My business mentor has been dollar cost averaging in bitcoin since 2016. He has never used it, and has stored it all on a cold wallet.

He insists that every satoshi will be worth 100x in the next 5 years, and so it makes zero sense to be spending any of it today.

Curious to hear — what would your counter argument be?

Pubky vs Nostr - Under the Hood

Here's an AI-generated breakdown of the key differences under the hood between Pubky and Nostr, focusing on architecture, protocols, and design principles:

🔑 1. Identity Model

Pubky:

- Uses PKARR (Public Key Addressable Resource Records) to map pubkeys to resources (e.g., profile, index, feed, etc.) via the Mainline DHT.

- Treats a public key like a domain name, with multiple associated records (like DNS).

- Emphasizes self-custodial identity with keychain-style apps (like Pubky Ring) to manage access.

Nostr:

- Identity is simply a public key.

- No native support for structured resource discovery—clients infer structure (e.g., via nip-05, which is optional and centralized).

- No native key management or delegation system.

🧠 2. Data Architecture

Pubky:

- Data is hosted via homeservers, which can be self-hosted or federated, but data belongs to the user, not the host.

- Each pubkey publishes signed records (e.g., profile, index, posts) to their homeserver or a DHT-announced URL.

- Homeservers act like mirrors, not gatekeepers—enabling credible exit.

Nostr:

- Data is broadcast to relays

- Relays decide what to store and serve; users must trust relays to propagate and preserve content.

- No built-in credible exit or ownership enforcement.

🔄 3. Data Discovery & Routing

Pubky:

- Uses PKARR + Mainline DHT for decentralized discovery.

- You can find the correct endpoint for any key without a centralized index or bootstrap.

- Promotes semantic discovery through social tagging and pubkey-indexed resources.

Nostr:

- Discovery relies on centralized relay lists, nip-05 (centralized domains), or third-party indexers.

- No native DHT or structured discovery mechanism.

- Feeds are mostly ephemeral, requiring external tooling to rebuild context.

🗂️ 4. Content Structure and Graph

Pubky:

- Native support for tags, semantic relationships, and custom indexes.

- Embraces a semantic social graph, where users create and share meaning through tagging and trust.

- Tagging is relative, not objective—enabling things like contextual moderation, reputation, and filters.

Nostr:

- Content is flat and unstructured beyond event.kind and tags[], which are simple arrays.

- Social graph is inferred from follows and zaps but lacks higher-level structure.

- No built-in semantics—interpretation is client-dependent.

🔒 5. Censorship Resistance & Exit

Pubky:

- Promotes a credible exit by allowing users to self-host or mirror their data.

- Homeservers can be replaced or migrated without losing history or identity.

- All records are cryptographically signed and portable.

Nostr:

- Resilience depends on relays honoring your writes.

- If major relays drop you, there's no native fallback unless you're running your own.

- No migration tooling for moving across relays or restoring full history.

⚙️ 6. Protocol Complexity

Pubky:

- Uses existing infrastructure (Mainline DHT, HTTP, JSON, etc.).

- Structured, with clear roles: PKARR, homeservers, apps.

- More modular and composable by design.

Nostr:

- Simple and minimalistic by design.

- One protocol to rule them all—relays serve everything, and clients decide what to do with it.

- Easier to bootstrap but harder to evolve without fragmenting.

🧭 Philosophy Differences

Pubky is systematic and protocol-first.

Nostr is minimal and spec-last.

Pubky builds a structured semantic graph.

Nostr uses a freeform event stream.

Pubky relies on decentralized routing via the DHT.

Nostr relies on centralized or trusted relays.

In Pubky, a public key is like a domain with structured records.

In Nostr, a public key is simply a handle for a feed.

Pubky focuses on providing users with a credible exit.

Nostr focuses on censorship resistance through broadcast redundancy.

Pubky uses a multi-role network with nodes, homeservers, and apps.

Nostr has a flat network with only relays and clients.

When's the last time you scrolled through someone's profile and posts? Have you ever done that? I do it occasionally when someone I don't know likes or comments or zaps one of my posts.

Great interview Jon