Ben Arc: Nostr, Anarchy & Algorithms

You may have noticed recently that I’ve been talking a fair bit about Nostr on this podcast.

In fact, we’re even reading out Nostr messages at the beginning of each episode. Well, it’s time to take a deeper dive. But before we do, let me give you my best 101 introduction to set the stage.

This is important. As far as I can tell, Nostr isn’t just another fleeting social media platform destined to fade away due to a lack of adoption. Yes, it’s true that most people are currently using the protocol for social media, but focusing solely on that misses the true potential of this incredible new technology.

Nostr—short for Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays—is a decentralized, censorship-resistant protocol for creating and sharing content.

• It operates without central servers or authorities.
• As an open protocol, anyone can use, implement, and build upon it without needing permission.

Much like Bitcoin, Nostr identifies users with cryptographic public-private key pairs. Messages are sent through a network of relays, which users can freely choose to connect to. This makes censorship incredibly difficult because, if one relay censors content, you can simply switch to another that doesn’t.

While social media applications are currently the most popular use case, they are just the beginning. As you’ll hear in this episode, a growing community is actively building a censorship-resistant version of the internet atop the Nostr protocol.

One of Nostr’s game-changing features is that users own their own identity and data—commonly referred to as their “social graph”—and can take it to any app built on the protocol that they prefer.

My guest today, Ben Arc, is the founder of LNbits and a developer who has been involved with Nostr since its early days. Together, we explore this groundbreaking technology and its implications for a more open and resilient digital future.

Enjoy the conversation.