Nostr is Taking the Bitcoin Community by Storm

Following the Telegram CEO's imprisonment, decentralized social gets more attention

Hi Bitcoin Builders,

Nostr, an open-source protocol designed to create a decentralized, censorship-resistant social network, has received renewed attention following the imprisonment of Telegram’s CEO.

Nostr has integrated Bitcoin heavily into the product, especially with micropayments via Lightning. “Zaps” allow for small tips to be sent in addition to a “like” on the platform. Bitcoin Magazine covered Nostr’s progress at NostrWorld, a conference dedicated to Nostr in Riga, Latvia.

Increased attention to Nostr comes after Telegram’s CEO was jailed in France. Lyn Alden makes the point that Nostr may be more robust to censorship than a centralized system like Telegram.

Layers

• Lightspark announces Lightspark Extend, which connects Lightning to eligible US account holders in real time.

• Bitcoiners are coming to Asia. Korea Blockchain Week is first. Bitcoin Layers Bitlayer and Stacks have published their schedules.

• “TBTC is proposing to move all WBTC to the TBTC network in exchange for 15% of T supply, valued at ~$36m,” via 0xngmi.

• The Stacks Nakamoto activation took place this week. Read the Decrypt’s summary.

• Ark Labs raised a $2.5M pre-seed. Ark is “designed to work with Lightning to enable fast, low-cost and seamless payments on Bitcoin—without compromising on decentralization or self-custody.”

• ICP introduces ckBTC — a “multi-chain bitcoin twin” — another response to the changes at WBTC.

Other

• Trump leans more into crypto, aiming to make the US the “crypto capital of the world.”