Derek Ross calls Nostr “the foundation of a more open internet.” For him, bitcoyer, which does not use Nostr, lacks points. Looking at his feed, you will find Twitter Vibes from the early 2010s. “Microblog” was in use at the time. But what Ross is looking for in the future because of this innovative communication platform good Beyond food images, travel updates, and “good morning” messages. He is a co-founder of the Grow Nostr Initiative, deploys developer relationships for Soapbox.pub, and is one of the most prolific posters (and Zappers!) on social media.

There are quips about Nostr and Bitcoin (orange pills and purple pills). “Purple pills help orange tablets fall off. ”

In the aftermath of the Btchel Bitcoin Conference in Helsinki, Finland, we sat for breakfast and meditated on the post-meeting of Max. Ross’ passion for Nostol shines. Purple passion is a perfect complement to the orange that complements it. (At the exact same breakfast table, Ross had just convinced Swiss Cantonbern MP Samuel Kurman to return to Nostor.) In fact, he asked Marti Marmi, a Finnish developer, one of the first to communicate directly with Satoshi.

“Bitcoin is money freedom. Nostr is all other freedom.”

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JB: “Purple pills help orange tablets go down.” Please tell me this statement and why you say it so often.

Derek Ross: I think I got it from Camellia in that era, but everyone is saying it now. I first posted it on February 24, 2023, and have been repeated many times since.

The idea is that Nostr, the purple pill, is the ideal companion for Bitcoin, orange medicine. I asked Marti on stage yesterday. And it’s true: even you can’t I have it If you don’t have freedom of communication, then money is free. Think about it – if I can’t communicate freely with you, how am I supposed to pay you? Nostr naturally complements Bitcoin.

JB: If you’re right, the Venn diagrams for Nostr and Bitcoin should not be completely duplicated…or at least all Is Bitcoiner available in Nostr? Why is Nostr not bigger than that?

Derek Ross: Well, it’s still a bit buggy and sometimes difficult to manage, but many good apps with a good user interface make it very easy.

But yes, all bitcoiners Should It will be NOSTR. People will hate me by saying this, but that means that not everyone in Bitcoin is here for the right reasons. They do not have the right mind. They are here not for freedom, but for green candles, for personal vanity and wealth, for the few candles. If you understand decentralized money, why not get decentralized communication?

One of the reasons Twitter and other platforms keep people up is that they built this massive audience and crowd over there. In Nostr, there is no algorithm that will help you (or catch you). Now you need to relear how to get engaged from your audience. But what? We at Bitcoiner are all about proof of work. You’ve built that audience once, you can do it again.

But I get it: it’s hard for some people to leave it.

JB: But you could do both, as did Lynn Alden.

Derek Ross: Lynn is a great example! She sometimes publishes very different things on Twitter and Nostr, and Nostr-Lyn is much more personal and reflective. On Twitter, she shares something macroeconomic and she is all professional. It’s a beautiful combination.

Another reason why Nostr is feeling very slow and Zaps is stagnant is that Bitcoin is in a bull market despite the technology currently being there. In the bull market, everyone wants to join Bitcoin’s Twitter. Nostr and Bitcoin are opposites here. Nostr is in the bear market when Bitcoin is in the bull market.

JB: Tell us about your background, how did you get into Nostr?

I’m not really a programmer… well, to the average person, I morningHowever, I think I’m only a system administrator. Manages systems and applications. I don’t create a full-fledged application. But now, thanks to the atmosphere coding, I am: By creating my first Nostr business, Nostr Plebs, I was able to make my building dream come true with Bitcoin. I was the first person to build a Nostrol business and I can put things together.

I first learned about Nostr from a Jack Dorsey tweet in December 2022 and called on developers to see how to fix social media.

I continued posting, zapping and building, and somehow I was invited to the Baltic Honey Badger in 2023. I used Nostr to crowdfund my travel expenses. fundamentally, If you’re hoping the community will go to me and talk about Nostr, zap this post. I’ve never been to Europe but I always wanted to go, so it was exciting. (The title of that lecture? You guessed it: “The purple pills help the orange tablets fall off.”)

Nostr has completely changed its use of social media. Amethyst is the first app to open in the morning.

JB: Are you worried that Jack Dorsey bankrolls developers and provides most of the funding for this space? A problem of centralization?

No, Jack understands the importance of what Nostr is doing. Over time, it may become large enough and there may be other ways to raise funds and monetize them.

But if you think about it, it’s making good use of Jack’s money.

I recently sat down with Vitor Pullona, ​​creator of Nostr Client Amethyst, to discuss what Nostr in 2025 is like in 2012.

NoStr, a distributed protocol for social media and other forms of communication, is only four years ago, and developers are still thinking about how to create the best possible user experience within the client they have created. These clients include apps like Primal (comparable to X) (like Instagram) (Xgagram) to Yakihonne (like Substack).

However, what’s unique about NoSTR clients is that users can send each other “zap” (a small amount of) Bitcoin to each other to show their appreciation for the content they create.

And Pronna is optimistic that more and more Nostrol clients are beginning to gain traction, just as Bitcoin began doing so 13 years ago.

“We’re beginning to see communities being formed and more money being transferred,” Pamplona told Bitcoin Magazine in an interview.

Bitcoin-powered creator economy

Pullona acknowledged that part of the purpose of social media is to enable means of monetizing what users create in ways that they cannot do in a physical environment.

“(Some social media) users want to make a living,” Pullona says. “They want to be able to achieve more on social media alone or in a city.”

Pamplona believes it will help NOSTR clients turn that hope into reality, and it is his mission to help users do this.

“That’s our ultimate goal. If we can reach the point where creators can make a living, we will win as a platform.”

As the Nostr user base expands and continues to grow as the world’s largest Bitcoin circular economy, the chances that users are making a living with Nostr will grow every day.

amethyst

In creating Amethyst, Pamplona had the vision of a Nostr client that acted as an all-in-one app inspired by a plan similar to the one Elon Musk had for X (formerly Twitter).

“Amethyst came at the same time as Elon was talking about buying Twitter,” explained Pronna. “He’s like creating a Mega app from Twitter and I did the same thing.”

Pullona realizes that Amethyst didn’t achieve this entirely, but he is excited it will come to play a different role. It serves as a lab for those developing new NOSTR clients.

“Amethyst helps everyone kickstart their applications,” he said. “Olas came from amethyst.”

Nostr as a Bitcoin Onboarding Tool

Pullona thinks Nostr is a great way to put Nostr in Bitcoin, but it doesn’t think this should be the main goal of Nostr clients.

“The main goal of the (NOSTR) app is to let people do their own thing. Be creative with people, talk to friends, chat with their families,” Pullona explained.

“There’s no app talking about Nostor or Bitcoin. They should belong to them,” he added.

Pamplona believes that after some time, app users will begin to learn about Nostr’s self-powerfulness when users have control over their data.

“(They recognize that) the platform helps them manage their own data and helps them use the best payment protocols we have today.”

And he emphasized that most new users are coming to Nostr for the freedom and resistance to censorship it offers.

“In the past two years, most of the new Nostr users have come for freedom. “And they have since learned about Bitcoin.”