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@ gsovereignty
2025-05-04 16:59:22
It's been three years since I first published a note:
nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzpkg3j83suqzyfw2zcr5zet28pve279chvnpzwklwp0vexal06sr4qqsgewdg50ys3swt2wnlp5n8lq2fhylq4l2w046r93q9apyvxyg5zfcs5vpvq
At the time, nostr was barely more than an idea. Very few were using it. Fewer still understood what it could become. And yet, there was something unmistakable in it—something honest. Something necessary.
Fiatjaf’s design struck me as elegant in the way that only true protocols can be. The best systems do not need to be sold. They are not invented so much as uncovered—like mathematical truths. Good protocols take minutes to explain, hours to design, days to write, weeks to prove, months to mature, and years to replace.
In 2008, faced with institutional failure and monetary abuse, someone with a poor choice of OS, limited programming ability, and a basic grasp of cryptographic primitives carved out a narrow escape route—one governed not by authority, but by thermodynamics and consensus. It wasn’t genius that gave Bitcoin its strength. It was the refusal to ask permission. It worked because it could not be stopped.
Nostr shares the same impulse. It is raw, principled, decentralised, and unowned. Its power does not come solely from its technical design, but from the ethic of those who use it—those who build without permission and speak without fear.
The need for such tools became inescapably clear during the pandemic, when a once-free civilisation chose compliance over conscience. Dissenting voices—many of them scientific, rational, and well-informed—were erased from public discourse. Had nostr existed at scale, the outcome might have been different.
Many believe Bitcoin’s progress means the danger has passed. I believe the opposite is true and that it's not time to let our guard down. If Bitcoin is the way out of monetary tyranny, nostr is the exit from informational control and the foundation of networked resistance. But we must remember: protocols are inert. It is not the tools that will save us. It is the will to build—and the courage to resist.
I’ve been quiet these past months, for a reason. But after a period of reflection, something new is taking shape. More to follow, soon.