computer science

Nostr

Nostr is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Nostr rather than just read about it. In short: Nostr (acronym for Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays) is a decentralized communication open protocol which was built to resist internet censorship. Nostr can be used for social media and other applications.

Key takeaways

Nostr belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Nostr to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Nostr from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Nostr (acronym for Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays) is a decentralized communication open protocol which was built to resist internet censorship. Nostr can be used for social media and other applications.

Development The Nostr protocol was first written in 2020 by a Brazilian open source developer known by the pseudonym "fiatjaf" as a response to perceived moderation issues on Twitter, as well as both technical and cultural disagreements with other protocols such as ActivityPub and Secure Scuttlebutt. In 2024, in an article reporting on the project's funding, Business Insider claimed to have identified fiatjaf, and had found two websites previously published by this person to disseminate the work of Olavo de Carvalho, a far-right conspiracy theorist. Nostr is an open standard, and the majority of third-party apps that use Nostr are free and open-source. Data on the Nostr protocol is stored in JSON blobs called Events, which are the only kind of object on the Nostr protocol. Users are identified by their public key, tagged as an "npub" key. Different extensions to the Nostr protocol are called Nostr Implementation Possibilities, or "NIPs". One of these extensions provides integration with the Lightning Network, a separate payment protocol that operates over the Bitcoin network, allowing the sending and requesting of small payments (nicknamed "Zaps") among Nostr users. Other NIPs include ways to add a human-readable alias to an npub key using a well-known URI hosted on a web server, a method that is used by other protocols such ActivityPub and the AT Protocol. As a result of its ability to quickly and discreetly create accounts and publish posts to relays, Nostr can propagate spam much more easily if left unchecked. A notable example includes a case where multiple protocol bridges have been used to conduct spam waves on the Bluesky social network (itself connected to a competing protocol, the AT Protocol) by creating posts on Nostr, bridging the posts to ActivityPub and bridging it again to Bluesky. Nostr has also been used to develop apps other than social media apps. For example, Shakespeare, an open-source AI site builder operates using Nostr as the base protocol. Additionally, White Noise is a private messenger app that runs over Nostr. In July 2026, Block announced Buzz, an open-source collaboration platform for humans and AI agents built on Nostr.

Users The Nostr client Damus is a microblogging social networking app akin to Twitter. Damus was the first Nostr app to be listed on the App Store. Two days after it was launched in February 2023, Damus was removed from the Chinese version of the App Store per a directive from the Cyberspace Administration of China. Reason reported in August 2025 that some Chinese NOSTR users were bypassing the Great Firewall of China via VPNs. Other NOSTR social media clients include Primal on IOS, Amethyst on Android, or Coracle for a web client. Notable supporters of Nostr include NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, and Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter. It has been popular with bitcoin and cryptocurrency users, in part, due to the protocol's "Zap" function which allows users to send bitcoin lightning micropayments to posts. Dorsey donated approximately $250,000 worth of Bitcoin to the developers of the project in 2023, as well as a $10 million cash donation to a Nostr development collective in 2025. As of May 2023, the protocol had over 18 million users across its network.

See also ActivityPub, a decentralized social networking protocol AT Protocol, a similar protocol used by Bluesky Secure Scuttlebutt – Decentralized social network

References

External links nostr on GitHub

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Nostr

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Nostr claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Nostr before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Nostr ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Nostr

In research: Nostr appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Nostr in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Nostr is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Cryptographic protocols, Distributed computing projects, Distributed social networking, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Nostr outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Nostr in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Nostr means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Nostr out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Nostr in simple terms?

Why does Nostr matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Nostr?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Nostr.