Nostr Protocol

Nostr (Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays) is an open protocol for decentralized, censorship-resistant social networking and messaging. Rather than depending on any single server or company, Nostr users generate a public/private key pair that serves as their identity across the network. Messages — called notes — are signed with the private key and broadcast to relay servers: independently run nodes that store and forward content. Anyone can run a relay, and clients connect to multiple relays simultaneously, meaning no single operator can silence or remove a user. The protocol was created by an anonymous developer known as fiatjaf in 2020, gained significant traction after Jack Dorsey publicly backed it in 2022, and has since been used as the internet-layer transport in applications such as BitChat.