recently i've been working on on-boarding musicians. they get it immediately. they get that big tech and algorithms are harmful. they see what happens to them trying to make an impact on twitter, instagram, and spotify. they want something different. they understand that bitcoin and nostr are punk rock, opting out of the system. it's an easy sell to be honest.

what makes the sell hard is the amount of polish on applications. user experience and stability are some of nostr's largest issues at the moment. wallet and lightning is a big one, but apps like Primal are making this better.

We just hit 5 million zaps sent on Nostr. Our community is the largest by transaction volume in the world.

But as for Bitcoin itself, I'd like to see wider Bolt 12 adoption on Lightning

No need to say sorry. You're doing a fantastic job. Honestly. Keep up the great work.

hey! i would say the absolute easiest way to get on nostr would be to download download Primal or Android or iOS. you can use their built in wallet for zaps if you'd like. it makes it very easy. https://primal.net

when you're ready to go into the rabbit hole, let me know.

yes, there's going to be a nostr talk and primal is going to be there. they may have a smaller booth, i am not sure on that status, but give their talk a listen and booth a visit if they have one!

oh let me add that https://jumble.social is a fantastic web client on desktop too.

i use primal.net, nostrudel.ninja, or notedeck as my primal desktop clients. i mostly use Notedeck. you should check it out. it's still early beta, but it has a lot of potential if you like Tweetdeck style clients with various columns of data and content to consume.

i truly believe we need a viable TikTok and Instagram competitor. people want to leave those platforms. they hate the censorship and the banning, but no viable alternatives exist. Bluesky is building them and they're gaining traction though. we're going to miss out again. we need to empower creators and give them the tools to on-board their community. sadly, i don't think we're ready in this area, yet. many of our apps need more polish.

we keep building alternatives, which i think is incredibly important, but i also think we need something that's truly unique or at least offers a truly unique spin on an existing use case. if i knew what this less obvious app would be, i would vibe code it ASAP.

i've vibe coded two nostr apps and i love this capability. im calling it advanced prototyping. i can build anything as an advanced prototype or proof of concept and then a more talented developer can work on the project or take my idea and run with it. it's amazing.

my apps are https://zappix.app and https://yakbak.app

zappix is an image sharing application. i plan to add flix or short videos.

yakbak is a voice messages application. (the audio won't load until you login with nostr. this is a new bug.) both are very new and buggy, but as a proof of concept, they're pretty great.

Meet Beef is obviously the superior soap fragrance.

hey man!

well obviously Fountain is my favorite! (i answered this earlier. as of right now, Notedeck is my favorite client.)

a TikTok and Instagram competitor. i know that a lot of people don't want to just create alternatives to existing platforms, but i think we're doing a disservice for users looking to leave these platforms. they are joining Bluesky's new alternatives instead, because we don't have viable alternatives. Olas is a start, but it has a long way to go.

zaps and wallets. this is the hardest issue that i deal with. telling people to install a nostr app, download a wallet, and then download another app to potentially buy bitcoin so that they can get started with zaps is a lot. it's too much. integrated wallets or one click solutions make this so much easier. my go-to for on-boarding has been Primal because their app solves a lot of these headaches.

oh. do you remember what you paid? i was testing out the brand new nostream feature that allowed for paid memberships. i turned it on, set the fee high, and then added a message to not buy it on the homepage, that you could be rugged as it was experimental.

two issues.

this seems harsh, but it's a harsh reality.

if you truly cared about decentralization and a revolution, you would use nostr more. you wouldn't care about polish and daily active users, because you're not there for that. you're there for the message. you're there for the revolution. you're there to build a better world.

i wanted to desperately make it happen this year since last year kicked off all of these booths after the first one i did at Prague. i tried to work with martin and matyas on this. however, it's truly expensive to do. to have the same size booth as last year i would have needed to raise about $40K USD again.

nostr has no centralized marketing team with funding. nostr has only one or two VC funded companies. im not a rich bitcoin whale. im trying to form a nonprofit.

i couldn't make it work.

i used satlantis about a year ago. i honestly haven't used it since last summer. i should check it out again. before i would not have considered it much of a nostr client because it didn't post events to nostr, only scrapping data from nostr and allowing nostr login. im sure a lot has changed with it since then. what impressed me most about satlantis was the community vision. that resonated with me and i think it resonates with most bitcoiners. we'd rather get information and reviews from people we know and trust.

i mostly use Amber for Android for storing and managing my key. this is a remote signing application. i don't like to paste my key into random applications.

i run a lot of relays :) were you using the nostr plebs relay? that's the only one that has been paid.

the honestly challenge is deciding what you want to use your relay for and choosing what software then run. with most clients moving to or implementing the Outbox model, it no longer matters how many people use your a relay that you would use. in fact, it's better for decentralization to have a plethora of smaller, community relays.

for me:

relay.nostrplebs.com is paid via buying and using a nostr address from nostrplebs.com nostrelites.org is a free WoT relay that i run, probably one of the latest WoT relays. and then i run my own private nostr-relay.derekross.me for my own inbox, outbox, DMs, and media.

relay.nostrplebs.com is strfry nostrelites.org is wot-relay nostr-relay.derekross.me is haven

i think with the invention of NWC and implementation of it throughout nostr apps and now SN, it levels the playing field. SN used to be superior in this regard.

i think SN should become more of a nostr client :) maybe even migrate to NIP-72 communities. that would be amazing for nostr to be honest. it's always been a dream of mine for tighter integration or for SN to become a full fledged nostr client.

maybe someday SN will be one of GNI's next case studies?

an official AMA? i don't believe so, but i post a lot on nostr and im an open book. i like being transparent since i do so much for nostr and i have gotten a lot of zaps and funding for events. because of this, if you ask me something, ill answer it.

Hey all, thanks for the questions. I gotta get back to the fiat mines, but I'll dip in and out when I can to answer more questions if more pop up. Thanks again!

myman dot gif

I think some of our best bets are going to be with creators. I think Wavlake, Fountain, Olas, and Zap.stream are very powerful tools and we need to leverage them more. I'm really excited for all of the work we're doing in the independent music industry.

As for other industries, we just need to on-board one creator with a large following and have them make Nostr their new home. Ultimately, most will want paid for it.

it's not really a decentralized database, at least in traditional terms, because my database only has events from me :)