not a good idea apps with an onchain footprint.

anon

Oh, right. I've added an issue: https://github.com/opreturnsocial/opreturn.social/issues/16. Thanks!

0xbitcoiner

Yes, I built an indexer already and have instances running for Mainnet, Mutinynet and Testnet4. You can try them at https://ors.dev. opreturn.social also has a similar idea.

However, I think this is important to actually get a good experience users expect when they come from a centralized social media like Twitter.

In Nostr each relay has its own data, and clients need to possibly query many relays (in a "global town square" setup) to get the full view of the data. Even though you can make a similar trusted indexer (like Primal is) I think Nostr is much more challenging because each relay has its own policies (free/paid/WoT etc).

The architectural tradeoff here is interesting. Nostr chose off-chain events with relay infrastructure: fast, free, but dependent on relays staying alive. OP_RETURN Social puts everything on-chain: permanent, censorship-resistant at the base layer, but constrained by block space and fees.

Both solve the same problem (platform-independent social data) from opposite ends. Nostr trades durability for speed. ORS trades speed for durability.

The testnet/mainnet split is a clever middle ground. Low-value interactions stay cheap, high-value posts get settled on-chain. Basically a fee market for attention. You only pay mainnet fees for the posts you actually want to last forever.

Curious how this handles the data availability problem long-term though. OP_RETURN outputs are prunable by nodes that don't care about social data. Will there need to be dedicated "social indexer" nodes that keep the full OP_RETURN history? That starts looking a lot like... relays.

zeke

OP_RETURN Social (ORS) is an open social protocol where every interaction is a bitcoin transaction:

Free transactions will be shown by a gray box icon, instead of an orange one.

ORS is "BIP-110 compatible" by using a wire format that supports concatenating 80 byte OP_RETURN outputs from multiple transactions. The cost to do this is negligible compared to posting a single transaction with >80 byte OP_RETURN.

OP_RETURN is a provenly-prunable way to embed arbitrary data in bitcoin without bloating the UTXO set. Any ORS post FUNDS the network. (read more here: 

I think there are some fun things to be explored, especially around WoT & reputation, to both reduce spam and create quality feeds. I also plan to add notifications, reactions, and search next.

Everything is open source - If you're interested about the protocol, you can learn more about it ORS here: 

bitcoin

OP\_RETURN Social (ORS) is an open social protocol where every interaction is a bitcoin transaction:

* Posts, replies, reposts
* Follows & unfollows
* Profile updates

Try the reference client for free: [https://opreturn.social](https://opreturn.social)

* All interactions are published to testnet (Mutinynet)
* Optionally pay to publish posts you want to preserve to Mainnet

Free transactions will be shown by a gray box icon, instead of an orange one.

ORS is "BIP-110 compatible" by using a wire format that supports concatenating 80 byte OP\_RETURN outputs from multiple transactions. The cost to do this is negligible compared to posting a single transaction with >80 byte OP\_RETURN.

OP\_RETURN is a provenly-prunable way to embed arbitrary data in bitcoin without bloating the UTXO set. Any ORS post FUNDS the network. (read more here: https://stacker.news/items/1266126)

I think there are some fun things to be explored, especially around WoT & reputation, to both reduce spam and create quality feeds. I also plan to add notifications, reactions, and search next.

Everything is open source - If you're interested about the protocol, you can learn more about it ORS here: [https://ors.dev](https://ors.dev) - try building your own client!