{"id":4614,"date":"2025-08-19T21:16:33","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T21:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/19\/are-you-even-a-bitcoiner-if-youre-not-on-nostr\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T21:16:33","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T21:16:33","slug":"are-you-even-a-bitcoiner-if-youre-not-on-nostr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/19\/are-you-even-a-bitcoiner-if-youre-not-on-nostr\/","title":{"rendered":"Are You Even a Bitcoiner If You\u2019re Not on Nostr?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bitcoin Magazine<\/a><\/p>\n

Are You Even a Bitcoiner If You\u2019re Not on Nostr?<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Derek Ross<\/a> calls Nostr \u201cthe foundation of a more open internet.\u201d For him, Bitcoiners who aren\u2019t using Nostr are missing the point. Looking at his feed, you get early 2010s Twitter vibes \u2014 \u201cmicroblogging\u201d was the word used back then. But what Ross sees in the future for this revolutionary communication platform goes well<\/em> beyond food images, travel updates and \u201cgood morning\u201d messages. He\u2019s the co-founder of the Grow Nostr Initiative<\/a>, does developer relations for Soapbox.pub<\/a> and is one of the most prolific posters (and zappers!) on the social media.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a quip about Nostr and Bitcoin \u2014 the orange pill and the purple pill \u2014 I\u2019ve seen him invoke, live on stage and on Nostr, many times; \u201cThe purple pill helps the orange pill go down<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of the BTCHel Bitcoin conference in Helsinki<\/a>, Finland, we sat down over breakfast, post-conference musings to the max. Ross\u2019 passion for Nostr is shining over, the passion for purple perfectly complementing orange. (On the very same breakfast table, Ross had just convinced Samuel Kullman<\/a>, MP of the Swiss Canton Bern, to come back to Nostr.) Indeed, on the panel he had moderated the day before, he asked Martii Malmi<\/a>, the Finnish developer who was one of the first who have had direct correspondence with Satoshi<\/a>, a trick question about Bitcoin and Nostr, knowing full well what Malmi would answer:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBitcoin is freedom of money; Nostr is freedom of everything else.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

JB: \u201cThe purple pill helps the orange pill go down.\u201d Tell me about this statement and why you say it so often.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Derek Ross: I think I got it from Cameri<\/a> back in the days, but everyone says it now. I posted it<\/a> the first time on February 24, 2023, and I\u2019ve repeated it many times since.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The idea is that Nostr, the purple pill, is the ideal companion to Bitcoin, the orange pill. I asked Martii yesterday on stage, knowing that he would answer that. And it\u2019s true: You can\u2019t even have<\/em> freedom money if you don\u2019t have freedom of communication. Just think about it \u2014 if I can\u2019t freely communicate with you, then how am I supposed to pay you? Nostr is the natural complement to Bitcoin.<\/p>\n

JB: If you\u2019re right, shouldn\u2019t the Venn diagrams of Nostr and Bitcoin be completely overlapping\u2026 or at least <\/strong>all<\/em><\/strong> Bitcoiners be on Nostr? Why isn\u2019t Nostr bigger than it is?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Derek Ross: Well, it\u2019s still a little buggy and difficult to manage sometimes \u2014 but the many excellent apps with a great user interface make it so much easier.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But yes, every Bitcoiner should<\/em> be on Nostr. People will hate me for saying this, but it means that not everyone in Bitcoin is here for the right reasons. They don\u2019t have the right ethos. They\u2019re here for number-go-up, for green candles, for personal vanity and riches\u2026 and not for freedom. Because if you understand decentralized money, then why wouldn\u2019t you get decentralized communication?<\/p>\n

One reason why Twitter or other platforms keep people around is that you\u2019ve built up this massive audience and crowd over there. On Nostr, there isn\u2019t an algorithm to help you (or capture you); now you have to re-learn how to get engagement from your audience. But so what? We Bitcoiners are all about proof of work; you built that audience once, you can do it again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But I get it: It\u2019s hard for some people to just walk away from that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

JB: You can also do both, though\u2026 like Lyn Alden does.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Derek Ross: Lyn is a fantastic example! She sometimes publishes very different things on Twitter and Nostr, and Nostr-Lyn is much more personal and reflective. On Twitter, she shares macroeconomic stuff and she\u2019s all professional and so on, but on Nostr she\u2019s often personal, posts memes and shitposts. It\u2019s a beautiful combination.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nostr user Nico, on how much more personal Nostr<\/a> feels. <\/p>\n

Another reason why Nostr feels so slow and zaps are stagnant<\/a> etc \u2014 even though the technology is there now \u2014 is that Bitcoin is in a bull market. In a bull market, everyone wants to be on Bitcoin Twitter. Maybe Nostr and bitcoin are opposites here: Nostr is in a bear market when bitcoin is in a bull market \u2014 and next time bitcoin is in a bear, Nostr will be in a bull!<\/p>\n

JB: Tell me about your background, how did you get into Nostr?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not really a programmer\u2026 well, to the average person, I am<\/em>, but I think I\u2019m only a systems administrator: I manage systems and applications \u2014 I don\u2019t create full-blown applications. Though now, thanks to vibe coding, I am: I have some hack-shit-together skills, and I always wanted to build on Bitcoin. Creating Nostr Plebs<\/a>, the first Nostr business, allowed me to fulfill the dream of building with Bitcoin. was the first to build a Nostr business and I can put things together.<\/p>\n

I first learned about Nostr from Jack Dorsey\u2019s tweet in December 2022<\/a>, and the call-out to developers for how to fix social media.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

excellent writeup of problems and solutions\u2026excited to see this. and public domain: https:\/\/t.co\/bCXRwQNC0p<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 jack (@jack) December 14, 2022<\/a>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

I kept posting and zapping and building, and somehow I was invited to Baltic Honey Badger in 2023; I used Nostr to crowdfund my trip expenses. Basically, if the community wants me to go and speak about Nostr, zap this post.<\/em> I had never been to Europe but always wanted to go, so that was exciting. (The title of that talk<\/a>? You guessed it: \u201cThe purple pill helps the orange pill go down.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Nostr has changed my use of social media completely: Amethyst is the first app I open in the morning.<\/p>\n

Good morning and pura vida<\/a>, from Derek Ross<\/p>\n

JB: Does it worry you that Jack Dorsey is bankrolling developers and providing most of the funding for this space? A centralization problem?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, Jack understands the importance of what Nostr is doing. In time, once it\u2019s going to be big enough and there are maybe other ways to finance and monetize, and then maybe funding dries up.<\/p>\n

But if you think about it, it\u2019s a good use for Jack\u2019s money.<\/p>\n

\n

What a first edition of BTC Helsinki! <\/p>\n

HUGE THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO CAME AND WAS PART OF THIS. YOU MADE THIS AN UNFORGETTABLE EVENT! pic.twitter.com\/u5SGE8j29y<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 \u20bfTCHEL2025 (@btchelevent) August 16, 2025<\/a>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

This post Are You Even a Bitcoiner If You\u2019re Not on Nostr?<\/a> first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine<\/a> and is written by Joakim Book<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bitcoin Magazine Are You Even a Bitcoiner If You\u2019re Not on Nostr? Derek Ross calls Nostr \u201cthe foundation of a more open internet.\u201d For him, Bitcoiners who aren\u2019t using Nostr are missing the point. Looking at his feed, you get early 2010s Twitter vibes \u2014 \u201cmicroblogging\u201d was the word used back then. But what Ross […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4614","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bitcoin"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}