Are You Even A Bitcoiner If You’re Not On Nostr?
Derek Ross calls Nostr “the foundation of a more open internet.” For him, Bitcoiners who aren’t using Nostr are missing the point. Looking at his feed, you get early 2010s Twitter vibes — “microblogging” was the word used back then. But what Ross sees in the future for this revolutionary communication platform goes well beyond food images, travel updates and “good morning” messages. He’s the co-founder of the Grow Nostr Initiative, does developer relations for Soapbox.pub and is one of the most prolific posters (and zappers!) on the social media.
There’s a quip about Nostr and Bitcoin — the orange pill and the purple pill — I’ve seen him invoke, live on stage and on Nostr, many times; “The purple pill helps the orange pill go down.”
In the aftermath of the BTCHel Bitcoin conference in Helsinki, Finland, we sat down over breakfast, post-conference musings to the max. Ross’ 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, 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, the Finnish developer who was one of the first who have had direct correspondence with Satoshi, a trick question about Bitcoin and Nostr, knowing full well what Malmi would answer:
“Bitcoin is freedom of money; Nostr is freedom of everything else.”
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JB: “The purple pill helps the orange pill go down.” Tell me about this statement and why you say it so often.
Derek Ross: I think I got it from Cameri back in the days, but everyone says it now. I posted it the first time on February 24, 2023, and I’ve repeated it many times since.
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’s true: You can’t even have freedom money if you don’t have freedom of communication. Just think about it — if I can’t freely communicate with you, then how am I supposed to pay you? Nostr is the natural complement to Bitcoin.
JB: If you’re right, shouldn’t the Venn diagrams of Nostr and Bitcoin be completely overlapping… or at least all Bitcoiners be on Nostr? Why isn’t Nostr bigger than it is?
Derek Ross: Well, it’s still a little buggy and difficult to manage sometimes — but the many excellent apps with a great user interface make it so much easier.
But yes, every Bitcoiner should 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’t have the right ethos. They’re here for number-go-up, for green candles, for personal vanity and riches… and not for freedom. Because if you understand decentralized money, then why wouldn’t you get decentralized communication?
One reason why Twitter or other platforms keep people around is that…