nips VS bips

I'm interested in this too. While I note the [slightly chaotic] plethora of NIPs[0], and many of them look blockchainy, NIP-01 is looks ultra pragmatic and simple, and is the only one that is required to be implemented, AFAIK.

  [0] https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips

For you and others following. Common in early nostr apps. The web-extension spec is defined in https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/07.md. Most apps check for window.nostr, then fail silently when it's missing or blocked. There are also some popular extensions in that list.

https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/65.md

The TLDR is that when a Nostr client supports NIP-65, it broadcasts to all known relays (which is continually updated/expanded) the list of relays that User A posts their stuff to.

This means that as long as User B is connected to at least one of those "all known relays", their client now knows what relays User A posts their stuff to, and will specifically fetch things from those relays when it needs to load User A's things.

It's essentially the Nostr take on the Gossip protocol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossip_protocol

I think your best bet here is Nostr (Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays): https://nostr.com https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nostr

Nostr isn't a federated platform like Mastodon or Lemmy, it's more similar to the AT protocol created by Bluesky, whilst being far simpler to understand and write apps using it. The nostr protocol is defined by a series of NIPs (Nostr implementation possibilites https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips), the most basic of which can be implemented in a client or a relay in 50-100 lines of code in any modern programming language.

Each user runs a client, anyone can write a relay or run any of hundreds of existing implementations, both clients and relays can choose to support a number of NIPs. Users have a public-private keypair, and distribute notes to relays signed with their private key, which are verified by relays. Clients subscribe via websockets to any number of relays (I usually have 20-30), and receive notes from all users on those relays' databases, or filtered by the public keys of the users you're following. Relays for the most part don't communicate with each other. If you're ever blocked or banned from a relay, you'll still be able to have your notes seen as long as you have at least one relay in common with anyone who wants to see them. I run my own as well for extra resiliency.

At the moment there's ~50 standardised NIPs, which add features like likes, zaps (bitcoin tips for notes), user status, post expiration, mentions, search, DMs, and public chats. Nearly all of these are supported by popular clients and relays. While nostr is primarily used for social media at the moment, it's already possible to build upon as a protocol for pretty much any online service.

The total active user count on most public relays I'd estimate is somewhere around 500k to a million, though the nature of the protocol makes it impossible to estimate its true size. The perceived community on most relays before following anyone frankly can get pretty cancerous, mainly due to a lot of clients sorting notes by new by default, so I can only hope to high heaven it'll improve as it grows.

Though like any new non-centralised platform, it's more difficult to get started on for most non-technical users as they have to pick one of hundreds of clients to install, and requires caution to never leak your private key and be very wary of which clients you trust it with.

There is no "zaps balance". Zaps are just receipts of lightning payments.

The basic idea is that a lightning node will detect when the invoice with a nostr note inside is paid, and then send the receipt to nostr as a nostr note, with the original bolt11 invoice inside with the signature from the user who sent the zap.

It's all describe by NIP-57, a spec I put together to support this:

https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/57.md

I was working on c-lightning at the time and I thought it would be really cool to replace the "like" button with an instant bitcoin micro-payment. I think it worked out quite well! There are many sites utilizing zaps in all aspects of the protocol, such as a decentralized market for AI job requests (data vending machines), zapgoals and zap fundraisers. All built on this note type. protocol synergy!

Take a look at NIP-23: Long-form Content https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/23.md .

Modern bitcoin addresses use a base-32 character set that leaves out some of the most ambiguous pairs and also permutes the address ordering so that the most visually similar remaining characters produce single bit errors which are better handled by the addresses error detecting (and potentially correcting) code.

https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0173.mediawi...

Context: Bitcoin miners have just adopted a 50% pay cut for themselves. This pay cut was baked into Bitcoin protocol at the launch of the network (mostly, see "BIP 42" [1]). The OP link gives information about the block in which this pay cut was made.

I get that HN comments tend to dismiss Bitcoin. But the fact that for the fourth time this pay cut has happened without a hitch speaks volumes to what makes Bitcoin interesting: It's a rare combination of economic incentives and technology that keeps chugging. Nobody can stop it. And it's extremely resistant to change. It requires no governmental approval. All attempts at subversion or interference have failed. There aren't many things that come close to that kind of record.

[1] https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0042.mediawi...

Bitcoin transactions involve locking funds in scripts, which can only be spent if those locking conditions are met. The part of the script that expresses these locking conditions are called ScriptPubKeys. On the other hand, the part that provides unlocking scripts to satisfy the locking conditions is referred to as ScriptSig for legacy transactions, and ScriptWitness for SegWit Transactions. These scripts are evaluated by a stack-based language called Script. This article will mainly focus on ScriptPubKeys.

Here’s the reference https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039.mediawiki

There are 5 271 537 971 301 488 476 000 309 317 528 177 868 800 possible permutations of the bip39 wordlist found here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039/english.txt when using 12 word seeds. You probably have better change to win the lottery every week for the rest of your life than cracking a 12 word seed in correct order

No one controls Bitcoin, because it's a protocol. Bitcoin Core is the reference implementation, but there are others, and anyone can create new implementations if they wish. Also, the Bitcoin Core maintainers can't just change something on a whim, because users would then switch to another fork. Maintainers (or miners or other groups) can't force their changes on users, because everyone can decide on their own which version they want to use.

The protocol development happens through BIPs (Bitcoin improvement proposals): https://github.com/bitcoin/bips

BIPs are discussed for years, before (and if) they are implemented, and basically everyone needs to agree on them, because no one wants to fork the blockchain, which could be devastating.

All the seeds generated from the CoolWallet (Number / Word) adhere to the BIP-39 protocol.