Elon Musk's Twitter Has A New Rival And It Is Decentralized

Twitter has a new rival that is not only decentralized but is also endorsed by Jack Dorsey, the very same creator of the microblogging site currently run by Chief Twit and tech billionaire Elon Musk.

Nostr, the decentralized social media app, which is short for Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays, launched on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store this month and is advertising itself as a decentralized alternative to Twitter.

Nostr is an open protocol that aims to create an anti-censorship social network available to everybody all over the world. Unlike other social media platforms, Nostr does not depend on a trusted central server and all of its users run a client.

Each user can publish content or write a post by signing in using their private key and using relays. They can also share content or distribute messages.

Dorsey retweeted the app's announcement Wednesday and called its launch a "milestone for open protocols."

The co-creator of Twitter is somehow linked to Nostr since he donated 14 Bitcoins or around $245,000 at the time to help fund the initiative and even added his Nostr address on his Twitter bio.

Interestingly, while Musk is still developing Twitter to pivot as a payments system, Nostr has built-in payments via the Bitcoin Lightning network.

Describing itself as a social network that can be controlled by users, Nostr promotes that it provides users complete control of their data, does not require a KYC process and secures all messages with end-to-end encryption.

Nostr is warmly welcomed by various individuals and communities, who since the product's launch, have tried their hands on the new open protocol platform. Whistleblower Edward Snowden praised the new app because unlike Twitter it is not limited to 280 characters.

"One of the cool things about Nostr ("Notes and other stuff transmitted by relays", a new decentralized protocol that replaces things like Twitter and Instagram)—beyond censorship resistance—is that you aren't limited to 280 characters," Snowden's tweet read.

"Unlike the old social media "platforms" where the platform-owner (FB, Tiktok, Twitter) gets to decide who can speak—and what can be heard—nostr is an open protocol. If a platform is a silo, a protocol is a river: no one owns it, and everyone is free to swim," he said in another tweet.

Also, comparing it to the social media app Mastodon, Snowden said, "Mastodon is a federated platform: a collection of silos, each controlled by a diff dictator. Nostr is a protocol, like a river. Anyone can toss anything in the water (from fish-castle to boot). It's up to each glass-bottomed boat-captain what they want to look at—or not."