Nostr World: Nostrica: Q&A: Derek Ross, Jack Dorsey, Will Casarin, Kieran, NVK

Yeah. But here I am alive, not asleep from the Benadryl yet. I think this next discussion is going to wake everyone up. It looks like we've got a full house. You guys don't really need an introduction, so I think you can just come up on the stage here. Can you guys know these people, huh? Can we get a really warm round of applause?

How's everyone doing?

I came down with an ear infection, so I can't hear anything in this ear, so I'm keeping everyone here. And if NVK wants to sit right here, that'd be perfect. Come come up on stage. We need you on stage.

So we're going to keep this super simple and we're just going to do audience Q&A. And do we have Fiat Jeff as well?

He's writing.

We asked him also to not just write questions but write critiques of our performance up on stage in his very caustic way. But before we get going, I just want to say how much we're grateful for all of the organizers first and foremost. So a huge round of applause for the organizers, led by McShane. Can all the organizers stand up? Everyone who's organized and worked on this, please stand up.

This was done in a very short time frame and everyone pulled it together in an incredible way. It's a ton of work and I really appreciate you. Very grateful for you. Thank you so much. We'll give you a lot more lead time next time. Also, we have a ton of volunteers. Many of you have volunteered. I just want to give a huge shout out to all the people that volunteered at the gate. That is some real work. So, huge round of applause to the gatekeepers.

And then all of our vendors and food and of course Awake. Thank you all so much. This place is incredible.

But also the people of Costa Rica. This is a very special country. It's a very loving country. When I first came here 10 years ago, I got into a taxi and the guy asked me, 'Have you ever been to Costa Rica?' And I said, 'No.' And he said, 'Well, we don't own Costa Rica. We share it.' And I just thought that was such a beautiful tone to set. And I think it's also set the tone for what we're all trying to build and what we're supporting here. So, thank you for being kind to all the folks that you encounter and all the people who actually live here and make it what it is. So, round of applause for Costa Rica Pura Vida.

Okay, I think you know everyone. So maybe we'll just start with questions. I don't know how to best organize this but do we have a roaming mic? Okay, so raise your hand. Any question goes but related would be great.

I'm not really thinking about that. But I really hope that people are thinking about that. I'm focused on Damus and I highly doubt there might be a built-in marketplace but I'm just trying to keep it focused. So I really want to see that and if there's anything we could do to help encourage developers to build stuff like that, like bounties, but yeah I would love to see it but me personally I don't have a strong opinion about it.

Yeah. I think for Snort, it would be really cool if we could build a marketplace. And I know Carnage has been really begging me to build it for a while. So it's great that we have Diagonal or something similar there that we could potentially implement. And of course there'll be problems but we'll work through them.

Okay, next question.

I don't really have that strong opinions on LDK in particular although it is a very flexible framework for building wallets. I find the biggest issue with integrating a wallet is the liquidity and making sure that you have sufficient inbound and outbound channels to do that. That's the hard problem. Just adding LDK is good but the harder problem is getting into the liquidity of the network. But I just saw something this morning which blew my mind and you might have seen the post about it, but making it easier to connect to external custodial or non-custodial nodes. There's this thing called Wallet Node Connect or something. It would be as easy as just scanning a QR code and you could connect to your self-custodied wallet or a custodial wallet like WoS. I'm pretty convinced that this is what I'm going to do right as soon as I get back because it seems so simple and it uses Nostr itself to send invoices or to pay invoices using ephemeral events. So, I'm super pumped about that and I think that's probably going to be the way that we integrate a wallet is just connecting to external wallets.

Yes. So that is easy. Okay. And you're not easy building a wallet. Yes, we're in agreement.

Exactly.

I think it goes back to that Unix philosophy of do one thing and do it very well and that remains true. The Spiral team has done amazing with the LDK. Its original intent was just to make it a lot more performant and accessible for mobile developers to work with Lightning and I think it's succeeding. It's still small. But its breadth is also impressive. Like we're using it for our SQL's Lightning node that we just stood up. And the road map as they continue to build is only going to make Lightning better and more accessible to more people. So that goal I think it will continue to hit. Next question.

You're building the NDK.

I would agree. It's probably the number one is irrelevance, which is hard to stop. Like I said on your podcast, we're still in this mode of running away from the things that we don't like to build a lot of this instead of running to it because we need to have it. And I think Zaps is one of those things that we're running to. And I think as that grows the more and more people will run to it and it becomes easier and more accessible. I also think like going back to you said this yesterday I believe maybe today, but if we don't do enough if we don't have enough focus on micro apps and we have too many larger concentrations of centralized apps that's an attack vector for the whole network and another gatekeeper. And if we're overextended into one use case like social also it doesn't really meet the potential that this protocol can bring to the world. So there's many, but I think just building something that you want to use that you love and you show people and they feel it and they love it too, that makes it relevant and that's the thing I would focus on because everything else will be solved. We'll figure that out. But the relevance thing is I think the most important.

Yeah. I find this really interesting and this came up when Ver did the medical NIP. It was very ad hoc like you said and I loved it because it was like oh this is just one kind of cool use case. It didn't bother me because I don't see that as sprawl. I just see it as it's there if you want to reference it for some use case but it's not required. The number of required NIPs in the actual protocol is very minimal probably within the first 10 or 15. So you can pretty much ignore the rest of them. I guess the issue would be if more and more became so common that they were basically required. That would be concerning and then you would need some organizational structure that says these are the important ones and these ones are just ad hoc. But that's just a small documentation issue. I think people should submit more NIPs. More NIPs are really cool. We should explore different use cases and I don't think we should get too upset that there's too many of them. We get overwhelmed. But anyway, that's just my opinion.

All NIPs are welcome.

Well there's a gossip approach of course which I think everyone believes is the way to go where people publish their relay lists and you just read the data from those. In terms of the local relays, I'm not sure how you would do that. Maybe you have an idea.

I think that more specialized or localized relays will come. I think we're kind of early now where all relays basically host all the same kind of content, but in the future, I don't see why that will hold to be true. Maybe it'll be, I know we're not Mastodon fans, I'm not, but I know that they have specific servers for specific types of content. I don't see why we wouldn't have that at some point in the future.

I don't know. I was just going to add that I believe that there will be and there should be specific groups of people on their sets of relays and you just have your small group because if you want to look at global for example and find related things to that group then it's the only way. So having those small clusters of people on relays and being able to get the content from those relays is really important for scaling.

I think the most beautiful aspect of this protocol is if you have a strong opinion on this you can build it and either the people will use it or not. And you've seen this throughout the development over the two years of this protocol existing and it's proving every single day that exact concept. I think that's amazing and unique. It's truly permissionless. You just have to have a great idea, have a lot of conviction around it and put it out there and if people like it, it'll become a thing. Next question. And we'll try to if you asked a question already, please let someone else go first until we have no more hands raised.

So the first question was around the GitHub replacement. I have a bounty for 10 bitcoin right now for someone to build a GitHub replacement and both Fiat Jeff and NVK have scolded me over the fact that it's way too broad of a bounty and I need to rewrite it and make it more specific. Fiat Jeff has had some really good points in one of his post replies to me which I put in the bounty description. I think there's one team that I know of that's working on it, but the intent purely is I'm doing a lot of work to try to protect Bitcoin Core because it is a single point of failure. Who wants to join Bitcoin Core, who wants to contribute to Bitcoin? Craig Wright and all of his I don't know what to call it, but it's terrible. And of course the codebase is relying upon a Microsoft product that can make different decisions tomorrow. So if we can self-host a decentralized protocol in Bitcoin on a decentralized protocol like we have something that lasts beyond us and lasts beyond these generations. So that's the goal is to be able to get off Microsoft and actually have more self-hosting and have everything that the core devs need to actually do their work and do it without a lot of friction or a lot of worry. It's just one piece of the puzzle, but I think it's an important one. It's not to replace all of Git. It's not to build every feature that you find in GitHub, but just the bare absolute necessities so that the Bitcoin core developers could say, 'Yes, I trust it. I'm moving stuff over here.'

That's why I need help.

A lot of people might not realize that the largest software project on the planet does not use GitHub and they're like, 'Wait, how does it work?' That must be they must be using some advanced technology, but in reality, the project I'm talking about is Linux and they actually just use email. They just send patches back and forth. And this was actually originally how I wasn't hosting it on GitHub, but there's just so much demand for that GitHub interface and that's what the modern developer is used to, not these neck beards who just had email and didn't have GitHub growing up. So they're so used to that development model. So my idea is if people just find email too hard to use, let's just basically use a very similar model that Linux is doing but replace email with Nostr. And that was the first idea I had. So I actually wrote some scripts called the Git Nostr tool so that you can send patches over Nostr. I think the only my only user was Fiat Jeff and it's just so complicated like people are not used to command line tools. So when I saw that other team building the Git Nostr and they basically just clone the GitHub interface and I don't know maybe we need that because devs are just so used to that but maybe we could also still have tools that are lower level and I think this is what Fiat Jeff was talking about like let's have these simpler tools that are more modular that still work with that other interface but let's not just build another GitHub clone let's actually build proper modular tooling. So that's my perspective.

Rockstar does Fiat Jeff have anything to say?

I promised Fiat Jeff that we would try to interrupt each other more. That was his criticism towards all the tech conversations is that people are just too polite to each other and in a good Brazilian way we should be interrupting each other. So we'll try.

That was my double.

I am actually not even an Apple user. I just built Damus because I was using an iPhone at the time. I'm actually a Linux maximalist. I built my own Linux desktop and it's sad that I can't even use it because I just spend so much time working on Damus. But yeah, I think Linux is way better than Apple.

I don't really like Apple to be honest.

Yeah, I mean, the first thing, the biggest thing is the permissionless concept. Like, it's not when we started Twitter, I mean, there was kind of one path for us. And Rebel talked about this, his presentation was beautiful. Where is Rebel?

Um, but when we started Twitter, um, there was a feeling because of the simplicity that it was like a protocol level thing. Like it wanted to be that, it wanted to be that. But we had no clear path to do that, and we had no, apart from Linux, we had no kind of parallels that we could point to as a pattern of like, this is what we could do. As far as I knew, Grabbel may have had a few, but it just felt like we took this step which was Ev graciously funding and buying the company back from the investors, but becoming an investor himself and then taking on more investors. And suddenly there's only one way to go there, which is you're either acquired or you're public. And you start issuing equity and you have all these employees who need liquidity now. So that puts urgency around it and pushes it, and you don't have a revenue model. So you need a revenue model. And hey, did you see what Google did with their revenue model and Facebook did with their revenue model? They did ads. Bitcoin wasn't, we started before the iPhone. Like the iPhone wasn't out. We were on, you know, Nokia phones and text message, the T9 for those of you in the audience that are old enough to remember that. Um, and we rushed an ad model and then you start getting trapped in these things and, uh, one step leads to another and momentum builds and suddenly it's completely different. So just the fact that this is not starting with that intent. What FIJF did, which I'm so grateful for and I think is so beautiful, is like he put this in a very simple, um, markdown document, which I know he's got feelings about markdown, but he put it in the public domain and he had some opinions. He built some things and then people just saw it and they're like, 'Wow, like that is it. That's the essence. That's what it wants to be.' And in fact, it's not just the Twitter thing. It's like much more, but it solves for the Twitter problem as well. So, it's already fixed all the things that we ended up doing. And, you know, it was a very good vehicle for Twitter to build a company around it. It was, I think, the only vehicle we had at the time. And it's done its thing and it's influenced, and I think it's influenced the reason we're all here in probably the wrong way, but nonetheless, we're here. And um, it's actually Twitter's 17th birthday today. This is the 17th anniversary of the first week going up. Um, which I would normally have mixed feelings about, but seeing this, seeing FIJF's work, seeing all the work of this panel, all the folks in this room, and seeing the people in this room, how many of you are not developers? That's pretty incredible. We're mainly talking about super technical things. I'm sorry, but it's pretty incredible that we're putting a conference together this early with non-developers. Like Twitter was not that, all nerds and geeks for the first year and a half, two years. So, there's something here. There's some essence that has been found and discovered and now it's just pulling the thread. But there's no real barriers in the way. It's just, you know, back to the relevance part, like how do we build something that people want to run to and they feel like, 'I need to, I want to be a part of this because it helps me be better. It helps me see more of the world.' And um, and I think it's here. It's just, you know, we're going to be impatient because we want it to move faster and faster, but this has moved pretty damn fast. Um, as evidenced by this conference itself. Anyone else? You always look at me like you want to say something.

You would be there and you look.

Uh, well, I am a huge fan of no delete, no edit. I think like it mirrors real speech, you know, and I think it's very special. I know it's a little bit scary, but I think it's very powerful because it's authentic. Like I like seeing people's mistakes. Like they're human. And I have the feeling too when I make a mistake and I know exactly what people feel when they make similar mistakes and it's just like one of those empathetic moments. So I just think it makes the world feel small and we don't need to edit everything and make everything look perfect. It just has to be raw and real. And it's one of the reasons I love this country so much. It's super raw. It's super real. Pure life. I mean, that's it. So I hope I will not use a client that uses delete and edit.

You know, the best part is that F will appreciate this. You don't need Fia Jeff's permission. Uh, so like you know, that's the beauty of it.

This is beautiful. What's wrong?

What's your problem?

Let's bring him down.

Wait, what? What network?

Oh, damn.

Sorry, remote people.

In my view, it seems it only gets better because everyone here is really close to the customer. I know that's the wrong word, but um, it like you really get to hear exactly what people love and what they're suffering with in terms of trying to use it. And you get to see it first go. Like I have a bunch of friends here. You probably seen them. Where's Doran and Lulu? So, but these guys, they're completely new. Stand up, Doran. Lulu. So, these guys are with me where I live in Costa Rica and Lulu is from Bordeaux. They're both surfers. Never, um, I don't think really used Bitcoin before. And this whole protocol was super new to them. And like they, we, I got them to test it in like 2 minutes and they just kind of felt it and fell in love with it. And a lot of it was having to do with apps and like just being able to hear and see how they use it and how they want to use it. Um, and everyone being this close with developers and designers, we need a lot more designers. That's a population we need to definitely increase and integrate into the development workflows a lot more. But I think it's a net positive in my view.

Uh, I mean, for freedom, tac. I mean, like, it's, I was saying this earlier, like you can have freedom money but you know without freedom of communication you can't trade, right? So that, to me, I mean, there's going to be people that like you know hate Bitcoin whatever, right? But um, it's, you can't exist as a free person without those two things, right? You need to have private property and you have to be able to express yourself. Uh, and I always felt like Bitcoin sort of solved one of the biggest problems, right? But we needed to solve the second part, which is how do I coordinate with you? You know, it's like the radio stuff, you know, like it's just how do we talk to each other if they close the pipes, you know, or if they don't like what we're saying, right? I mean, can we still trade? Can we still exist? Can we still interact? Um, and I think like Naser was like this perfect thing that just fits right there.

Well said.

I think what's so important about this and what's allowed it to move so quickly is the open nature and this reliance on something that's public domain and open source. And it's an undeniable secular trend that more and more things are becoming open or forced to become open. And you know, our generation is seeing so much of what was closed, you know, reopen for the first time, which is just incredibly inspiring but allows for that feeling of collaboration, participation, and that we're all actually building this together.