To not beat around the bush, until a couple of weeks ago I never heard of Nostr before... I was listening to a random podcast when I heard the strange word Nostr and how it can change a lot of things with a simple protocol. Like many promising protocols and startups it should be the next thing. At first I was a little cautious to investigate. I went on with my day and prepared for Bitcoin Amsterdam. Looking at the schedule I saw a couple of presentations and talks about this same Nostr. Hmm this looks promising.
By the end of the first day, I was genuinely intrigued by the idea of this decentralized system – from social platforms to zaps. That very night, I set up my account Just Frank on snort.social.
A Bit about me
You can call me Frank, just Frank. I've been crafting websites and applications for about a decade now. Some of these projects have found their way into the daily lives of many.
Like a lot of people I have heard of Bitcoin before and back in 2018 I decided to invest a small amount, just before a big pump. I was amazed that something could go skyrocket that fast (I know better now 🤣), but I still wasn't fascinated enough.
A couple of years went by without paying much attention to the crypto space other then watching the price crash and skyrocket again. Last year my bubble burst and I saw the immense potential that crypto has as a whole, not only as a payment system. And then I heard Nostr!
Okay nice to know you, but why a blog?
That question is pretty easy to answer. This is my personal journey to learn about Nostr, Bitcoin, Lightning, the protocol, the applications build on the protocols, understanding relays, the future of Nostr and so one. Why share? Well, by writing about it I can understand it better, but maybe there are people out there that will benefit from my learning as well. I always wanted to write about something that I like, but never got the chance the find something interesting enough. I think Nostr can be.
While I'm more of a nerd than a writer, I aim to keep my posts informative with a personal touch and might occasionally use AI to polish the content. Besides this I won't be posting on a strict schedule and share updates as and when I come across interesting developments. Don't worry, I won't be posting anything about prices, predictions and so on. I'm not interested in it, if you are looking for this, please look elsewhere :-).
I need a blog platform!
That said I will need a platform to share my journey. At first I thought Medium, but hell no of course not. If I want to talk about decentralized I should do it decentralized. Okay let's find some blog platforms. At the moment of writing this blog there are 2 decent options available: blogstack.io and habla.news.
At first, both sites look good and almost similar. I connected to both and tried to create a test post.
On blogstack you can login with your extension on the upper right corner. I use Alby. A popup shows to connect and after verifying, I'm logged in. That's pretty easy.
Writing is done by clicking the write button next to your profile picture and the screen shows you to write a new article in markdown format. I'm used to it so it should not be a problem.
Now habla.news. This looks pretty easy too, let's try the get started button on the upper right corner. Also a choice to create an account which makes it a little easier for new people. Don't need to do that and login by extension for now.
Write button is also next to your profile picture but brings you to a little more advanced create page. After writing a test article, you can publish it directly to Nostr. Wow this is easy. Let's take this option. I'm not forgetting blogstack.io, this is more nifty for now and I need a place to start.
And where from here? Well I don't know yet. At this moment I think I should make a plan to publish new content. If you have any tips and ideas, please do not hesitate to comment.
See you in the next one!