ThomasV

https://notary.electrum.org

Bitcoin Electrum. Nostr Proof of Burn

My Lightning address points to a notary. If you zap me, the notary will send funds to the Bitcoin miners, and it will publish a Proof of Burn for the event you zapped.

Public Key

npub1zqnl6k7rkhjsexqq6j9u3t8mc2gd3xu9037wz4tj54cy33xq2k8qpqv2pm

NIP-05 Address

thomasv@electrum.org

Profile Code

nprofile1qqspqflat0pmtegvnqqdfz7g4nau9yxcnwzhcl8p24e22uzgcnq9trspz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsv7ru2c

Publishing to

relay.snort.social

nos.lol

relay.damus.io

Author Public Key

npub1zqnl6k7rkhjsexqq6j9u3t8mc2gd3xu9037wz4tj54cy33xq2k8qpqv2pm

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Last Notes

2026-03-14 13:23:40 UTC

We just launched https://plugins.electrum.org , a website to gather information about Electrum plugins

2026-03-03 11:22:20 UTC

It's been 6 months since we decentralized #lightning swaps in Electrum. Today, 9 swap providers are offering liquidity to Electrum users https://blossom.primal.net/65da5057240dd59f2d66e30ba6d6836c40df2a7101909652df093a7a1ce5e5df.png

2026-01-22 08:59:17 UTC

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The Android app needs to catch up in terms of features with the qesktop app. But yes, our goal long term is to have the same features in both.

2026-01-22 08:03:01 UTC

Pay with Bitcoin using layer-2
The Electrum App offers @lightning swaps from multiple providers, who compete on fees and liquidity to make sure that your channels always remain usable.
The beauty of this? It is trustless and permissionless: Anyone can become a swap provider and earn fees.
https://image.nostr.build/7a1da55281b3cc95f9505d6b4739f29ee8f149360315c8b37e4368fcf3757afb.jpg

2025-12-24 14:39:07 UTC

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It's not about delaying the transaction. If you only rely on CLTV, a spammer can mine a notarization transaction today and pretend that it has been published a long time ago.
But you are right, the software could additionally check that the notarization was mined N blocks before the locktime. This introduces an extra parameter, and it feels a bit like misusing CLTV, but it would indeed allow for longer time delays than CSV.

2025-12-20 12:30:22 UTC

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We cannot use CLTV for proof of burn, because it would allow miners to cheat. This is explained in the whitepaper: https://notary.electrum.org/n/proof-of-burn.pdf (see footnote on page 4)

2025-12-19 12:00:58 UTC

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Actually, it is CSV locked., so locking decade in the future won't work.

2025-12-01 16:51:28 UTC

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yes. a single btc transaction can notarize millions of nostr events.

2025-12-01 16:49:00 UTC

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thanks!

2025-11-30 22:25:28 UTC

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When all the more urgent stuff is done 😎

2025-11-30 22:15:27 UTC

A lot of things are possible with Electrum plugins. Since version 4.6, third-party plugins can be distributed as ZIP files, and installed by users at runtime. Maybe #nostr could be used as a plugin distribution channel? Think of a decentralized AppStore powered by web of trust.
https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/plugins.html

2025-11-30 10:49:14 UTC

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it is waiting for one confirmation before revealing the preimage

2025-11-28 11:54:16 UTC

https://blossom.primal.net/a620d181f2b6bb1efa0deca68df084ead05a964daf9c646a7280566f97bbf5fd.png
The next release of Electrum will support 'Submarine Payments', where you pay to an on-chain address using your lightning funds.

2025-11-24 13:45:13 UTC

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looking forward to this
#nevent1q…glzj

2025-11-24 12:42:20 UTC

Nostr is what Ethereum tried to achieve: decentralize all the things.

2025-11-24 09:38:24 UTC

Thank you @nprofile…aken @nprofile…4s3d for organizing this great event. Bitcoin and Nostr are the perfect match! https://image.nostr.build/b39b9e441f0b6e147f2d738a287f78e9cc8f7ac8b6683c102139ad6736afea60.jpg

2025-11-23 08:37:34 UTC

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That is a good point. Nostr users do not need to be Bitcoin users. Notaries may choose to accept lightning, but also cashu, fiat, shitcoins, or whatever they want. Commercial Nostr portals such as Primal may offer notarization to their paying users, or even to all their users, as long as they find a way to monetize it. In the end, the only thing that matters is whether notarization fees are more economical than the infrastructure cost of a free service that can be abused.

2025-11-22 22:52:48 UTC

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> Then miners can spam relays for almost free?
No, they cannot. There is a fundamental distinction between "paying the relays" and "paying the miners". When we pay the miners, we pay them collectively, not individually. We do not choose which miner will receive the funds. We just increase the block reward.

2025-11-22 20:23:26 UTC

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To be clear, in this context the coins are not burnt, they are sent to the Bitcoin miners. Paying the relays creates very different incentives, that lead to centralization. Indeed, relays have no reason to cooperate or to trust eachother. If you pay relay A to store and relay your notes, relay B has no reason to trust that the payment was real. In addition, if relays compete for users payments, then it becomes in their interest to spam their competitors.

2025-11-22 09:42:07 UTC

It's a pity that I could not join the Deep Dive podcast. Nevertheless, they did an extraordinary job at explaining Proof-of-burn. I am deeply impressed. 🤖
https://files.f321x.com/notebooklm-audio/Bitcoin_Proof-of-Burn_Secures_Nostr_Social_Media.m4a

2025-11-21 18:25:53 UTC

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I think Nostr is so disruptive that some entities will want to shut it down. This is when spam will get serious. At that point, relays may have to enforce proof of burn.

2025-11-21 11:30:33 UTC

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Proof of burn events are kind 30021 events. You can view them in Nostrudel, in the 'other' tab under the note. Also, the notary posts a 'summary' note (kind 1) for every new notarization transaction.

2025-11-21 09:05:43 UTC

Hello Manchester ☀️ #bitfest #nostrshire

2025-11-21 08:35:31 UTC

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Podcasters are dead

2025-11-19 13:42:37 UTC

Abusing zaps for Proof of Burn:
I set my zap address to x@notary.electrum.org
If you zap me, the funds will go to the bitcoin miners.
The notary will publish a #proofofburn event (kind 30021) that contains a Bitcoin txid and a Merkle branch.

2025-11-16 09:42:35 UTC

Nostr Proof-of-Burn demo available: https://notary.electrum.org
And yes, you can steal sats from this service :-)

2025-11-14 16:55:44 UTC

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Re centralization: If you choose to pay relay A and not relay B, then why would relay B accept your posts? I am assuming they would not; otherwise, relay A can easily spam relay B (if relays compete for payments, then they have an incentive to take down competition, and spam is a way to achieve that).

2025-11-14 14:48:25 UTC

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Users paying relays directly goes against decentralization.
I am not sure about aut-ct; would't a proof of utxo ownership cease to be valid once you do not own the utxo? also, how do you do rate limiting with that?

2025-11-14 08:03:49 UTC

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Someone created a text version of the PDF on StackerNews: https://stacker.news/items/1279868

2025-11-14 08:00:32 UTC

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Relays have no incentive to cooperate. You cannot pay "relays" collectively, you can only pay a specific relay. And other relays have no way to tell that the payment was real.
With proof-of-burn, you can pay the Bitcoin miners collectively, and anyone can verify the proof.

2025-11-14 07:53:27 UTC

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You do a lightning transaction for each upvote. The on-chain transaction is done by the notary and it can aggregate millions of posts.
It may also be possible to pay the notary using cashu, or whatever they decide to accept.

2025-11-11 12:35:58 UTC

The Price of Attention: Attaching Bitcoin Fees to Nostr Events
https://github.com/spesmilo/notary/blob/master/notary.pdf

2025-10-05 07:41:16 UTC

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I will demo pay-to-upvote, a Bitcoin based spam filter for nostr
#nevent1q…f6rl

2022-11-16 09:44:50 UTC

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hi, thanks. just toying.

2022-11-09 17:08:30 UTC

Hello, world!