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Third Wave of Nostr Grants

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You know what the best thing about nostr is? It's not its simple architecture. It's not that it has cryptographic proof baked into every action. It's not that every note stands on its own. It's not the good vibes, the zaps, or all the "other stuff," or the fact that it's officially called THE NOSTR (yes, in all caps). It's that it works. And that it has worked since inception and that it will (probably maybe very likely) continue to work in the future.

And while it will continue to work, it will improve continually, as open protocols tend to do. It becomes more obvious by the day that nostr is here to stay, and we're going to do our best to make it the best, weirdest protocol it can be.

We are happy to announce 12 new grants for open-source projects in the nostr ecosystem. Adding to the 16 grants announced in July, plus the three grants announced in August, the total number of nostr projects funded by OpenSats as of October is 31. October 31: what a lovely coincidence!

Without further ado, here are the projects that we selected for funding:

The projects above have received grants of various durations and sizes, and we have more nostr-related applications in the pipeline. Our financial support for nostr projects is made possible by generous donors like you. If you would like to contribute to the development of the nostr ecosystem, consider making a donation to The Nostr Fund:


As always, let's spend some time to look at these projects in more detail:

Nozzle

Nozzle is a lightweight Nostr client for Android. It aims to make Nostr more decentralized by organically discovering relays and requesting content only from those relays that really have the posts the user is looking for. This reduces the load on relays, lowers your data usage, and promotes the utilization of smaller relays instead of only interacting with a few big, centralizing ones.

Repository: https://github.com/dluvian/Nozzle
License: MIT

Blowater

Blowater is a DM client for desktop, web, and mobile. It aims to provide the best DM experience on Nostr so far. Its long-term goal is to replace the likes of Telegram, Slack, Discord, and similar.

Repository: https://github.com/BlowaterNostr/blowater
License: AGPL-3.0

Nostur

Nostur is a feature-rich nostr client for iOS that aims to be simple to use for Mac, iPhone, and iPad users. It supports multiple accounts, has nsecBunker support, and imposter detection features. Nostur is opinionated in its mission and uses Apple-native features such as iCloud to onboard as many users to nostr as possible. You can find a complete feature list as well as an installation link on nostur.com.

Repository: https://github.com/nostur-com/nostur-ios-public
License: GPL-3.0

Nostrocket

Nostrocket is a new economic tool that uses Bitcoin and Nostr to create leaderless, location-independent economies that reward productive solutions to shared problems. Technically speaking, a Nostrocket client is a state machine. Different parts of the state machine can run in different places, e.g., much of the state can be rebuilt directly in the browser, but computationally heavy operations like indexing a large number of nostr events or validating the Bitcoin blockchain (some parts of the protocol also require knowledge of the current state of Bitcoin) are better done closer to the metal.

Repository: https://github.com/nostrocket
License: MPL-2.0

snort.social

Snort is a web client with the goal of making nostr's features accessible in a user-friendly manner while maintaining its censorship-resistant properties. Snort's primary focus is to support a wide variety of features that showcase the power of the nostr network while remaining a clean and performant client.

Repository: https://git.v0l.io/Kieran/snort
License: MIT

zap.stream

Zap.stream is a live streaming nostr client PWA that allows people to interact with externally hosted HLS streams. Users can chat, zap, and react to the stream while watching a live stream. The goal of the project is to create a nostr alternative to twitch.tv and similar online streaming platforms.

Repository: https://git.v0l.io/Kieran/stream
License: MIT

algia

Algia is a CLI client that can manipulate nostr operations such as post, like, boost, delete, as well as streams. Algia can handle JSON, so you can easily create nostr bots with external tools such as jq.

Repository: https://github.com/mattn/algia
License: MIT

nostr.watch

nostr.watch aims to be an authoritative source for nostr relay data. It aggregates data on nostr relays (and the network in general) to assist users, developers, and relay operators. The application is a client-side-first application that can be run locally without any additional architecture.

Repository: https://github.com/dskvr/nostr-watch
License: MIT

relay.tools

Relay.tools is a web-based control panel and deployment system for nostr relays. Its goal is to enable the entire nostr population to create relays and manage them, even those with no prior systems knowledge. The web UI provides easy relay creation, moderation capabilities, spam prevention, filtering rules, and best practice settings. It does not rely on any cloud provider and is 100% free from vendor lock-in.

Repository: https://github.com/relaytools
License: GPL-3.0

Nostree

Nostree is a nostr micro-app to create, manage, share, and explore links and reference lists (as well as show notes and other stuff). The idea is that it becomes a good presentation card for you and a place to discover nostr & the wider internet in a more accessible way.

Repository: https://github.com/gzuuus/linktr-nostr
License: GPL-3.0

ONOSENDAI

ONOSENDAI is an experimental nostr client that maps and visualizes the nostr protocol in a 3D space. The goal of ONOSENDAI is to be the reference implementation of a novel cyberspace protocol, a digital reality that, thanks to Bitcoin and nostr, stands on its own. You can play around with an early version of the client at onosendai.tech.

Repository: https://github.com/arkin0x/cyberspace/
License: CC-BY-SA / CC-BY-NC-ND

0xchat

0xchat is a secure chat client for iOS and Android built on top of the nostr protocol. It prioritizes privacy and offers encrypted private chats & contacts, as well as multiple DM types: normal, sealed, and secret. The client offers audio and video calling capabilities between contacts, using Nostr relays as a signaling mechanism. The actual audio and video calls are facilitated via ICE servers, and users are free to select their own ICE servers if preferred. In the future, the client will support multi-person voice and video chats, expanding the communication possibilities of nostriches worldwide.

Repository: https://github.com/0xchat-app
License: MIT / LGPL-3.0


In short: Nostr is not fucking leaving, and neither are we.

Onwards!


h/t to Lauren for creating the above video perfectly and in no time.