Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays: Nostr

What bitcoin is to money, Nostr is to digital communication. I almost wrote “social media” there, but ultimately that is a limiting outlook on what Nostr really is and is destined to become. Social media is just one application of the protocol, which is rapidly expanding with regard to added use cases. Like most, Nostr first came to my attention when Jack Dorsey made news on December 15th with a 14 BTC investment donation to support the development of the protocol. I had to check it out myself, so on December 19th I generated my keys to the kingdom.

I don’t know who needs to hear this but:

|￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣|
| Build open source |
| solutions that use |
| bitcoin as a payment |
| gateway to get free. |
| ＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿_|
(\_❀) ||
(•ㅅ•) ||
/ づ

— ΛLΛNΛ JOY (@alanajoy) May 15, 2022

As I rapidly approach a month spent using the protocol myself, I’m enchanted as both an early adopter and a bitcoiner. As a digital business strategist serving bitcoin only ventures, I’m sincerely inspired and examining what the future of marketing looks like in a decentralized landscape. Though Nostr is in very early stages, the amount of developer activity is incredible, with new clients, constant updates, and added use cases popping up too quickly to really track. When devs get activated, you should be paying attention. The experimentation taking place is an exciting thing to be a part of.

Despite being in the very early stages of adoption, I see an incredible opportunity for bitcoin only brands to invest time resources towards Nostr, now.

Despite how early we are on a development timeline, let’s take a look at some rough numbers. William Casarin, building Nostr client Damus, estimates approximately 5000 public keys before Jack Dorsey introduced Nostr to a wider audience. Per stats from nostr.io, only 3 weeks later Nostr boasts around 243,946 public keys.

This chart came from nostr.band, and illustrates growth of total Nostr users. Using William’s estimate of around 5,000 pubkeys prior to December 15th and the two resources I’ve referenced here indicating around 250K today, it appears that Nostr has experienced approximately 4,900% adoption growth in… three weeks. To really understand how impressive this trajectory is, consider the challenges a VC-backed startup faces when trying to gain market share. The first 5,000-10,000 users are the hardest to acquire, even with a significant budget. This is entirely organic growth, impressive under any circumstances but especially so at such early stages.

Marketing is largely a competition for visibility. More importantly, visibility by the right audience: your target customer. Look at those metrics. Now, look at them again. If you have a bitcoin business, bitcoiners and early adopters are a sweet spot audience you want to tap, and they are hanging out on Nostr.

What Bitcoin Brands Should Be Doing on Nostr… And what to avoid

Decentralized marketing approaches will need to hit different. You’d be foolish to bring your existing content marketing and social media approaches to Nostr. This audience is having fun playing in a sandbox of hope for a new approach to their digital identity and freedom of speech. Decentralized marketing cannot feel like traditional marketing, and the best campaigns on any playing field tap into people’s emotions.

Your team, especially your marketing and communications teams, need to be on Nostr. This is only the beginning of an entirely new landscape and when you’re early you reap exponential benefits through audience capture of early adopters and through gleaning an actual understanding of how this new community is engaging. You can’t strategize for what you don’t understand.

What you don’t want to do is take your existing approach here. It won’t work. What will work is diving in with the same enthusiasm everyone else there has. Your very presence is an act of passive marketing, keep the self-promotion low and the curiosity high. This isn’t the place to post one-directional communications. In the earliest days of social media, marketers emphasized the brand-building benefits of two-way communication and that’s been lost in critical mass. Today, brands post homogenized content and don’t engage with their community as they used to. On Nostr, your lack of engagement will drown out your message. No one will care.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to position your bitcoin brand on Nostr, get in touch and LFG!