Nostr would benefit from Sybil Resistance. It is easy and cheap to spin up a set anonymous accounts that act as sock-puppets for a given agenda. This works because anonymous accounts do not have "skin in the game". If nostr grows, this will be a no-brainer for certain groups to influence to platform. It might be happening already, but as nostr grows, the incentives grow for a Sybil attack.
One way to do this, but not the only way, is what is called Social Verification. An example is the blue checks on twitter, or facebook social verification.
A simple way to implement this, is similar to GPG key signing parties, but much easier.
What you do is identify someone on the network that is a real person. You then send some coins to that taproot address (npub == taproot) with an OP_RETURN saying "VERIFIED". In this way you build out a verified user base on nostr, in a decentralized way. No centralized blue checks, just users verifying other users in a web of trust. Its easy enough to do. Just make a taproot tx with an OP_RETURN = verified and broadcast it to the network.
melvincarvalho / Melvin Carvalho
npub1me…t5c24
2025-03-22 05:50:25
Author Public Key
npub1melv683fw6n2mvhl5h6dhqd8mqfv3wmxnz4qph83ua4dk4006ezsrt5c24Published at
2025-03-22 05:50:25Event JSON
{
"id": "a3e78fa6ae6c8c66abbe5d4ec29e5911c67dbb0362f6e1283631b2c8bb1ea6a1",
"pubkey": "de7ecd1e2976a6adb2ffa5f4db81a7d812c8bb6698aa00dcf1e76adb55efd645",
"created_at": 1742622625,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [],
"content": "Nostr would benefit from Sybil Resistance. It is easy and cheap to spin up a set anonymous accounts that act as sock-puppets for a given agenda. This works because anonymous accounts do not have \"skin in the game\". If nostr grows, this will be a no-brainer for certain groups to influence to platform. It might be happening already, but as nostr grows, the incentives grow for a Sybil attack.\n\nOne way to do this, but not the only way, is what is called Social Verification. An example is the blue checks on twitter, or facebook social verification.\n\nA simple way to implement this, is similar to GPG key signing parties, but much easier. \n\nWhat you do is identify someone on the network that is a real person. You then send some coins to that taproot address (npub == taproot) with an OP_RETURN saying \"VERIFIED\". In this way you build out a verified user base on nostr, in a decentralized way. No centralized blue checks, just users verifying other users in a web of trust. Its easy enough to do. Just make a taproot tx with an OP_RETURN = verified and broadcast it to the network.",
"sig": "ab8146f890564d440394e35e2ecb1663e23b227089f824b5b2c40f5970216e93b4611e57d7da00725cc0fe104e0c07613941c77838cefa039723568ae5cc817b"
}