bitcoinerrorlog
John Carvalho

Last weekend, I got together with Eric Voskuil and Vlad and we went in depth on Bitcoin topics for EIGHT HOURS.
Eric is one of the few Bitcoin devs I have deep respect for. If you truly want to understand Bitcoin, dig in here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mLey8XsMBg

2025-02-13 07:20:56

Please stahp.
https://m.primal.net/Odeh.png

2025-02-05 11:45:35

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When the app is live and we have users.

2025-02-04 16:56:50

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Sometimes it's simply disappointing to see people respond with prejudice when they don't have any info, nor made any sincere effort to compare anything at all.
Those aren't the kind of people I want to please, so I guess it is a good heuristic at least...

2025-02-04 12:31:06

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I think you have totally the wrong idea about how to sort a graph.

2025-02-04 12:02:38

Are any people on Nostr not tribal, not haters?

2025-02-04 11:58:01

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This is incorrect. The graph is based on semantic metadata created by you and your peers.

2025-02-04 11:57:07

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We proposed our improvements to Nostr a year ago and they declined.

2025-02-04 11:53:09

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We have posted tons of info (and code) about it if you want to learn more:
https://medium.com/pubky/pubky-the-next-web-3287b35408f1
https://github.com/pubky
https://pubky.app

2025-01-24 17:33:55

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I would argue that the "pipe" changes depending on the use case.
You want semantics and weighting for any sort of curation, and you want settlement coordination for any sort of trade. If P2P you also need to incorporate graph distance.
Relate, match, interact.
Zaps are too abstract and gameable to be useful other than for some sort of tail optimization or niche use cases.

2025-01-24 16:29:33

Tipping is not a revolutionary concept, nor is it a tool for empowering individuals.
In fact, any economy that embeds tipping ends up regretting it and using it as a way to exploit naive workers to pay them less.
In social media, tipping(zapping) provides a very low-value, noisy signal, and is not very useful to people or algorithms for curation.
So, calm down about zapping and try solving real problems.

2025-01-15 19:31:45

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We aren't shoving anything, a no users are confused. It is just a bitcoin symbol and a quantity that is easy to infer.
If you read the BIP you will learn that this display method is accurate to the protocol and how Bitcoin actually works.

2025-01-15 16:35:28

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I don't see Nostr as a pure "bazaar" either. It’s a nuanced network with both ad hoc innovation and strong adherence to foundational concepts. But my analogy is more about ethos and how it expresses—community-driven chaos vs. intentional, centralized coordination.
What holds nostr together is a culture, not a structure or plan or goal.
As for protocols, I’d argue Pubky is all about protocols. PKARR, Mainline DHT, homeservers—these are building blocks for networks, not just products. If that's unclear in our docs, it's because we need to evolve them, but, quite honestly, if I can understand it, you can too.
Things will be clearer and more tangible once Pubky App is in public.
What you call perfectionism I call design requirements. We are building an ecosystem and comprehensive vision, made of multiple moving parts. Perfectionism has nothing to do with it. We are trying to build a whole new web, not an app, and not a playground of hackathon projects. And we are trying to do it with as little complexity as possible.
Building decentralized systems is more like designing the internet than choosing VHS over Betamax, or Twitter over Primal. You don’t get many chances to fix foundational errors later. I’m not aiming for “perfect”, I am aiming for viable, empowering and useful.
The vision is for an alternative digital society, The Atomic Economy, and I am taking the opportunity to build it very seriously.

2025-01-15 16:20:52

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Bitkit has been this way for more than a year and you didn't notice. We don't use the term "sats" or "satoshis" and there is no sats symbol.

2024-12-30 13:01:28

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All of Pubky is our NIP, if you think about it.
For now, we have higher priorities than trying to persuade uninterested Nostr-aligned people to drop it for our vision.

2024-12-28 16:19:38

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1) Was a subtopic of generalizing how different platforms actually express and differentiate.
2) I/we didn't properly detail all of what Pubky is, but the main aspect we discussed is what makes it different, how we use PKARR & PKDNS to establish public-key-based domains, for actual censorship resistance and ability to manage your identity and sub-identities (or "sessions"). I encourage you to check out pubky.org and our code to learn more.
3) Nostr is disinclined to improve their identity situation to do what Pubky will do because it is a breaking change in the key type. So, they say other narratives to deflect from this strict improvement.

2024-12-28 16:14:54

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The people I actually spend time with are my family and my team. I feel blessed to have the opportunity that Tether and Fulgur Ventures have provided to us to build a new vision for digital society. I'm not sure what more I could ask for.
Sure, it'd be nice to not be so misunderstood by so many of my peers, but I never claimed to be amazing at persuasion. Being myself is the only thing that has never failed me, so things are what they are. I am always happy to see things improve, but I can't think of everything and improving at some things is more rewarding than others.
Specifically, I do think Marty and I jumped into some topics without proper setups, but the conversation was unstructured, so instead you got something more natural, I guess? haha, i dunno, we did a thing, I hope some people get something from it.

2024-12-28 15:31:09

Caught up with @npub1guh…6hjy and we covered BIP 21Q, Pubky, digital identity and a lot more, check it out!
(The headline is clickbait, this is not a finance interview, we just did some speculating about what the big sacrifice could be this cycle!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJwGthtPayI

2024-12-23 17:41:39

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Maybe I can also help you with your ignorance about the meaning of "ignorant" , which is not an insult, even if it makes you feel bad.
I do not respect people that say incorrect things then act as is if they know better.
https://m.primal.net/NEVB.png

2024-12-21 13:32:18

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Bitcoin units are not divisible. When someone says "fractions of a sat" they are lying or ignorant.

2024-12-21 13:31:20

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2024-12-20 15:51:36

It's time to admit it.
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/takes/bip-21qonly-2-1-quadrillion-bitcoins

2024-12-17 17:37:49

Pubky Public Dev Call
Wednesday (tomorrow)
1pm EST / 10am PT / 7pm CET
LIVE DEMOS!
1. Pubky TLS Support, with Ar
2. Public Key Domains (PKDNS), with Sev
3. Pubky Ring auth app, with Corey
…And more!
Google Meeting:
https://meet.google.com/xrv-ormm-kmt

2024-12-17 14:05:29

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Zzz

2024-12-17 14:03:56

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bitcoinerrorlog on telegram

2024-12-16 13:24:45

Synonym his hiring.
If you're an exceptional senior developer or senior professional with directly relevant experience in Bitcoin, P2P web tech, or the success of related applications & products, contact me directly.
Otherwise, we'll be posting a new specific role each month!

2024-12-12 18:59:49

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=F3BH51jpBUs&si=XBxHgBTgk70RUyOp

2024-12-11 10:59:18

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@npub1p23…rnl6 here's more of that DHT info I promised.
@npub185h…wrdp some counters to your DHT concerns from our conversation last Spring.

2024-12-10 17:47:20

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They cover this a bit in the interview, but generally Nostr devs don't like PKARR/Mainline because you can't use secp keys to do this.
Since we have to bootstrap it ourselves, it gives us the freedom to design things in a more elegant way, so we have our own homerservers (instead of relays), our own separated indexer and graph concepts, and soon, our own app to demonstrate most popular publishing and social use cases.

2024-12-10 17:33:27

You need to fall in love with Mainline DHT and Synonym is going to show you why & how.
Start with this article/research by Severin on DHT censorship-resistance and numbers.
https://medium.com/pubky/mainline-dht-censorship-explained-b62763db39cb/

2024-12-10 10:32:50

Check out this new interview with @npub1jvx…7yqz, a dedicated Synonym engineer responsible for Pubky Core.
He goes into lots of detail about the pragmatic thinking behind Pubky's design, and of course, Nostr comparisons.
I'm also very proud to see more of the team branching out and doing interviews.
The Synonym team is going to be turning heads in 2025!
https://fountain.fm/episode/HXQpcOdQU9Tnxa9BQO2v

2024-11-30 18:40:04

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So far, Nostr elders do not seem interested in bridging or breaking the key model, but yes, any platform or protocol could use the pkarr method, and it would almost certainly improve censorship resistance.
My guess is that, once you do something like that, people will just find it easier to use Pubky keys/apps/servers, as they will have all the tools needed to make it easy to maintain your dht records, swap servers when needed, etc, and bridging doesnt seem to usually be a popular feature to maintain.

2024-11-30 09:50:30

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This image depicts sample distribution of the millions of Mainline DHT nodes that are Pubky-compatible.
What do you think this map would look like for Nostr relays? What do you think it will look like in 5 years?
In the end, I recommend you to use the best tool for whatever problems you are trying to solve, and that can be different for everyone.
https://m.primal.net/MkoW.png

2024-11-30 09:11:16

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUkOaTtpH-o

2024-11-29 17:21:45

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I encourage anyone interested to read the thread for themselves.

2024-11-29 11:13:35

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tbf, relays and platforms operating without moderation of illegal stuff are taking real legal risks.

2024-11-29 10:08:19

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=_AVP2QFOLBw&si=ZKHktioVRAwsdgw2

2024-11-27 11:03:11

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If using Mainline proves to be useful, we could always bootstrap another DHT beside this in the future, or support multiple methods, or ship Mainline-DHT nodes / in servers, etc.
Building and bootstrapping a new DHT only for the sake of proving that a small one could be bootstrapped in modern times feels like more of a side quest or backup plan.
In the end, we can choose the best DHT that exists today at any sort of scale, as there may already be enough side quests and obstacles to proving public key domains are viable and useful.
If people will depend on public key domains, the rest will fall into place, even if Mainline decides to become hostile.

2024-11-25 17:42:28

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There is no Pubky social app (yet).

2024-11-25 17:40:09

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Working on delegation of sessions, not key rotation ;)
https://m.primal.net/MhCC.png

2024-11-20 09:51:15

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=CGUphYWab-4

2024-11-18 10:31:26

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There is a rational argument to claim that BCash already broke the 21M limit. AFAIK, it would always require a hard fork to expand it, so any attempt would look just like the relationship between Bitcoin and Bcash, right?

2024-11-15 09:24:03

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🤣 that intro
The Pubky TLDR:
- Your public key is your domain name, no one can take it.
- You can point it anywhere, but we created an open server you can use.
- We are also making an app that demonstrates the concept of social tagging to create a shared social graph about people and posts -- contextual web of trust.

2024-11-13 20:00:27

You are not a trader, you are a fool.

2024-11-13 19:58:50

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I hope it was informative, let us know any feedback!

2024-11-13 16:29:36

Pubky Community Call starts in 90 minutes!
Join the Pubky Core chat room to get the meeting link!
https://t.me/pubkycore

2024-11-13 16:28:24

Pubky Community Call starts in 90 minutes!
Join t.me/pubkycore to get the meeting link!

2024-11-12 14:57:54

Tomorrow:
The 1st Pubky Community Call
- Architecture Overview & Updates
- Q1 Roadmap
- Feedback / Q&A
Contact me or @npub17lg…p267 for an invite.
Let's build the next web.
https://m.primal.net/MAzZ.png

2024-11-11 10:43:05

This AI-generated podcast reviews the first 10 days of Pubky's launch.
Get a crash course on Pubky’s vision for a user-owned web, as well as a review of the Pubky Core Demo Week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9yjIf93Awk/
Pubky Core: https://pubky.org
Pubky Blog: https://medium.com/pubky

2024-11-10 16:51:07

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Have any of them presented something better?
See this post for more info:
https://primal.net/e/note13aw3uj9jl9uajmldx50h5a9sdhftjde0u86nmmuzhm7a2xatzntqksz66u

2024-11-10 15:29:30

Synonym was founded roughly 4.5 years ago, before Nostr existed, with a vision & designs for a (bitcoin) key-based identity solution, which we openly shared with many (some nostr) people, including interesting ways you could make use & make something like (nostr) this way. (Keybase was also before many of us fwiw)
Decentralized, key-based web & identity solutions have always been part of Synonym's "atomic economy" ecosystem vision.
(...Side note: some aspects of the upcoming Pubky App, related to Semantic Social Graphs, social tagging, being your own algorithm, etc, come from designs I have had for more than 12(?) years...)
At first, we attempted to map this vision & requirements onto the Hypercore(Holepunch/Pear) system. Synonym had just become part of the Tether & Bitfinex family, and the hyper features and demos were amazing. That project was called Slashtags, and while we demonstrated more interesting use cases, people were already opting to make similar features within Nostr apps, which had some nice attention-grabbing events and gaining big momentum, while we were still doing R&D and realizing that Hypercore was overkill for our actual requirements, and this was also when Synonym started enforcing a policy of not having experimental (non-production-ready) dependencies from external teams.
If it is risky and novel, we need to be the ones building it. Nothing else is good enough... (until it is obviously good enough, in production.)
We eventually clarified our identity & web requirements and began new research on the simplest way to achieve our goals and design.
We entirely archived Slashtags as a project, which had trademark issues anyway, and began specifying, and building what is now Pubky Core, along with the upcoming Pubky App.
This work includes PKARR and the concept of using Mainline DHT as the primary routing network for self-sovereign keys as domains.
This work was also shared openly and directly with Nostr people roughly a year ago, but was rejected then, and also newly rejected directly when we formally released everything in Pubky Core recently.
These releases and plans represent major milestones in a long-term vision and plan for Synonym to create our vision for a minimum set of software and services for people to opt out of dependency on Big Banks, Big Tech, and Big States.
The Atomic Economy is an actual vision and plan for a functional independent digital ecosystem, economy, and society. Yeah, it's crazy, overly ambitious, naive, etc, but we have been given this opportunity and you can be damned sure I will make the most of it.
Sometimes we have had to mutate and discard our research, but it has made our team and public releases much better for having the experience.
So, we offer Pubky as the next major puzzle piece in our vision, and really the most important part, but we have so much more work to do, and so many more ways we intend to demonstrate the elegance and power of being so selective with our designs.
Stay tuned to see how well we do, or enjoy ignore us and enjoy Nostr and its current path! Or, get your hands dirty and consider trying getting your own key domain working, and consider what you can build from there! ;)
#note1qx5…c4fs

2024-11-10 12:41:09

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Everything that is usable so far is here: github.com/pubky/

2024-11-10 12:40:10

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All MIT licensed, yes.

2024-11-10 11:03:08

What's next for Pubky?
🚀 1. Launching a relatively feature-rich version of our our flagship "Pubky App": Private beta first, then public beta Q1 2025.
🔑 2. Prototyping & launching a new authenticator app for managing keys, sessions, and DHT records.
🌱 3. Launching initiatives to cultivate an ecosystem of exceptional builders using & contributing to Pubky Core.
This is just the beginning. Our 2025 roadmap is (overly) packed with exciting plans.
Get ready to take back the web with Pubky in 2025.
https://medium.com/pubky/pubky-the-next-web-3287b35408f1

2024-11-08 14:58:40

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https://primal.net/e/note13aw3uj9jl9uajmldx50h5a9sdhftjde0u86nmmuzhm7a2xatzntqksz66u

2024-11-08 08:40:01

Bitcoin consensus isn't built, it is enforced.
It is enforced by everyone defaulting to "No" unless there's overwhelming agreement, necessity.
Users choosing their software isn’t "governance"; it’s the option to opt out, to leave.
Bitcoin’s strength lies in resisting any form of central control.
It’s not governed; it’s inherently resistant to governance.

2024-11-07 15:44:54

Here's the story of our first internal Pubky 'hackweek' and the demo apps that resulted!
I highly recommend this kind of exercise and launch event for similar teams!
https://medium.com/pubky/dogfooding-pubky-core-internal-hackweek-app-demos-047fb4081dd2

2024-11-07 13:41:57

Anyone using Bluesky? Link me and I'll follow.
Testing with Pubky account...

2024-11-07 11:54:05

https://medium.com/p/491a03da58e6/

2024-11-07 07:42:32

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I suppose whether Pubky is perceived as a threat depends on the person you ask.
We were going to build these things either way, and we hope people find them useful.

2024-11-06 15:36:32

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Your public key is your self-sovereign domain name.
Pubky Core is open-source, so you can check for glowie-code, I guess, but I think maybe this guy doesn't know how to deal with being wrong about anything. 🤷‍♂️
https://medium.com/pubky/pubky-the-next-web-3287b35408f1

2024-11-06 15:27:02

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You can point your key DNS to any endpoint that your counterparty peers understand. Whether that endpoint has a homeserver, tor node, or whatever is up to you.

2024-11-06 15:15:37

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You'll have to be more specific, I think. It is a key-based web protocol, so it has the same privacy dynamics as the web, nostr, etc.
Pubky Core could be used in a P2P way, or a centralized way, each having different privacy considerations.

2024-11-06 15:08:18

Have you starred any Pubky repos yet?
With Pubky, your public key is your self-sovereign domain name.
We're building more great tools, but which tools would you like to have soon?
https://m.primal.net/Luep.png

2024-11-06 14:42:53

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I (personally) spent a total of roughly 30100 sats to boost a post on StackerNews and this guy thinks he discovered the next Hitler. 🤷‍♂️
Any guess how much company-funded open-source tech he was using when he made the post?

2024-11-06 13:26:08

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You could do this by running pkdns locally, then pointing your browser DNS to it.

2024-11-06 13:08:09

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Not sure what browsers allow, but, for example, you could manage auth/sessions for homeservers, you could offer to server Pubky profile/web pages that render from keys, you could integrate pkdns and serve dns for keys, allow people to render web pages from key domains, parse key domains into nicknames on the page and/or browser bar, etc etc :)

2024-11-06 12:52:30

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What other proof of work are you expecting?
The code: https://github.com/pubky/

2024-11-06 11:04:08

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Well, I think we at least know how stupid you are. 🤷‍♂️

2024-11-06 10:56:50

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These are very intelligent and nuanced arguments, but I should at least make some corrections.
1. Synonym is not VC-backed or influenced. I decide the roadmap, I submit new budget requests to Tether, our owner.
2. Pubky has absolutely nothing to do with Keet, or Holepunch software, you are comparing totally separtate things out of total ignorance. Keet is a purely P2P chat app. Pubky is a set of web protocols for a key-based web, and also a web app we are building to demonstrate all of the possibilities.
You are not half as smart or informed as you think. Get your shit together and stop embarrassing yourself.

2024-11-06 10:23:09

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We have great ideas for a browser extension, but we need to finish other work first. Maybe @npub1get…0nfm can cover some things? 😃

2024-11-06 08:57:21

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Haha if only the people knew what a hot debate in a Pubky team call is like!
These people think they know harsh direct criticism... we bathe in it.

2024-11-06 08:44:03

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You don't have to use vibes to judge us, you can simply read about our work.
We aren't siphoning anything and there is no nefarious strategy. We're literally trying to make the world a better place.
No need to speculate or guess about us just read this: https://medium.com/pubky/pubky-the-next-web-3287b35408f1
I have been publicly telling people what we are doing for years.
We gave our ideas to Nostr people since the beginning, they never cared. We don't expect them to care now.
The difference is we actually finally shipped a cool system with a coherent design and narratives now, so people are paying attention.
https://m.primal.net/LuOs.png

2024-11-06 08:36:55

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Consider that it might be Nostr people attacking us, and us answering their questions as best we can, even when they refuse to read anything about our work.
No one is putting you on the outside, our work is open source and we are happy to help anyone interested.

2024-11-06 06:26:41

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Get in here, we're taking back the web!
https://medium.com/pubky/pubky-the-next-web-3287b35408f1

2024-11-05 17:27:26

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https://medium.com/pubky/pubky-the-next-web-3287b35408f1

2024-11-05 17:15:16

For people who prefer Medium over X Articles, here's the Pubky megapost:
https://medium.com/pubky/pubky-the-next-web-3287b35408f1/

2024-11-05 16:34:55

I love nostr people!

2024-11-05 16:16:44

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Some of that UX can be improved with some effort, for sure, but there are always some limitations when people start mixing different protocols, spec versions, and data formats...
Pubkey is indeed a bar, but Pubky is the next web ;)

2024-11-05 16:03:26

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How do you know the difference between "pushing" and "pulling" when it is new info from new people?
What is the proper way to share new software without frightening you?

2024-11-05 15:42:38

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We could not secure the Slashtags trademark due to it being a generic term, but it didn't end up mattering because we threw away all of the Slashtags code and work when we created Pubky.

2024-11-05 14:47:22

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pubky.tech

2024-11-05 14:13:06

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Just published a megapost here:
https://x.com/BitcoinErrorLog/status/1853795908162588901

2024-11-05 14:04:52

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Now is your chance:
https://primal.net/e/note1d58c946lc7pdq822xqujdcv3u8jz3zueef5rgux3pynemg2v3kwsq5dc4l

2024-11-05 13:56:45

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https://primal.net/e/note1d58c946lc7pdq822xqujdcv3u8jz3zueef5rgux3pynemg2v3kwsq5dc4l

2024-11-05 13:55:39

This is a new mega article overview of Pubky, great for getting a full view and sharing these ideas with other people :)
Pubky: The Next Web
https://x.com/BitcoinErrorLog/status/1853795908162588901

2024-11-05 13:14:01

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Well, not your npub, your pubky (pkarr key) because it requires a different elliptic curve to work with the millions of DHT nodes.
From there, you can designate a primary homeserver, and it doesnt matter whether you host it yourself because you control the domain DNS with your key.

2024-11-05 12:53:26

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You're linking to literally the only part of Pubky that is not finished yet, our own app that implements it all.
All of the protocol is already open source and available.
Check out https://pubky.tech for many links, including our open source code, knowledge base, etc.

2024-11-05 12:49:02

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The Synonym team is responsible for Pubky and all of the current open source repos here:
https://github.com/pubky

2024-11-05 12:47:29

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It's your public key as a self-sovereign domain name, pointing to anything, anywhere... and some apps to get going.

2024-11-05 12:44:26

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Pubky Core is entirely open source:
https://github.com/pubky/
Pubky App will be open source as soon as public beta is functional, (the indexer aspect is already open source too).
People are surfing the Pubky web already, running DNS servers, and asking questions.

2024-11-05 11:56:08

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You can click the buttons and read the words we wrote.
Or, you can even listen to this AI podcast overview I made:
https://x.com/BitcoinErrorLog/status/1850067213442511107

2024-11-05 11:28:47

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The HUGE irony here is that Pubky is actually uniquely designed to help you "pull" from your peers in relevant ways for discovery, so you'd probably pretty excited about our semantic social graph design.

2024-11-05 11:27:37

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That's great if your network is informed and perfect, but will fail to pick up on new info, especially if you reject it on instinct.
You don't have to use social heuristics for everything, you can read the info and judge for yourself, then you BECOME one of those people that people "pull" from.
Anyway, if you aren't interested it's okay, I'm just not here to humor any narratives meant to protect ignorance.

2024-11-05 11:25:19

Early release of a Pubky mobile library we are building, so we can make some apps.
It's a WIP, but React Native devs, here you go!
https://github.com/pubky/react-native-pubky

2024-11-05 11:04:38

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In English, preceding with "strict improvement" conveys that the design improves without losing anything important.