Nostrcoin - more info \ stacker news

I wanted to give a little more info on Nostrcoin. Out of curiosity, I wondered if a cryptocurrency could be built on Nostr infrastructure. Turns out, it can. Here's an article on Nostr: Nostrcoin in Plain English

Nostrcoin runs 100% on top of Nostr — no separate blockchain, just custom Nostr events for mining (kind 30333) and transfers (kind 30334). The Nostr protocol and events are the "blockchain". Aside from that, it looks and feels like a Bitcoinesque chain.

This is not for anything financial. It's totally experimental. The whole point is learning and fun:

Mine blocks - initially by finding event IDs with 4 leading zero hashes (very simple PoW)
Send NSTC to other npubs
Monitor the network through the explorer
Watch the network grow through public indexers
Learn about how Nostr works, learn about Bitcoin

I realize Bitcoiners have a strong distaste for altcoins. I get that. But, don't be scared, it's okay to learn and to play around and learn some more. Nostrcoin could be viewed as a way to learn about proof-of-work, mining, block rewards, halving, transfers, validation, consensus, etc. In a way, Nostrcoin is like a "Bitcoin kindergarten" in that it's still a baby and it follows many of the tenets of Bitcoin (supply, emissions, rewards, halving, PoW).

If you "mess around" with Nostrcoin, understand that everything on Nostr is public as event kinds. You might wish to make a unique npub just for Nostrcoin. In this way, you could fiddle around with Nostrcoin as an anon. Or, just use your regular npub if that's okay with you.

Links

The easiest way to get a glimpse or "start" with Nostrcoin is with the Wallet or Explorer.

Wallet (with built-in miner): https://saccoci.github.io/wallet.html / check balance, mine, or send NSTC
Block Explorer: https://saccoci.github.io/explorer.html / check on the chain
"Faucet": https://saccoci.github.io/faucet.html / get 5 NSTC, like the legendary bitcoin faucet
Forum: https://nostrcoin.boards.net / read or discuss (no account needed, can post anonymously)
GitHub repo: https://github.com/saccoci/nostrcoin / see the files
README: https://github.com/saccoci/nostrcoin/blob/main/README.md / general info
WHITEPAPER: https://github.com/saccoci/nostrcoin/blob/main/WHITEPAPER.md / more details and "always-on" mining instructions

Me on Nostr: https://njump.me/npub1sac0698026aqf70t0th8sf8wu3zg0ypw58lyud7hqq68rpxv4j3q4yjnpw

Images

The wallet (and built in miner). This was mining on a 15+ year old laptop at a very slow hash rate. If no one else is mining at the moment, it's possible to mine a block even on slow machines:

The explorer:

21 sats \ 2 replies \ @Scoresby 10 Jan

I realize Bitcoiners have a strong distaste for altcoins. I get that. But, don't be scared, it's okay to learn and to play around and learn some more.

I think it's going to be pretty hard to overcome this.

102 sats \ 0 replies \ @saccoci OP 10 Jan

Which is completely fine. If someone says, "It's not for me," then don't do it. (Kind of like everything there in life.)

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @saccoci OP 21h

And after mulling this sentiment for a while, these thoughts come to mind:

It's kind of unfortunate that we've gotten to a place where, in my view, bitcoiners are afraid to seek out new things, even if only to mess around. Somehow, we've arrived in a place where no honest bitcoiner can even look at anything outside of Bitcoin, even if to only learn. I imagine how such a closed-minded world view would have sat on Oct. 31, 2008 or on Jan. 3, 2009.
In light of #1, Nostrcoin seems a natural fit: make a new npub, fool around and learn with Nostrcoin as a total anon.
We shouldn't live by fear and definitely go about life afraid that someone else might look upon me with disfavor simply because you want to learn open-mindedly about something new.
What's more, I can't help but be reminded of the oft-quoted Satoshi quote: "It might make sense just to get some in case it catches on." https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/17/
That said, I've already heard the "people get scammed by altcoin" mantra. This is true, but this project is not financial. Nostrocoin not selling anything, it's not asking for anything, it's actually encouraging that people to NOT put any money into it if that ever came to be possible.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @nathanael 10 Jan

so you created out of curiosity a shitcoin on nostr? why not use testnet?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @saccoci OP 10 Jan

why not use testnet?

A. I don't know how
B. the point was to try it on Nostr

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @flat24 10 Jan

Because there can be no rug pulls on Testnet. 🤷 That's why they create new coins!

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