What is Nostr?

From the basic Nostr intro video - "Nostr: Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays is a simple protocol that allows users to sign and share notes using websockets". Users use their cryptographic key pair to sign a note, verifying its source.

NIPS are "Nostr implementation possibilities ... standards allow clients to communicate ... seamlessly ... [across] different platforms". The ecosystem is permissionless (like Bluesky?), so there's already "a wide variety of clients and relays" (unlike Bluesky). Final safety reminder: "you control your keys so make sure to back them up safely".

"The protocol is based on very simple & flexible event objects, ... passed around as plain JSON", while it's distributed nature makes it very resilient, with users able "to connect and publish to an arbitrary number of relays that they can change over time."