Nostr Biweekly Review ( 21 July-3 Aug 2025)
GM, Nostriches!
The Nostr Review is a biweekly newsletter focused on protocol updates, exciting programs, the long-form content ecosystem, and key events happening in the Nostr-verse. If you’re interested, join me in covering updates from the Nostr ecosystem!
Quick review:
In the past two weeks, daily active pubkeys reached 230, 968. New user growth decreased, and profiles with contact lists decreased over 20%. Note events totaled 6.5 million, zap volume slightly decreased to 14 million sats.
Additionally, 22 pull requests were submitted to the Nostr protocol, with 6 merged. A total of 81 Nostr projects were tracked, with 10 releasing product updates, and over 288 long-form articles were published, 50% focusing on Bitcoin and Nostr. During this period, 2 notable events took place, and 2 significant events are upcoming.
Nostr Statistics
Based on user activity, the total daily active pubkeys reached 230, 968, reflecting a slight decrease of 1.9% compared to the previous period. The highest daily activity was recorded on July 31, with 17,160 active users.
The number of new users decreased. The number of profiles with contact lists reached 23,070, down by more than 20% compared to the previous period. The number of pubkeys writing bio has slightly decreased.
In terms of content publishing, approximately 6.5 million note events were published during this period, representing a stable trend compared to the previous cycle. Among them: Reaction reached 563,620, showing an decrease of about 40%.
For zap activity, the total zap amount is about 14 million, showing a slight increase of over 6% compared to the previous period.
Data source:
NIPs
Add NIP-91: Routstr Provider Discoverability #1987
Vitor Pamplona is proposing An easy-to-implement public message kind designed to be shown and replied to from notification screens. The goal is broad support in all clients. And because of that, this kind has no concept of a "chat history". There are no message chains. The concept of a "thread", a "thread root", or a "chatroom" does not exist in this system, as messages can start and continue without any syntactic connection to each other.
Extend NIP-05 for optional multi-identifier support in profiles #1991
imp0stor is proposing that an extension to user profile metadata (kind 0 events) to support multiple NIP-05 identifiers as aliases. This allows users to associate a primary NIP-05 identifier with additional aliases from different domains or registrars, enabling better visibility, portability, and integration with platform-specific features like perks or short names. Clients can verify and display these aliases in user profiles, while maintaining backward compatibility with existing single-identifier setups. Short names remain an internal feature of individual registrars, translating back to full NIP-05 identifiers for Nostr interactions.
NIP Encrypted Group Messages #1992
Anderson-Juhasc is proposing a NIP that introduces a way to distribute a single event that contains a message encrypted with a symmetric AES key. The AES key is then individually encrypted for each recipient using the standard NIP-44 flow. This enables efficient and private group communication within the Nostr protocol.
NIP-17: Mark as Received event #2000
Vitor Pamplona adds the simplistic idea to give users some feedback for sent DMs as discussed in #1994. This also serves as a heartbeat event to check if users are still using their NIP-17 clients, regardless of their DM relay configurations.
Notable Projects
Primal
Here’s what’s new in iOS 2.3.56 :
- Smoother feed rendering
- Improved thread reply UX
- Improved connectivity
- Improved wallet UX
0xchat
0xchat-lite v0.1.4 Update:
- Only share Permanent key packages invite link (not sent to relays)
- Key package auto selection prioritizes those received via invite links
- After accepting an invite, your own key package and profile will be sent back to the inviter
- Fixed issue with Blossom server failing to upload encrypted files
- Fixed inability to send link text in messages
- Improved reliability of relay connection checks
Web update：
- Content source choices are now saved in both Home and Discover for a more consistent browsing experience.
- More event options added, including copying the pubkey, viewing raw events, and more.
- Curation and video content can now be edited after publishing.
- Improved notes rendering for faster and smoother performance.
- Link previews are now available for better content visibility.
- Redesigned audio player with a cleaner and more user-friendly interface.
- Automatic language direction detection when editing and displaying content, supporting both LTR and RTL languages.
- General improvements and bug fix
Mobile update：
- Adding ability for automatic cache purging.
- Adding support for custom translation service.
- Adding relays search in relays feed settings.
- Adding Support for base64 images display.
- Adding render to the profile about content.
- General improvements.
- Bugs fixed.
Iris
New features:
- Feed editor! Edit feeds and create your own.
- Relay-based feeds
- Real-time updating feeds
- Show which relays an event came from
- Read-only mode (view as user / pubkey login)
- Improved popular feed, calculated locally (no more API calls)
- Performance Optimizations - Significant feed rendering and caching
Improvements:
- Encrypted uploads in private chats
- Notification feed functional and visual fixes
- Configurable imgproxy
- Swipable image / video carousel
- Setting to disable specific reactions or the whole reaction bar for faster & calmer experience
- Lots of small fixes and UI improvements
- Binary serialization of social graph — 55% reduction in size. Distributed with a dataset of 30K users, 200K follows and 2K mutes in 1.4MB.
Nostur
- Short Voice Messages (YakBak) support
- "Show more" button expands in feed instead of navigating to detail
- Don't hide Discover tab for new accounts
- Improved thread loading
- Remember more already-seen posts between devices
- Clean up account data on logout
- Improve comments/reply compatibility on picture/articles
Futr
FUTR v0.4.2 released
Important bugfix release for Windows users
- feat: Peer management
- feat: Swaps: rescue key
- feat: BOLT 12 withdrawal requests
- feat: CLNRest: routing history
- feat: Fiat currency toggle on invoice creation
- feat: Open channel modal
- enhancement: dropdown tab for duration on Receive view
- enhancement: tuck QR tabs and 'Receive via NFC' button under advanced toggle on Receive view
- enhancement: lock invoice expiry time when LSP is enabled
- enhancement: Embedded node: link to Troubleshooting underneath 'Try again' button on failed payments
shosho
Shosho – Live Stream on Nostr
New Shosho release 0.8.0 now on iOS and Android.
- You can now stream from Shosho directly to any streaming server and still be found and played on Zapstream, Shosho, Amethyst and everywhere else that Nostr streams are found.
Keychat
- Keychat’s new version 1.34.2 supports universal link. If you share your universal link, other users can click it to add you as a friend. If they don’t have Keychat installed, they’ll be guided to the download page first, and then proceed to add you as a friend.
New purplestack is out
- Massive enhancement to context file
- New purplestack MCP server, with recipes and documentation
- Purplestack tools updater script – without affecting your current codebase
- Three metric tons of bugs fixed in underlying libraries
- More kinds supported! NIP-09 (Event Deletion), NIP-68 (Pictures), NIP-56 (Reporting), NIP-52 (Calendar Events), NIP-65 (Relay Lists), NIP-51 (User Lists), NIP-71 (Video Events), NIP-A0 (Voice Messages)
Long-Form Content Eco
In the past two weeks, more than 288 long-form articles have been published, including over 131 articles on Bitcoin and more than 12 related to Nostr, accounting for 50% of the total content.
These articles about Nostr mainly explore its potential as a decentralized protocol for communication, privacy, and creator autonomy. Topics range from relay setup and anonymous access to content publishing methods and protocol comparisons, reflecting the community’s ongoing efforts to reduce trust dependencies, enhance network freedom, and build a more open creative ecosystem.
These Bitcoin articles explore how the technology is reshaping global finance, personal freedom, and the very idea of value. From macroeconomic trends and legal battles to protocol upgrades like Lightning and RGB, the pieces reflect a growing belief: Bitcoin isn’t just a currency — it’s a movement. They dive into issues like inflation, sovereignty, privacy, and social structure, offering a wide-angle view of how Bitcoin is quietly but steadily changing the rules of the game.
Thank you,
zettizettler BlissHodl
and others, for your work. Enriching Nostr’s long-form content ecosystem is crucial.
Nostriches Global Meet Ups
Recently, several Nostr events have been hosted in different countries.
Recently, YakiHonne kicked off the second round of the Agentic Mini Apps Hack on Nostr, focused on building decentralized MiniApps with AI, payments, and social features. Tracks include Nostr tools, payment solutions, and AI-driven apps. On Aug 3, we hosted our second Demo Day with developers showcasing their smart widget projects.
Rare Evo 2025, organized by Rare Network, was a premier multi-chain blockchain conference held from August 6–10, 2025, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. The event brought together leading voices in blockchain interoperability, DeFi compliance innovation, NFTs, AI, DePIN, RWAs, and more. Over four days, attendees engaged in keynote speeches, panel discussions, interactive exhibitions, hands-on workshops, and a high-energy hackathon. Featured speakers included Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, Daniela Barbosa of the Linux Foundation’s Decentralized Trust initiative, and Shielded Technologies CEO Eran Barak.
Here is the upcoming Nostr event that you might want to check out.
Learning Bitcoin 2025 will take place on August 16–17, 2025, in Vancouver, Canada. This event is designed for individuals, families, and businesses, aiming to help participants fully understand and safely use Bitcoin. Day one features hands-on workshops for beginners, covering wallet setup, exchange use, cold storage, and more. Day two offers keynote talks and panel discussions with leading experts exploring Bitcoin’s practical use and future potential. Speakers include
Bitcoin Asia 2025 will take place from August 28–29, 2025, at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC). As one of the largest and most influential Bitcoin events in Asia, the conference will feature main stage keynote talks, enterprise Bitcoin workshops, hundreds of exhibiting companies, a digital art gallery, and official limited-edition merchandise. Speakers include
Thanks for reading! If there’s anything I missed, feel free to reach out and help improve the completeness and accuracy of my coverage.