Damus, an alleged “Twitter killer” built on a decentralized network, has been approved on the Apple App Store.
Damous’s team confirmed approval to his 11,500 Twitter followers on January 31, after what it claims were at least three rejections by Big Tech.
Soon after, Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and collaborator de Nostr, shared the news with his 6.5 million followers, with the entrepreneur calling it a “milestone” for open source protocols:
a milestone for open protocols…#nostr is now officially on the Apple App Store with @damusapp:https://t.co/GQmvPE5nfX
—jack (@jack) January 31, 2023
a milestone for open protocols… #nostr is now officially on the Apple App Store with @damusapp
The app calls itself “the social network you control” and is a messaging service based on Nostra decentralized network that enables, among other things, end-to-end encrypted private messaging.
The application aims to become a social media platform with uncensored content. Also has built-in payments via Bitcoin (BTC) layer 2 Lightning Networkaccording to a Protos post on Jan. 27.
The network does not work with servers. Instead, Nostr uses decentralized repeaters to distribute messages.
Nostr developers also focus on using bitcoin and the Lightning Network to prevent distributed denial of service attacks against the Damus application.
According to the team’s GitHub page, 44 software developers have contributed to the Damus web application code.
Neat way to fetch bitcoin addresses: #nostr encrypted dms. pic.twitter.com/lMlnIhf3fg
—William Casarin ⚡️ (@jb55) January 29, 2023
A good way to get bitcoin addresses: dms #nostr encrypted.
Nevertheless, Damus’s arrival at Apple’s App Store has not been without problems.
Damus’s Twitter page posted that it had failed on at least three attempts before finally being approved:
We replied again clarifying where and how all these features are implemented. That’s all we can do at this time….
— Damus ⚡️ (@damusapp) January 31, 2023
We have responded again clarifying where and how all of these features are implemented. It’s all we can do right now…
One of Nostr’s main developers, William Casarin, also shared some frustration on his personal Twitter account, stating that it would be a “shame” if Apple users couldn’t use Nostr natively.
Even though the exact association between Dorsey and Nostr is not knownbillionaire businessman Shipping over 14 BTC—worth about $250,000 at the time—in mid-December to help the Nostr developer team.
While the news seems to have increased awareness of the app among the bitcoin community, other high-profile personalities have also tested the Damus app.
Among them are the co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterinthe former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden and the pro-cryptocurrency US senator Cynthia Lummis.
One of the cool things about Nostr (“Notes and other stuff transmitted by relays”, a new decentralized protocol that replaces things like Twitter and Instagram)—beyond censorship resistance—is that you aren’t limited to 280 characters.
Find me there. pic.twitter.com/B7JUHeeSdP
—Edward Snowden (@Snowden) January 23, 2023
One of the cool things about Nostr (“Notes and Other Stuff Relayed,” a new decentralized protocol that replaces Twitter and Instagram)—beyond censorship resistance—is that you’re not limited to 280 characters.
See you there.
As of this writing, the Damus web application has been experiencing issues. A warning message on the site’s home page reads:
“Damus Web is not working because someone is trying to exploit browser loopholes to steal private keys. I do not recommend using a web client at this time. Damus iOS is not affected.”
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