Nostr Utilities

A short run down of some popular Nostr utility categories

QnA

2. April 2025April 2, 2025 · 5 Min. Lesezeit5 min read

This is a long form note of a post that lives on my Nostr educational website Hello Nostr.

So you've got yourself started, you're up to speed with the latest Nostr jargon and you've learned the basics about the protocol, but you're left wanting more!? Well, look no further! This post contains a useful list of Nostr based utilities than can enhance your experience in and around the Nostr protocol.

Search and Discovery#

Getting started with Nostr can sometimes feel like a lonely journey, particularly if you're the first of your friends and family to discover how awesome it can be! These tools can help you discover new content, connect with existing follows from other networks and just generally have a poke around at the different types of content Nostr has to offer.

Have a hobby or existing community elsewhere? Have a search for it here to find others with shared interests

Nostr Band

Relays#

Relays might not be the sexiest of topics, particularly for newcomers to the network, but they are a crucial part of what makes Nostr great. As you become more competent, you'll want to customize your relay selection and maybe even run your own! Here are some great starting points.

Running a personal relay is a powerful way to improve the redundancy of your Nostr events.

Umbrel Relay

NIP-05 Identity Services#

Your nPub, or public key (that long string of letters and numbers) is your ‘official’ Nostr ID, but it’s not exactly catchy. NIP-05 identifiers are a human-readable and easily shareable way to have people find you on Nostr. They look like an email address, like qna@hellonostr.xyz. If you have your own domain and web server, you can easily create your own NIP-05 identifier in just a few minutes. If you don't, you'll want to leverage one of the many free or paid solutions.

Make yourself easier to find on Nostr with a NIP-05 identifier

Zaps LOL

Key Management#

Your private key (or nsec) it the key to your Nostr world. It is what allows you to access and interact with your social graph from any client. It doesn't matter if that client is a micro-blogging app like Amethyst, a podcast app like Fountain, or a P2P marketplace like Plebeian Market, your nsec is paramount to those interactions. Should your nsec be lost, or fall into the wrong hands, whoever then holds a copy can access Nostr and pretend to be you, meaning that you'll need to start again with a new keypair. Not a nice situation to find yourself in, so treat your nsec VERY carefully.

Your private key IS your Nostr identity. Treat it with extreme care and do not share it.

Passport

Zap Tools#

Zaps are one of the most fun parts of Nostr. Never before have we been able to send fractions of a penny, instantly to our friends because their meme made us laugh, or their blog post was very insightful. Zaps use Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, a faster and cheaper way to move Bitcoin around. To Zap someone, you need a Lightning wallet linked to your Nostr client. Some clients, like Primal, ship with their own custodial wallet to make getting started a breeze. Most clients also allow more advanced users to connect an existing Lightning Wallet to reduce reliance and trust in the client provider.

Zaps

If you found this post useful, please share it with your peers and consider following and zapping me on Nostr. If you write to me and let me know that you found me via this post, I'll be sure to Zap you back! ⚡️

#implementations#nostr#relay#search#utilities#zap

Written by

QnA

Head of Customer Experience @ foundation.xyz | Co-host @ ungovernable.network | Author @ bitcoiner.guide + hellonostr.xyz | Head Clanker @ freedom.tech #FREEDOMTECHFRIDAY - Every Friday 9AM EST / 2PM UK The Bitcoin…

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Contents

5 sections

  1. Search and Discovery
  2. Relays
  3. NIP-05 Identity Services
  4. Key Management
  5. Zap Tools