Webs of Trust Onboarding and Discovery

For over a year, I have been developing “webs of trust onboarding and discovery” tools for Nostr. With additional funding, I hope to continue this endeavor. Here is my 2025 application for grant funding.

More than just “follows follows” on Nostr, webs of trust algos will ingest increasingly MORE kinds of user generated content in order to map our interactions across the network. Webs of trust will power user discovery, content search, reviews and reccomendations, identity verification, and access to all corners of the Nostr network. Without relying on a central “trust authority” to recommend people and content for us, sovereign Nostr users will make use of “relative trust” scores generated by a wide range of independent apps and services. The problem is, Nostr doesn’t have an opensource library for performing WoT calculations and delivering NIP standard recommendations to users. In order for a “free market” ecosystem of really smart apps and services to thrive, independent developers will need access to extensible “middleware” such as this.

Project Description#

I am building a library for independent developers to offer their own interoperable and configurable WoT services and clients. In addition, and as the primary use case, I am also developing a web client for “in person onboarding” to Nostr, which will make use of this library to provide webs of trust recommendations for “invited” users.

Meet Me On Nostr (onboarding client) : This is my first project on Nostr, which began a year ago with seed funding from @druid. This web client will leverage “in person” QR invites to generate WoT powered recommendations of follows, apps, and other stuff for new users at their first Nostr touchpoint. The functional MVP release (April ‘25) allows for “instant, anonymous, and fully encrypted” direct messaging and “move in ready” profile creation from a single QR scan.
GrapeRank Engine (developer library) : Working with @straycat last fall, I built an opensource and extensible library for Nostr developers to integrate “web of trust” powered reccomendations into their products and services. The real power behind GrapeRank is its “pluggable” interpreter, allowing any kind of content (not just “follows follows”) to be ingested for WoT scoring, and configurable easily by developers as well as end users. This library is currently in v0.1, “generating and storing usable scores”, and doesn’t yet produce NIP standard outputs for Nostr clients.
My Grapevine (algo dashboard) : In addition, I’ve just wrapped up the demo release of a web client by which users and developers can explore the power of the GrapeRank Engine.

Potential Impact#

Webs of Trust is how Nostr scales. But so far, Nostr implementations have been ad-hoc and primarily client centered, with no consistency and little choice for end users. The “onboarding and discovery” tools I am developing promise to :

Establish sovereignty for webs of trust users (supporting a “free market” of algo choices), with opensource libraries by which any developer can easily implement WoT powered recommendations.
Accelerate the isolation of bots and bad actors (and improve the “trustiness” of Nostr for everyone else) by streamlining the onboarding of “real world” acquaintances directly into established webs of trust.
Improve “discoverability of users and content” for any user on any client (to consume and take advantage of WoT powered recommendations for any use case, even as the NIP standards for this are still in flux), by providing an algo engine with “pluggable” inputs and outputs.
Pave the way for “global Nostr adoption”, where WoT powered recommendations (and searches) are consistently available for every user across a wide variety of clients.

Timeline & Milestones#

2025 roadmap for “Webs of Trust Onboarding and Discovery” :

Meet Me On Nostr (onboarding client) : MVP release : “scan my QR invite to private message me instantly with a ‘move in ready’ account on Nostr”. https://nostrmeet.me/
GrapeRank Engine (developer library) : 1.0 release : “expanded inputs and output WoT scores to Nostr NIPs and other stuff” for consumption by clients and relays. https://github.com/Pretty-Good-Freedom-Tech/graperank-nodejs
My Grapevine (algo dashboard) : 1.0 release : “algo usage and configuration webapp with API endpoints” for end users to setup GrapeRank scoring for consumption by their own clients and relays. https://grapevine.my/
Meet Me On Nostr (onboarding client) : 1.0 release : first GrapeRank integration, offering “follow and app recommendations for invited users”, customizable per-invite for Nostr advocates. https://nostrmeet.me/

Prior contributions#

Last spring I hosted panel discussions and wrote articles on Nostr exploring how to build “sovereign webs of trust”, where end users can have control over which algorithms to use, and what defines “trust”.
I contributed gift wrap encryption to NDK.
I am also authoring gift wrapped direct messaging and chat room modules for NDK.
Last July, I attended The Bitcoin Conference on an OpenSource pass to raise funds for my onboarding client. I onboarded many Bitcoiners to Nostr, and made valuable connections at Bitcoin Park.

About Me#

I discovered Nostr in September ‘23 as a freelance web developer, after years of looking for a “sovereignty respecting” social media on which to build apps. With this came my first purchase of Bitcoin. By December of that year, I was settled on “open source freedom tech” (Nostr and Bitcoin) as the new direction for my career.

As a web professional for 20+ years, I know the importance of “proof of work” and being connected. For the last 18 months, I have been establishing myself as a builder in this community. This pivot has not been easy, but it has been rewarding and necessary. After so many years building private tech for other people, I finally have a chance to build freedom tech for everyone. I have finally come home to my peeps and my purpose.

Thank you for considering this application for funding.