Imagine IF 2026: leads and follow-ups

Event: Imagine IF, Nashville, Oct 5–6, 2026 Built: 2026-10-08 from [[imagine-if-2026-live-notes]], [[2026-10-imagine-if-people]] and Reports/activity-log.md Status: Working file. Update the status and next action here as each lead moves. The live notes and people sheet stay as source material. Tags: #nostr4 #imagineif #leads

Origination: a lead counts toward commission only once Manuel confirms it in writing. All five active leads below are in one email: Engagement/Drafts/2026-10-07-origination-imagine-if.md (task 93). Add Mainstay before sending, then mark each lead here and in the activity log as "origination emailed."

Summary#

Totals: 5 active leads · 4 warm contacts · 4 relationship touches · 9 targets not reached

1. Active leads#

Satoshi Nakamoto Institute: Michael Goldstein (bitstein), President#

• Met: about an hour, reported Tue Oct 6. The longest conversation of the event.
• Opportunity: "SNI on Nostr." Satoshi's writings as signed events, the library on Blossom, an nsite mirror of nakamotoinstitute.org, SNI's own relay, and new publications signed by a FROST quorum of fellows. Permanence is SNI's whole mission.
• Why it matters: the flagship "beyond social" reference customer. Bitcoin's main historical archive moving to Nostr.
• Service: Nostr Roadmap (the most likely first Roadmap customer).
• Contact: Nostr bitstein@nakamotoinstitute.org (verified on SNI's domain). SNI org: nostr@nakamotoinstitute.org. Beware of the fake SNI profiles on relays. Email unknown.
• Origination: ⏳ in the draft, not sent.
• Next: DM him for an email address and offer a scoping call toward an "SNI on Nostr" Roadmap (task 95, due Oct 9).
• Notes: live notes, "Extended conversation: Michael Goldstein."

Vora: Jesse Posner, Co-founder#

• Met: his talk Mon Oct 5 ("…you held the keys to everything"), then a hallway conversation around 4:15 PM. You know him from the Bitcoin 2026 panel in Vegas.
• Opportunity: Nostr as the infrastructure for Aegis, Vora's home AI server. That covers identity, Keycast and remote signers, relays, Blossom, nsite, ngit, napplets, FIPS (the data plane) and web of trust. "Nostr is the control plane, FIPS is the data plane." He was amazed by Nostr beyond social.
• Stretch goals (pitch as a design partnership; agree with Manuel and Andrew first):
  1. TrustR running locally on every Aegis, publishing TSM events, so each owner has their own web of trust. That makes Vora TrustR's first hardware partner and every Aegis a TSM node.
  2. A Nostr4-branded identity layer on Aegis: FROSTR threshold keys and/or NostrMe passkeys.
  • Caveat: TrustR launches around Jan 2027 and NostrMe passkeys are still in development.
• Service: Roadmap or Sprint, plus agent identity.
• Contact: Nostr npub1tr7ndm… (full npub in the people sheet). Email: use the address you'd send the draft to.
• Origination: ⏳ in the draft, not sent. The follow-up draft also CCs Manuel.
• Next: review and send followups/2026-10-05-jesse-posner-followup.md (task 94, due today). It's 3 days since the event, so send soon.
• Notes: live notes, "Session 3: Jesse Posner."

Fedi: Obi Nwosu, CEO#

• Met: Tue Oct 6. You knew him before the event.
• Opportunity: Fedi already runs on Nostr as "invisible plumbing," a "decentralized AWS / Google Cloud," across its app and mini apps. Their public manifold code shows custom kinds 37701–37707, encrypted federation backups across relays, a FLIP liquidity marketplace and PeerBadge credentials. They also maintain their own rust-nostr fork.
• Why it matters: the strongest outside proof of the Nostr4 thesis. A funded Bitcoin company runs its infrastructure on Nostr because it's cheap and reliable, not for the social layer. Already a proof point in the service catalog.
• Service: reference customer, founding Research Group member, possible mini-app / napplet collaboration.
• Contact: ⚠️ not recorded. Add his email or npub.
• Origination: ⏳ in the draft, not sent.
• Next: thank him, invite him to the research group, ask about mini-app collaboration and for permission to quote "decentralized AWS" (task 96, due Oct 9). Fedi is also the obvious first name for the research-group list (task 65).
• Notes: live notes, "Session 4: Obi Nwosu."

Crop List: Scott Bratcher#

• Met: Tue Oct 6, a long conversation.
• Who: author of WTF Is Bitcoin, works in Bitcoin and real estate around Springfield–Branson, MO.
• Opportunity: "Craigslist for local food markets," with web of trust holding the marketplace together. Every part uses existing NIPs: NIP-99 listings, NIP-32 reviews, geohash for location, Blossom for photos, zaps for payment. Your own notemarket and nostr-market projects are prior art. It also fits Grow Nostr.
• Why it matters: the first product idea that came out of the event: something to build, not an infrastructure pitch.
• Service: Scoping Call, then Roadmap.
• Contact: X @ScottBratcher1, LinkedIn swbratcher. No Nostr profile found. Email unknown.
• Origination: ⏳ in the draft, not sent.
• Next: reach him on X or LinkedIn, get an email or npub, offer a free scoping call (task 97, due Oct 9).
• Notes: live notes, "Session 5: Scott Bratcher."

Mainstay: Tim Bouma (Oct 4, before Imagine IF)#

• Met: a demo and a call of about 2 hours on Oct 4.
• Opportunity: Mainstay builds infrastructure for sovereign communities to run their own identity, money and data: Safebox, their own relay and Blossom, Cashu, FIPS, Nostr. He wants web of trust and trust networks, which fits TrustR and TSM.
• Service: Scoping Call or Roadmap; possible TSM adopter.
• Origination: ⚠️ not in the Imagine IF draft. Add him as a fifth lead before sending (that closes task 87 too).
• Next: send him the TSM spec, the TrustR demo (trustr.ing) and the GrapeRank library, and ask how Mainstay would use web of trust (task 88, due Oct 9). Set up a call with Manuel and Andrew (task 89, due Oct 14).
• Notes: activity log, 2026-10-04.

2. Warm contacts (not leads yet)#

Nate Slemp: BTC Management (investor)#

• Met: Mon Oct 5, around 1:42 PM, in the hallway. In Bitcoin since 2011, lives in Puerto Rico and promotes it.
• He asked for: a call or email about value-for-value music and sats radio on Nostr, cutting out the middleman.
• Your card to play: Shanty, your 24/7 lo-fi radio bot streaming into Nostr communities (armada.buzz). Note that Shanty is personal work and falls under the IP carve-out.
• Contact: ⚠️ only on the physical business card. No web presence found.
• Logged as: investor.
• Next: type the card details into this file, then send the V4V music follow-up (task 98, due Oct 12). He also mentioned a place to visit, "El campo asplaina" (spelled as heard; not identified).

René Ángel: Head of AI, The Reynolds Foundation#

• Met: his talk Mon Oct 5 ("…AI worked for freedom"), on self-hosted AI for activists, and a brief catch-up. Your note at the time: "I should talk with him."
• Opportunity: self-hosted AI gives activists their own compute, but they still need identity nobody can revoke and trust networks that survive a shutdown. That's Nostr keys plus web of trust. Reynolds funds work in 45+ countries, and KG's African apps are a live example.
• Logged as: company, relationship touch, no lead.
• Next: ⚠️ no task yet. Decide whether to follow up properly (proposed: an email about identity and trust for their grantees).

Andre Neves: CTO, ZBD#

• Met: brief catch-up; he knows about the role.
• Open question: why did ZBD remove Nostr social from the app? Log the answer as feedback, then ask what would make them bring it back.
• Next: task 99 (low, due Oct 21).

KG (Kgothatso Ngako): Machankura, Exonumia Africa#

• Met: his demo session Mon Oct 5.
• Why he matters: five apps in Africa on Nostr, using FROSTR k-of-n keys so a quorum of curators publishes. Strong "Nostr beyond social" proof, already in the service catalog.
• Logged as: developer.
• Next: ⚠️ no task yet. Two ideas: invite him to the research group (task 65), and write the KG post for content (needs your go-ahead).
• Notes: [[imagine-if-2026-kg-session]].

3. Relationship touches (told about the role, no lead)#

4. Targets not reached#

From the people sheet. Worth a cold or warm follow-up if they fit the month's goals.

Themes for the debrief and content#

• Local AI still needs a protocol layer. Reynolds and Vora both work on local AI. A local agent still needs identity, discovery, trust and payments. The question to ask: "Your AI runs locally. How does it prove itself to the world?"
• Nostr's strongest business case is invisible infrastructure. Obi said it and Fedi's code shows it. KG and SNI point the same way.
• Web of trust opens doors. Mainstay, Crop List and Vora's stretch goals all come back to it.
• Content ideas: a KG write-up, Fedi's "decentralized AWS" (with permission), and "Nostr is the control plane, FIPS is the data plane."

Open items#

• Add Mainstay to the origination draft and send it (task 93, task 87)
• Record contact details: Obi, Nate Slemp (card), Jesse's email
• Decide on René Ángel and KG follow-ups (no tasks yet)
• Debrief to Manuel (task 61): this file's summary table and themes
• Watch for curare.to to launch, and for the first entries on necropolis and bitcoin.mov