Nostr and AI: What Comes Next?
I recently went down a rabbit hole trying to figure out where two big tech things are headed: the decentralized protocol Nostr, and Artificial Intelligence as a whole. I dug through a bunch of data and now I want to share what I found, no fancy terms attached.
Spoiler: Nostr just got an unexpected second chance, and AI is running a fever and about to cool down. Let me break it down.
Part 1. Nostr Got Lucky (Again)
What Is Nostr Again?
Nostr is a social network without a boss. No one can ban you or delete your posts. You own your identity with a private key, and messages live on multiple servers called relays. Sounds great, right? But for most of 2024 and early 2025, it felt like Nostr missed the boat. Its main competitor, Bluesky, exploded to 38 million users and looked like the next Twitter killer. A lot of people wrote Nostr off as a niche hangout for Bitcoin nerds and tech idealists.
Then Bluesky Stumbled
Here is where things get interesting. In late 2025 and early 2026, Bluesky hit a wall. Daily active users reportedly dropped forty percent (from around 2.5 million to 1.5 million). The CEO stepped down in March 2026. Investors threw another hundred million dollars at the problem, but it has not fixed the slide yet.
And now governments in the US, Australia, and the UK are pushing age verification on Bluesky. That means uploading your ID or passport. It is hard to call yourself a "decentralized freedom network" when the government is checking your papers at the door.
Meanwhile, the big exodus from X (Twitter) did happen, but most people went to Threads by Instagram. Not Bluesky. Not Nostr. They went where their friends already were.
Why This Is Good News for Nostr
This is a second window of opportunity for Nostr. While Bluesky deals with its identity crisis and regulatory headaches, Nostr can stand up and say: "Hey, real freedom is here. No tracking. No IDs. Just you and your content."
On top of that, two more things are working in Nostr's favor:
1. Bitcoin is waking up. Nostr uses Bitcoin micropayments called Zaps for tipping creators. When Bitcoin price goes up, those tips become a lot more meaningful. Creators notice.
2. The tech got better. Millions of dollars (including ten million from Jack Dorsey) have poured into making Nostr clients easier to use. There are AI helpers now to simplify setup. The onboarding pain is still there, but it is less scary than it was in 2023.
The Forecast (No Jargon)
The most likely path for Nostr is a slow and steady plateau. It stays niche but alive. Think twenty to thirty thousand daily users who are very loyal and active.
BUT the chance of a blow up moment in the next year or two is now much higher than it was six months ago. I would put it at roughly thirty five percent. That is significant. What could light the fuse?
· Bluesky completely falls apart.
· Another massive censorship scandal on X or Threads.
· A Nostr app so simple your grandmother could use it without knowing what a private key is.
Bottom line if you are building on Nostr: You are in the right spot at the right time. Keep building. Focus on making signup dead simple. And watch #Bitcoin. When #BTC runs, Nostr tends to run with it.
Part 2. AI: The Hangover After the Bender
Is This a Bubble?
For the last two years it feels like AI gets smarter every single week. ChatGPT, image generators, self driving cars. Companies are pouring hundreds of billions into new chips and data centers. It smells a lot like the dot com bubble right before the crash in 2000.
The numbers say the insane growth rate is already slowing down. The biggest AI models used to get twice as powerful every few months. Now the gains are shrinking. Why? Two big walls.
1. Physics. Training these giant brains uses so much electricity that we are running out of power in some regions. Water for cooling is also a real problem.
2. Money. Building chip factories costs a fortune. Are chatbots making enough profit to justify the spend? Not even close, yet.
What Happens Next? Three Paths.
Most Likely (About 50% Chance): The Cool Down.
AI stops being a hysterical news headline and becomes infrastructure. Like electricity or the internet. It gets smarter slowly and steadily, integrating into our software and search engines. The hype fades. Weak projects die. The giants (Google, Microsoft) and open source rebels (DeepSeek, Llama) run the show. This is the hangover after the wild party.
Second Option (About 25% Chance): The Breakthrough.
Someone invents a totally new type of brain architecture that is not just a bigger transformer. Or AI figures out how to improve itself without human help. If this happens, we see another explosion in capability and a massive economic shift. Office jobs change forever by 2030.
Third Option (About 20% Chance): Winter Is Coming.
Something bad happens. Maybe AI is used for a major cyberattack or a financial crash. Governments panic and ban large model training. Or a global recession hits and the money faucet turns off completely. Progress stalls for years.
What Should You Do?
Do not panic about losing your job tomorrow. The pace of AI improvement is likely to be slower over the next two to three years than it was in 2024. That gives us time to learn how to work with these tools instead of being replaced by them.
Use the free stuff. You do not need to pay for expensive subscriptions. Models like DeepSeek or Llama work almost as well as the paid ones and cost nothing.
Watch the power grid. Seriously. The biggest bottleneck for future AI is not code. It is whether we can build enough nuclear reactors and solar farms to run the computers.
Nostr: Do not count it out. The main rival is struggling and Nostr has a fresh chance. The next twelve months are critical. If you are in the ecosystem, keep building.
AI: The crazy growth spurt is ending. We are entering the "cleanup and integration" phase. This is healthy. Expect AI to get cheaper and more accessible, not just smarter, in the near future.
That is the view from here. Drop a comment if you see it differently or have questions.
#nostr #ai #bluesky
@Derek Ross @fiatjaf
