"I want Nostr to be the perfect thing just for me."
Justin & Gigi drive to the airport. Recorded October 2025.
Projects & tech mentioned:
- Blitz (Rust HTML/CSS renderer)
- QuickJS (lightweight JavaScript engine)
- Dioxus (Rust UI framework)
- Iroh (peer-to-peer networking)
- MOQ (Media Over QUIC)
- White Noise (MLS-based private messaging on Nostr)
- Ladybird (independent browser by Andreas Kling)
- VRChat
In this dialogue:
- Driving to the airport
- "Don't say anything that could be used against you"
- The low quality of this podcast focuses the mind of the listener
- You need proper headphones
- Walking focuses you, and stops you after 90 minutes
- Justin's adoption curve: hater first, builder later
- "I'm the ascending left curve"
- Bitcoin hating, Lightning hating, Nostr hating
- Audio calling with npubs: Nostr as signaling & identity layer
- First version: Iroh for peer-to-peer, Nostr for lookup
- Calling Paul Miller's npub from a CLI
- innpub: a 2D pixel art level with rooms you can hang out in
- The killer feature of positional audio
- VRChat Bitcoin meetups during COVID, thanks to Udi
- Twitter Spaces, Clubhouse, and why one big room encourages attention seeking
- Positional audio lets you hide in a corner
- WebRTC is Google Meet shipped as a "web standard"
- Safari and Firefox just shipped Google's code
- MOQ (Media Over QUIC) as the simple alternative
- CDN-style mesh relays for binary data
- What if MOQ relays were Nostr-style, and you'd pay to relay?
- E2E encrypted group audio in the browser using White Noise / MLS compiled to WASM
- "Let's make Nostr fast"
- The web is dying: Chrome blocked ad blockers and Justin just stopped visiting websites
- No SQLite in the browser, no TypeScript in the browser
- Why do I need a domain name? Why certificate authorities?
- Building a browser in 3 days
- Blitz + QuickJS = a browser that runs a React counter app
- "This would have taken me months"
- Andreas Kling: built a browser as part of a 12-step program
- Ladybird proving that you can build a browser from scratch
- Vibe coding: 20-30 projects in six weeks
- Nerd-sniped into implementing Mosaic in Zig, then dropping it in two days
- What Nostr got right: "good enough"
- Binary transport for Nostr relays
- Getting rid of DNS: a theme every week at SovEng (noDNS)
- Claiming names via Nostr events, no .com needed
- Web of trust for conflict resolution
- Self-signed TLS certs trusted through Nostr identity
- Social handles already replaced URLs in practice
- "Build for the nerds, not the mass market"
- "I want Nostr to be the perfect thing just for me"
- Building blocks crystallizing: mesh networking, noDNS, better relays, search
- Relays in the browser
- The synergistic ecosystem
- "You're gonna miss your flight"
Recorded at 917,999.