Nostr Biweekly Review ( 15-30 May 2026)
GM, Nostriches! The Nostr Review is a biweekly newsletter focused on protocol updates, exciting programs, the long-form content ecosystem, and key events happening in the Nostr-verse. If you’re interested, join me in covering updates from the Nostr ecosystem!
Quick review: In the past two weeks, daily active pubkeys increased to 338,310. New user growth increased, as profiles with bios also rose by about 69.48%. Events totaled 15.6 million and zap volume increased to 12.3 million sats. Additionally, 9 pull requests were submitted to the Nostr protocol, with 2 drafts and 0 merged. A total of 109 Nostr projects were tracked, with 11 releasing product updates. During this period, 1 notable event took place, and 3 significant events are upcoming.
Nostr Statistics
Based on user activity, the total daily active pubkeys reached 338,310, reflecting an increase of 13.19% compared to the previous period’s 298,890. The highest daily activity was recorded on May 30th, 2026, with 24,870 active users, representing a 2.68% increase compared to the previous record of 24,221.
The number of new users overall showed significant growth from the last period. In particular, the number of profiles with bios rose to 1,473,933, marking an increase of about 69.48% compared to the previous record of 869,686. Furthermore, the number of new profiles with contact lists also increased to 260,226, a 25.74% rise from 206,952. Meanwhile, pubkeys writing events surged to 193,230 within this period, representing a 4.55% jump from the previous 184,826.
In terms of content publishing, approximately 15,618,361 total events were published during this period, representing an increase of about 97.59% compared to the 7,904,437 from the previous cycle. Among them, Reposts reached a total of 516,091 within this period, marking a 26.04% increase compared to the previous 409,473.
For zap activity, the total zap amount is about 12.3 million, showing an increase of over 24.24% compared to the previous period.
Data source: https://npub.world/stats , https://stats.andotherstuff.org/
NIPs
NIP-XX: Event Timestamp Attestations
cyril
- The PR proposes a new Nostr Implementation Possibility (NIP) introducing kind: 1041 for trusted-third-party event timestamping. It allows any party to sign an event that acts as a witness/receipt for another event. By referencing an existing event with an e tag and an attests marker, the signer’s created_at timestamp serves as their claimed receipt time for that event.
NIP-73: add Namecoin name external content id mstrofnone
- This PR proposes an update to NIP-73 to allow Nostr events to officially reference Namecoin names (and similar naming chains) as external content IDs. It adds a new
:name: artifact type alongside the already supported transaction and address types.
NIP: Decentralized appointment scheduling (kind 31927)
geralt-debugs
This PR proposes a new NIP to establish a decentralized, privacy-preserving appointment scheduling protocol on Nostr. Essentially, it aims to be a Nostr-native, drop-in alternative to centralized services like Calendly or Cal.com.
Source: https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/pulls
Notable Projects
VaultChat - v1.0.0 (Groups, EN/RO, Decoy PIN) - New Tool blejusca
- VaultChat is a peer-to-peer encrypted messaging app built on the Nostr protocol that removes the need for phone numbers, email registration, or centralized servers. In its first major release, v1.0.0, VaultChat introduces encrypted family and business group chats, English and Romanian localization with automatic language detection, and a Decoy PIN feature that opens a fake empty inbox for plausible deniability. The release also highlights core privacy and security features including NIP-44 v2 end-to-end encryption, biometric and PIN protection, AES-256-GCM encrypted local storage, screenshot blocking, synchronized conversation deletion, and cryptographic identity-based accounts. This was the latest and there were also some more releases last week.
- Amber is a nostr event signer for Android. This release improves the app connection and pairing experience, enhances permission management with bulk select/deselect options, fixes several crashes and bunker dialog issues, adds rate limiting for incoming signing intents, improves relay authentication handling, supports PSBT signing, introduces better lifecycle controls for the background service, and adds encrypted application backup and restore for moving signers between devices.
- Jumble is a Nostr client designed for browsing relay feeds, posting content, and interacting with the Nostr social graph. The v26.5.7 release adds a GIF picker for posts and DMs, introduces a local drafts system with background retry for unsent posts, redesigns the post editor for a cleaner layout, improves thread and media handling (including correct repost rendering and preserved video aspect ratios), enhances search with suggested follows, improves DM usability and identity verification, strengthens privacy by stripping sensitive metadata from image uploads, and fixes multiple UI and interaction issues across posts, links, and zap counting.
- Nostria is a Nostr client designed for browsing and interacting with decentralized content. This release adds a “Curated” filter for music discovery, introduces a toggle to filter specific music categories, and removes the previous limit on the number of tracks that can be loaded, improving browsing flexibility and content discovery. This was the latest, and there was also the release of v3.1.43 last week.
- Shosho is a Nostr client for live streaming and commerce that enables RTMP-based live broadcasting with integrated Nostr identity, allowing creators to stream, interact with audiences, and manage commerce features within the same platform. The v0.16.0 release introduces a shopping cart system for in-stream purchases, a full seller hub for creating shops and managing products, inventory, shipping, and promotions, and a help center for streamers and sellers, while also adding short-form clips to the feed, improving browsing and stream loading performance, integrating Nostr login for shop management, and fixing playback and UI stability issues.
- Nymchat is a messaging client designed for lightweight, ephemeral, and pseudonymous chat over the Nostr protocol, with bridging support to Bitchat for temporary messaging flows. This release is a hotfix update that adds notifications for missed audio/video calls and resolves an issue where chat conversations were not properly scrollable, improving basic communication reliability and user experience. This was the latest release, and there were a lot more last week.
Vector Messenger is a chat app built on the Nostr protocol for censorship-resistant messaging with privacy-focused features. This pre-release introduces a major core rewrite (vector-core) improving performance and stability, adds Tor integration, multi-account support, NIP-46 remote signers, message deletion, custom emoji packs, chat wallpapers, and improved decentralized file handling with Blossom failover. It also enhances group chat syncing, UI/UX (redesigned chat layout, gestures, navigation), and adds AI agent tooling for automation and developer integrations, along with multiple fixes for messaging reliability, media handling, and network resilience.
Nostur iOS - v1.28.0 Fabian
- Nostur is a lightweight Nostr client for iOS that lets users browse, post, and interact with decentralized social feeds over relays. In v1.28.0, it adds privacy and usability upgrades including private zaps, custom emojis, muted words filtering, improved relay controls (including the ability to block specific relays and view detailed relay stats), better DM handling with reactions and file improvements, and expanded feed features like Hot/Zapped/Funny/Gallery refresh controls on macOS. The update also improves media handling (video, audio stripping options, thumbnails), fixes multiple rendering and playback bugs, and enhances overall stability across feeds, replies, and relay connectivity.
- Nostr VPN is a Tailscale-style private mesh VPN built around a FIPS-backed data plane. In v4.0.48, the release improves VPN reliability and persistence by restoring Android always-on and boot-start tunnels from saved configurations, refreshing network and DNS state before tunnel startup, and surfacing lockdown/connection status more clearly, while also enhancing the CLI and desktop updater to use a secure Nostr/hashtree/Blossom update pipeline with better Windows handling. It further fixes cross-platform routing issues such as stable peer identity preservation, MagicDNS and DNS forwarder selection, join-request state accuracy, and iOS packet-tunnel configuration handling, along with UI polish like improved launcher icon rendering across platforms. This was the latest, and there were also a few more updates last week (v4.0.40, v4.0.41, v4.0.42, v4.0.45, v4.0.47).
- Nostrord is a chat client built on the Nostr protocol for participating in decentralized group and private messaging. In v1.2.0, the release improves overall chat stability and cross-platform consistency with fixes for mobile and web keyboard behavior, scrolling, and media rendering, resolves NIP-46 authentication issues like banner flicker and reconnect problems, adds a multi-account chooser on sign-out, and introduces a full React/web rewrite to match native functionality, alongside general UI and performance polish across chat and navigation. This was the latest, and there was also the release of v1.1.0 last week.
- Pyramid is a Nostr-based community tool that enables users to create and manage hierarchical, community-focused relay structures for organizing social interaction on the protocol. In v1.2.10, the update includes a fix ensuring users can still reject requests even when they have no remaining capacity or limits, improving control and moderation behavior in edge cases while maintaining stable community request handling within the system.
Long-Form Content Eco
In the past two weeks, approximately 13,440 kind 30023 events have been tracked (long-form articles), with over 40% being Bitcoin related articles and 60% related to Nostr and other topics across the Nostr Ecosystem.
The Nostr ecosystem is buzzing with discussions that feel less like standard tech talk and more like a blueprint for a digital revolution. The current conversations circulating the space naturally fall into a few distinct and passionate categories.
The Push for Digital Rights and Self Sovereignty The absolute refusal to accept the status quo is front and center. The community is pushing for a “Social Media Bill of Rights” and exploring exactly how censorship resistant Nostr really is in practice. People are tired of rented digital spaces. The consensus is clear that we deserve better, and Nostr is not just a passing trend. It is the end goal.
The Bitcoin and Privacy Crossover There is a massive overlap between Nostr and the Bitcoin universe. Discussions about Bitcoin as the currency of the future organically pair up with talks about privacy focused tech like GrapheneOS. It makes perfect sense. If you are going to take back control of your money, you might as well lock down your operating system and your social identity at the exact same time.
Builders and Protocol Evolution Builders are taking the spotlight right alongside the regular tech updates. Conversations around the origin of tools like NostrLens highlight how this new social media protocol is being shaped in real time. The ongoing debates comparing decentralized and centralized systems keep everyone sharp and focused on creating infrastructure that actually serves the users. It is an incredibly exciting time to be building and observing this space. Just remember, while we are out here fixing the entire internet and securing our digital rights, someone out there is definitely still going to lose their private keys in a tragic boating accident.
Thank you,
and others, for your work. Enriching Nostr’s long-form content ecosystem is crucial.
Nostriches Global Meet Ups
Recently, two (1) Notable Nostr and Bitcoin events have been hosted.
- Murcia Meetup 2140 - Takes place Thursday, May 21, 2026 at Montessori British School Murcia, C. Ermita Vieja, 26B, 30006 Murcia, Spain
Here are the upcoming Nostr and Bitcoin events that you might want to check out:
-
Nostr meetup - June 2026 - Takes place Monday, June 01, 2026 : Online
-
Digital Freedom with Nostr & Bitcoin - Takes place Sunday, June 07, 2026 at Jives Coffee Lounge, 16 Colbrunn Ct, Colorado Springs, CO, United States
- Nostr London Meetup (2140) — June 2026 - Takes place Wednesday, June 24, 2026 at (TBA)
Thanks for reading! If there’s anything I missed, feel free to reach out and help improve the completeness and accuracy of my coverage.
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