Author: Antoine Riard 2023-06-21 08:14:05+00:00
Published on: 2023-06-21T08:14:05+00:00
The first release of CivKit Node, a basic Nostr relay with additional features for a functional peer-to-peer market board, has been announced by the Bitcoin Devs. The release is written in Rust and is still considered raw, full of bugs and todos. It has not been extensively tested on multiple platforms and currently functions as a local host for various tasks. There is a sample Nostr client binary included for deployment and testing purposes, as well as a utility binary to manage the node with a gRPC interface. The intention behind this interface is to lay the groundwork for building one or more GUI applications on top, as requested by the community.One notable feature of this release is the experimental integration with BOLT8 Noise transport, thanks to LDK. This integration aims to unify the communication infrastructure between Nostr and Lightning, creating a single market of peer-to-peer service providers. Additionally, it allows for sharing work between the Lightning and Nostr ecosystems in terms of spamming mitigations, careful crypto engineering, and privacy-preserving monetary credentials.Moving forward, the developers plan to focus on implementing sound onion routing support, as well as fundamental NIPs like NIP-09, NIP-16, and NIP-33. Integration with a notary protocol, such as Mainstay, is also on their agenda. However, they are open to feedback from the community and will prioritize features based on relevant feedback received. The developers emphasize the importance of avoiding hard-to-integrate APIs and aim to involve the community in the project's "product management" to ensure it aligns with real-world requirements.The release of CivKit Node marks a significant step towards addressing the missing blocks of the Bitcoin protocol stack, particularly in regard to censorship-resistant and large-scale peer-to-peer markets. The developers express their commitment to open-source development standards and welcome passionate individuals to contribute to the project.For future announcements, the developers plan to leverage separate communication channels, such as a new mailing list or an experimental platform built on top of Nostr groups. They also intend to have any cryptography innovations standardized under BIPs.Overall, the release of CivKit Node holds the potential to greatly enhance the Bitcoin and Lightning internal economies, with the aim of creating a more robust and scalable ecosystem.
Updated on: 2023-07-14T02:50:14.232096+00:00