Hello, Dfinity Community!
We’re thrilled to unveil our latest project, Replicatr—a groundbreaking initiative to enhance the NOSTR relay network through seamless integration with the Internet Computer protocol. After six months of dedicated development, we’re ready to share what we’ve achieved.
TL;DR
Replicatr is a robust NOSTR relay that, among many features, offers inter-relay synchronization via Internet Computer integration. For context, the current most popular NOSTR relay, Strfry, offers inter-relay synchronization as its primary selling point; this highlights the significance of the issue of relay-syncing within NOSTR, particularly in regards to solidifying NOSTR’s role as a foundational infrastructure for web3. As such, we offer an alternative to Strfry’s “negentropy” synchronization method by utilizing the Internet Computer, providing a syncing solution that is faster and more reliable, albeit at a slightly higher cost due to canister cycles.
What is NOSTR?
For those unfamiliar, NOSTR (Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays) is an open, decentralized publish/subscribe protocol. Developed by a community of developers committed to maintaining a non-corporate controlled communication system, NOSTR is not just a protocol but a platform ripe for innovation. It enables everything from simple threaded discussions to decentralized blogging, collaborative document editing, and even digital music sharing.
Future Potential: On its current trajectory, NOSTR is poised to become the underlying plumbing for the next generation of distributed applications. Its simplicity and flexibility make it an ideal candidate for this role. However, for NOSTR to fully realize this potential, several central issues—such as data inconsistency and relay overloading—need to be effectively addressed. Solving these challenges can elevate NOSTR from a promising protocol to the cornerstone of a new, decentralized internet.
The Role of Relays in NOSTR
Relays are the backbone of the NOSTR network. They serve as nodes that store and propagate “events” or messages throughout the network. Each relay operates independently, maintaining its own database of events that can be accessed by users. When a user publishes an event, it is sent to all the relays that the user has subscribed to. Relays also handle queries from users, fetching events that match specific criteria.
Relays are designed to be lightweight and can be run by anyone, ranging from individual enthusiasts to large organizations, contributing to the decentralized nature of the network. They support various functionalities through “filters,” which are used to search and retrieve specific events based on user requests. This makes the relays not just passive message carriers but active participants in data curation and distribution.
The Challenge: Nostr’s Data Inconsistencies
The rapid rise of NOSTR demonstrates its potential to revolutionize social media. However, its reliance on a dispersed network of independent relays presents significant challenges, particularly data inconsistency. Two users can only see each other’s posts if they just so happen to have a subscribed relay in common, which isn’t always guaranteed.This fragmentation impacts the user experience in several critical ways:
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Bottlenecks: The lightweight design of NOSTR relays, while advantageous for scaling down, can lead to catastrophic performance issues when a popular post attracts a large volume of users to a single relay. This overwhelming demand can severely impact the relay’s ability to function efficiently and maintain consistent data across the network.
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Fragmented Network: Independent operation of relays means there’s no guaranteed synchronization between them. Users on different relays may not see the same content, leading to a fragmented user experience and hindering NOSTR’s role as a cohesive social platform.
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Missed Connections: Due to the lack of data synchronization, users might miss out on important updates, discussions, or events within their NOSTR communities. This inconsistency can result in a fragmented sense of engagement and feelings of isolation within the network.
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Unreliable Synchronization: Existing synchronization methods, such as those used by popular relays like Strfry with its “negentropy” technique, are often slow, resource-intensive, and unreliable. This leads to further gaps and delays in the replication of frequently requested data, exacerbating the issues of data inconsistency.
These challenges underline the critical need for a robust and reliable synchronization solution to enhance both reliability and user experience within the NOSTR network.
Our Solution: Replicatr
Replicatr addresses these challenges by integrating NOSTR with the Internet Computer to provide a robust backend for inter-relay synchronization. This integration allows for a decentralized database that maintains a large, consistent collection of events published by users across the network.
Key Features of Replicatr:
- Inter-Relay Synchronization: Events sent to one relay are propagated to an ICP canister, allowing all connected relays to access and disseminate new events typically in under five seconds.
- Enhanced Data Availability: Our system doesn’t just store data; it enhances the availability without overloading the core blockchain database. Relays act as caches, reducing redundant data requests and ensuring immediate delivery to users.
- Cost Efficiency and Scalability: By leveraging the Internet Computer, Replicatr keeps individual relay costs low while enabling a scalable network of relays sharing an ICP-hosted NOSTR event store.
Additional Features:
- Supports most applicable NIPs: 1, 2, 4, 9, 11, 12, 15, 16, 20, 22, 28, 33, 40, 42
- Websocket compression: permessage-deflate with optional sliding window, when supported by clients
- Extremely configurable making it seamlessly customizable across several parameters for relay operators
- No external database required: All data is stored first locally on the filesystem in BadgerDB and optionally on the
Internet Computer for inter-relay synchronization. - The local badgerDB has been additionally equipped with a nostr-specific, highly configurable garbage collection scheme and a
nostr-specific prefix-indexing scheme for seamless data management and rapid querying - Supports optionally mandating nip-42 authorization upon initial connection for enhanced security
Why This Matters
With Replicatr, we’re not just improving a protocol—we’re enhancing the infrastructure for the next generation of web applications. Whether it’s for cross-chain communications, decentralized social platforms, or collaborative projects, Replicatr offers a more reliable, scalable solution.
Explore and Contribute
We invite you to explore Replicatr further on our GitHub pages:
- Replicatr GitHub
- Replicatr Architecture
- Replicatr Website
- Nostrudel GitHub (a sandbox for exploring NOSTR)
Join us in shaping the future of decentralized communications. Your feedback, contributions, and enthusiasm are what make projects like this possible. Let’s build something great together!