The Damus app, a potential Twitter replacement running on a decentralized network, has been accepted on the Apple App Store after three denials. It is powered by Nostr, a system using decentralized relays to send end-to-end encrypted messages, and it has the support of tech mogul Jack Dorsey. The Damus team made the announcement to its 11,500 Twitter followers on January 31st. 

How Nostr Platform Works:

Not long after, Jack Dorsey, a co-founder of Twitter and a contributor to Nostr, revealed the news to his 6.5 million followers, calling it a “landmark” experience for open-source protocols.

The application describes itself as the “social network you control” and is constructed on the Nostr platform, a decentralized network that provides encrypted, secure messaging and other features. It is intended to become a social media platform where content is not censored and has a built-in payment system that operates on the Bitcoin layer-2 Lightning Network, according to an announcement from Protos on January 27.

The Nostr network does not utilize any servers and instead, it relies on decentralized relays to circulate communications. The developers of Nostr are likewise devoted to using Bitcoin and the Lightning Network to block distributed denial-of-service spam attacks on the Damus application.

How Damus app was created: 

According to the Damus team’s GitHub page, 44 unique software engineers have participated in writing the code for their web application. Despite the challenges, Damus was eventually accepted on the Apple App Store, but not without difficulties. The Damus Twitter page mentioned that it had experienced three failed attempts before ultimately being approved.

William Casarin, one of the main coders of Nostr, showed his disgruntlement via his own Twitter page by saying it would be a “pity” if users of Apple were not able to take advantage of Nostr. It is uncertain what kind of relationship Jack Dorsey has with Nostr, although the wealthy businessperson gave 14 BTC (with a value of approximately $250,000 at the time) to the Nostr development team in the middle of December.

Crypto community after the announcement of the Damus application

After the announcement of the Damus application, its popularity surged among the Crypto community. Significant people like Vitalik Buterin, Edward Snowden, and Cynthia Lummis (a pro-crypto U.S. Senator) also tried out the app.

As of now, there are issues with the Damus web app. A cautionary message on the website’s main page states: “The Damus Web is not functioning due to a person attempting to take advantage of browser flaws to take secret keys. I would suggest avoiding the web client at this time. The Damus iOS is not influenced.”

Source: cointelegraph