Nostr notes by Sovereign Engineering

The schedule for nextyear will be out soon with new ideas and ...

2026-10-16T14:49:50Z

In reply to nevent1q…7r4g
_________________________

The schedule for nextyear will be out soon with new ideas and experimentations

Nostr event nevent1qqsqdrdmjqcqsegxpnlk34w7f3af0g9p8zmmd789ewuhsr89uwj53kszyzpanxdpfp39c0fthqv67vrycrm2ztta4z8k3vkxjgsl8f6xzuw3jghrax4

2026-10-16T08:38:19Z

SEC-08 report is here, dig in. We went full YOLO++ in Madeira, ...

2026-09-19T07:56:49Z

SEC-08 report is here, dig in. We went full YOLO++ in Madeira, with FIPS over sound and Totems finally talking to each other after two years. Six weeks of building on the open seas of cryptography and the new adventures beyond.

quoting
naddr1qv…499k

The last week of every cohort we take a ride on the Pirate Ship off Madeira, to see whales, swim in the Atlantic and talk about the pirating we did the past six weeks and the pirating beyond. We pass the mic around asking each participant for highlights of the cohort which is encapsulated in the No Solutions episode "Drinking from the Firehose".

The first response set the pattern for the ride, "Napplets, FIPS, runtimes, shells. More FIPS, more napplets, more shells. FIPS over audio. Zazafication. Better friendships, jams, walks, barbecues."

balas (nprofile…znag) , who was at SEC-01, had one word; "pain", and said this cohort felt closer to the first one than any since, everyone figuring it out from scratch again.

hzrd149 (nprofile…tfpf) commented:

A year ago we were talking about where we want to be and what tech we want to have, and there were always missing gaps. Now there don't seem to be many..

Totem is a case in point. Totem is a modular hardware platform running napplets on devices that connect in a mesh. We first imagined it at SEC-03, then shelved it for two years, not because people lost interest but because you could not build it right yet. Gzuuus, who has spent more time at Sovereign Engineering than any human alive said, "Totem never died, it was waiting for FIPS and napplets and runtimes to exist." This summer Totem got built, it had a friend and the two talked to each other.

SEC-08 ran 20 July to 28 August. Six weeks of pure unadulterated YOLO++ with half alumni and half new faces. After the focused sprints of SEC-06 and SEC-07 we went back to open exploration: mesh networking, maps, merchant payments, package distribution, a desktop pet, and a multiplayer game stuffed into one HTML file.

Do you even FIPS yet?

Native FIPS, public-key-addressed application traffic with no IP stack in the way, was reserved for FIPS v2. By the end of this year at the earliest. Then you put jcorgan (nprofile…sjfc) and jeffg (nprofile…n0n6) in the same room and it is a one-week problem.

The native datagram API eliminates HTTP, TLS, TCP and IPv6 out of the equation. No more npub.fips hostnames. The npub is the endpoint, and it looks close enough to a Berkeley socket. JeffG benchmarked it while wiring it into Wok and the relay got 8 to 58% faster depending on message size. By demo day Wok spoke native FIPS and White Noise was FIPS only. Encrypted group chat with no IPs, and no DNS.

FIPS was in the air again;

sandwich (nprofile…jml3) sent FIPS over sound. FipWave modulates packets into audio and two laptops hold a conversation across a room with nothing but chirps. Somebody on the pirate ship proposed dolphins next.

fips-exit-gate, fips-shield, fips2go and a FreeBSD port ( fr34aky (nprofile…vwwj) ) - reaching the legacy internet, filtering application-level abuse, putting Android and FreeBSD on the mesh.

JeffG's fips-mac installs and runs a FIPS node on a Mac and shows the mesh from the menu bar. Johnathan's fipsctl gives you the command-line view.

hzrd149 added FIPS support to nostr-relay-tray, putting your desktop relay on the mesh.

Arjen (nprofile…8d6t) demonstrated LUKS over FIPS, remotely unlocking an encrypted NixOS drive.

hzrd149's FIPS Pong bridged a game across three machines through a browser tab. His own review: "completely useless, but it worked."

nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7ctww35hqunfd4skctnwv46z7qgwwaehxw309ahx7uewd3hkctcqyrn45xzuqxwsjpyatl9su2dzejdl6qtwcrmd3yhunrm0lcqcrfyq6hetmjk (nprofile…tmjk) and julien (nprofile…xyae) worked on CruxCoach, which syncs a group's climbing playlist over a local BLE/FIPS mesh without internet access. The app itself can be shared over the same mesh. J also used Android's accessibility features to extract the user's MoonBoard logbook, because the MoonBoard needs to be liberated from its enshittification.

Napplets, runtimes and shells

Nostr is easy to use badly and hard to use well. Key handling, signing, relay selection, caching, encryption, expiry, and on and on. Every client implements all of it, and most implement some of it wrong.

Sandwich spent the past year working on NIP-5D, the napplet protocol. A napplet is a sandboxed, single-purpose app that asks a host shell to handle signing, relay access and storage. It never holds your key, never picks your relays, and doesn't know anything about storage. The hard, security-critical work is handled by the shell.

So to write a Nostr app, you don't have to be a Nostr developer i.e. you. Nostr already hands you self-signed structured data and a client was only ever the presentation layer, but until now, we kept making people rebuild the whole Nostr protocol to build clients. Now, a napplet can be shared over Bluetooth via FIPS, or fit inside a link along with its state which can be run on any of the napplet shells.

gsovereignty (nprofile…r7e4) 's RocketShell is a web runtime for NostrRocket.

yo (nprofile…nyzf) 's Uzel is a native Debian napplet runtime. PABLOF7z (nprofile…fg8w) 's nampplets provides a native Rust runtime for macOS.

hzrd149's Napplet Portal provides a server-backed host you can reach from your phone.

Rage of Empires (Gsovereignty and Yo) - decompiled AoE from the Windows binary and packed into a single 83 MB HTML file, multiplayer running once as a napplet and once as an nsite. As put by a participant, "I thought it was dumb. After a few days I got it. We can reverse engineer so many of the applications from the last generation."

Arjen's Myco is a meta sneakernet app over FIPS mesh to share apps and communications. Sherry (nprofile…ulqg) and Arjen worked on file sharing, think AirDrop over the mesh, and André brought it to the desktop with myco-desktop.

Nostrocket (Gsovereignty and Jeroen ✅ (nprofile…zddk) ) - G started this years ago around an absurdly ambitious question: how do you build a system resilient to psychopaths? Jeroen revived it this cohort, rebuilt as composable napplets. If you are curious, and you should be, go egg them on.

Nappagochi (Sherry) turns your Nostr activity into the changing life of your Nostr pet.

Anon&Mato (Balas) generates a playable world from your npub. It is beautifully created.

XR napplets (Sandwich) - remember Google Glasses? This is napplets on AR glasses! Think HUDs.

Blossoming Hashtrees

We didn't just FIPS, we Nix'd over Blossom(ing) Hashtrees. This one came off a walk, which is the least surprising sentence in this report. A Nix guy and a Blossom dude went up the hill, and came down with Nix packages over Blossom.

Nix addresses everything by hash. Blossom stores blobs by hash. Do you see it now? It was obvious, but the left foot, right foot rhythm was required for left brain, right brain juices to flow and synchronise. By Friday we had Nix packages distributed with no registry.

nixstr-cache (hzrd149) and Narwal with its publisher (Julien)- resolve Nix packages over Nostr and Hashtree, blobs pulled from Blossom, served to an ordinary Nix client. The packages arrive through a standard Nix binary cache interface, so you can keep using nix build. Nostr announcements identify the publisher, and Nix checks the cache signatures against the keys you trust. It barely worked by Friday - very promising, the correct state for a Friday before the BBQ.

Hashtree explainer (hzrd149) - if you always wanted to know what a hashtree is, it's IPFS without the rest of IPFS.

During the Hashtree talk, someone asked whether a map of the Earth could use one root, with smaller areas fetched as you zoomed in. raul_15 (nprofile…n6s8) and Franchovy (nprofile…f5yf) went and built Mapplets. They used a modified hashtree for the map and Nostr events for the map data, including Madeira's bus routes. Map tiles load as you zoom, and private overlays are shared with the people you choose.

Just works

Our favourite Poncha bar in Funchal knows us as the Bitcoin people. Its payment terminal had been broken for weeks, so we kept paying in euros. One week a bunch of participants decided to team up and fix the UX.

Just Works ( Thomas (nprofile…3mq9) , Yo and Zaza (nprofile…4fq8) ) was built. Just Works just creates beautiful nsites that just work. It has info, menu, schedules, reviews, news, PoS, payments, etc. and keys.justworks ( Gzuuus (nprofile…h9pq) ) handles the keys underneath.

Just Works takes every establishment in the area. Scrapes their site and their socials, generates a pretty nsite from it, links back to the legacy profiles so their customers still recognise them, gives them an npub, a QR code and a point of sale, and then it puts all of them on the just works map. And you can just start tipping them because you love your local dive bar so much. The owner ends up with a profile, a site, key management and a pile of sats waiting to be claimed.

It also looks good - which is not a sentence we get to write often. Work this far down the stack and you tell yourself beautiful is somebody else's job, right after the protocol is right. Zaza sat down with people one project at a time and showed them otherwise, ran a workshop and by the last demo day almost everything had been Zazafied.

Then we had Granola ( Breno Brito (nprofile…52y5) ), an idea since 2024. At SEC-08 he found people to build it with. It coordinates Cashu atomic swaps over Nostr. Other work explored escrow and dispute resolution in anonymous marketplaces.

Meza ( Gigi (nprofile…tf6v) )- lets you zap a highlighted passage and split the payment between its author, the person who highlighted it, and Boris, the reading app.

600 Billion Timelock TCG ( FLX (nprofile…w87z) and Breno) on Nappelin makes every card in a booster pack a Cashu token, with NUT-22 blinded tokens keeping your hand private. Coloured coins on Cashu, for a card game.

Clankers, data, and the strange stuff

Agents got treated as ordinary users of the network this time. They discover things, pay for things, remember things, and generally make great teammates.

whisperhash (nprofile…773h) 's Nostrology exposes Nostr ecosystem metrics over MCP, maps marketplace growth by geography, and accepts Cashu payments for Nutzap data queries. An agent finds a dataset, pays for a query and gets its answer.

Nectar explores structured, attestable datasets on Nostr.

si-eval explores auditable model evaluation for tasks such as key handling and privacy.

MDK and White Noise agents (JeffG)- used agents to generate thousands of test scenarios for MDK and built White Noise/Marmot connectors for the major agent tools. Other experiments involved shared memory in White Noise groups and short “mantras” intended to improve small models' tool calls.

Rahul explored agents helping with real-life tasks through Mappy, then put an agent inside a napplet with Kipina.

fips.email (Thomas) - accepts email addressed to your npub and forwards it as an encrypted NIP-17 message to your DM relays. He built it for agents, though people can use it too. No FIPS involved. People just love FIPS.

Mist (Julien) lets you explore Nostr conversations in clusters.

We worked on hardware too. Totems running napplets in shells connected in a self-healing mesh of other Totems over FIPS. Participants had flown in with cases of tools and equipment to build. Even so, they could not build the things they really wanted, because Madeira has no makerspace. This inspired two of the participants to start one, ready to fund it themselves. Nodesignal_Podcast (nprofile…6t7h) and other donors piled in behind them, now Nostr Office is giving the lab a home.

People came here to build things and left behind a place for building things.

Talks and workshops

Everyone's AI setup - a fixture now. Every participant shows how they actually work: harnesses, prompts, tools, learnings, etc. No two setups match. You steal two things on day three, then have six weeks to refine and upgrade.

In the spirit of Bitcoin (Gigi) - What does it mean to build it in the spirit of Bitcoin? What is the spirit of Bitcoin? Nobody can define the spirit of Bitcoin in a sentence, but you know it when someone violates it.

Nostr anti-patterns (Gigi) - the old internet is a habit, and habits follow you. The talk was about habits of the old internet and anti-patterns in Nostr, when deliberately avoided, allow us to be liberated from.

Other talks: A primer on Marmot (JeffG), Construction on Nostr (Felix), Everything is a Stream (hzrd149), TEEs (Gzuuus), History of Maps (FLX), and Messaging Protocols (JeffG and Gzuuus)

Cohort Experiments

We skipped the break week this time. By week four everyone was feeling it. SEC-05 had a detox week at that point, and we will probably bring it back.

In week five, Johnathan paired everyone up and asked them to announce their demos three days ahead. Participants appreciated this and took on more complex problems together. We have tried this before and want to keep refining it.

For one week, demos lasted just a minute. You had to decide what people needed to see and get straight to it. The discussions afterwards were better too, because the demos left more questions unanswered. Someone suggested shortening them throughout the cohort, from six minutes in week one to one minute in week six. We want to try that. G also built the Demo Day Command Center to keep us within our allotted time, which provided plenty of entertainment.

The final week was deliberately quieter. After five weeks of building, Gzuuus suggested leaving more time to take it all in and talk to each other. We rarely get six weeks in the same room with these people, and wanted to make the most of the time left.

Walks and barbecues are still the highest leverage R&D we do. Solvitur ambulando.

Paths forward

We didn't know what Sovereign Engineering really was when we started. We set out with a direction, an unshakable belief to "fix the internet". We didn't know how, and most of the tools did not exist. Eight cohorts on, ideas like Totem can finally be built. There is still plenty to figure out, but we can now build things we could only talk about only a year back.

Cohort after cohort of experimenting taught us what works, what doesn't, and how to run the loop that keeps producing ideas like these. Nix and Blossom happened on a walk. Spending six weeks together gives people time to understand each other's work, try something unlikely, abandon it and try again.

But six weeks is a lot to ask. People have jobs they cannot leave and children in school. Some have spent twenty years finding out how systems fail in practice, and we would love to have them here. Wanting to come does not make it possible.

So alongside the six-week cohorts, we are exploring shorter formats. Maybe a week in a mountain hut, working on one question and building towards a demo.

People have also asked about cohorts in other parts of the world. We want to explore that and work with people building local-first hardware/software and mesh networks who might never have considered coming to SEC.

If six weeks is why you have never applied, tell us what you could make time for. If you want to help organise something where you live, come talk to us.

Closing notes

SEC-08 ran on participants going full tilt for six weeks with no breather, and on the captains: Arjen, Gsovereignty, Thomas, Sandwich, Johnathan and Gzuuus, who each steered the ship for a week and took it seriously. Thank you to Zaza for showing us that our work could look beautiful, to SuperPopLimon (nprofile…haqa) for the BBQs and Ponchas, to the ladies at the Cowork for hosting us, to andreloja (nprofile…kxan) for the space and dealing with the unglamorous parts of running Sovereign Engineering, and to Gigi (nprofile…tf6v) for the heart he keeps putting into this.

Head over to the projects page, pick something off this list. Try it, break it, go tell the person who made it. Then come build with us.

The pieces be scattered, laddies, but they be ours. Lash 'em together an' sail.

More: sovereignengineering.io | No Solutions

We do too. In the meantime, we have SEC which is close enough to ...

2026-09-19T07:53:42Z

In reply to nevent1q…lhej
_________________________

We do too. In the meantime, we have SEC which is close enough to a crystal ball. It is time to make some time.

Nostr event nevent1qqs9qx5leg2yz0hnl4csc03w528dq9ppvmau9yywjj3pdcpt4lx2mdqzyzpanxdpfp39c0fthqv67vrycrm2ztta4z8k3vkxjgsl8f6xzuw3jseg4tx

2026-09-03T17:28:40Z

Some participants come to Soveng carrying more than their laptops. They arrive with large backpacks and cases full of equipment to build. We saw this again at SEC-08, which just ended, with hardware projects such as Totem and Tollgate. Without a shared workshop or access to the right tools on the island, some builders could not do everything they had hoped to do.

A couple of participants decided to change that and began planning a small, shared fab lab for the community and were prepared to fund it themselves. Then Nodesignal_Podcast (nprofile…6t7h) generously offered to fund part of it, and other donors came forward too. What began with a couple of participants choosing to solve a problem has become a shared effort, with 3 million sats raised so far. 🫶

We are starting small. Those sats will buy a 3D printer, workbench, storage, tools, chips, devices and other materials the community can use. The lab will be set up at https://nostroffice.nobios.ai/ . A big shoutout to them for giving it a home. They have built something special and have been great friends to Soveng. We are grateful to be building this next piece together.

This is exactly the kind of initiative we love to see and want to encourage more of. Someone sees a need and takes the first step, then a community gathers around them and helps make it real. We want the workshop to grow in that same spirit.

If you'd like to help us put it together, you can contribute here:

`bc1qwatxa4ftrxnnfmx8epr8zqj05gkxsxtrmzq9x4`

If you have something you want to build, come build with us.

We waiting for you to join! Next one!

2026-08-21T12:52:22Z

In reply to nevent1q…lu9j
_________________________

We waiting for you to join! Next one!

Its week 5 Demo Day of SEC-08 and the mood ...

2026-08-21T12:25:03Z

Its week 5 Demo Day of SEC-08 and the mood

Nostr event nevent1qqsvqkuc7ac7h728ljhe4s2rffauljn5a5d4qemzrczktxyjgk6gq0szyzpanxdpfp39c0fthqv67vrycrm2ztta4z8k3vkxjgsl8f6xzuw3jt87zku

2026-08-07T20:22:58Z

No wonder it makes even the clankers happy ...

2026-07-27T09:35:06Z

No wonder it makes even the clankers happy

quoting
nevent1q…xzmy

FIPS is growing fast, from zero toward a global mesh of around 2,000 nodes, and the public UDP overlay already shows more than 300 nodes worldwide.

#SEC08 #SovEng #FIPS fips (npub1y0g…00ly) Sovereign Engineering (npub1s0v…rmq5)

We scheduled SEC-08 in summer specifically to make it easier for ...

2026-07-26T00:51:08Z

In reply to nevent1q…d00y
_________________________

We scheduled SEC-08 in summer specifically to make it easier for legends with family to make the pilgrimage .. there is still time 😁

there's still time 😁

2026-07-26T00:47:55Z

In reply to nevent1q…5khx
_________________________

there's still time 😁

100%

2026-07-26T00:33:19Z

In reply to nevent1q…30mu
_________________________

100%

Swag game on point 🤙 ...

2026-07-26T00:32:30Z

Swag game on point 🤙

Prep for the first Demo day of SEC-08 going strong! Heavy fuel ...

2026-07-24T12:25:50Z

Prep for the first Demo day of SEC-08 going strong! Heavy fuel for heavy demos!

You need to come! There is no other way!

2026-07-22T14:20:34Z

In reply to nevent1q…63w9
_________________________

You need to come! There is no other way!

Kicking off SEC-08 in style! #SovEng ...

2026-07-20T11:18:52Z

Kicking off SEC-08 in style! #SovEng

@nprofile…m2ve please reach out to us as our printer needs help ...

2026-07-08T11:41:28Z

Bitcoin Sikho (nprofile…m2ve) please reach out to us as our printer needs help with the design file 😅

quoting
nevent1q…nfud
Hyped about winning the tshirt design contest for SEC-08

Super grateful 🙌🏻

#nostrdesign #madeira

nevent1q…dpc2

Think Alexandria mirrored across the globe, cared for and ...

2026-06-21T10:18:59Z

In reply to nevent1q…d490
_________________________

Think Alexandria mirrored across the globe, cared for and maintained by the people

SEC-08 applications close tomorrow midnight. If you have been on ...

2026-06-21T08:26:14Z

SEC-08 applications close tomorrow midnight. If you have been on the fence, act - now!

https://sovereignengineering.io/#apply

quoting
naddr1qv…r0mu

We said we're doing it again. We meant it.

SEC-08 runs from July 20 to August 28, 2026. Six weeks of summer in Madeira with twenty-one builders. School's out, bring your dog, bring your family or come by yourself.

SEC-05 wrapped up last October and it was productive chaos. Localhost maximalists, Routstr, Beacon, FIPs, ContextVM, noDNS, Paygress, Earthly.City, Spotstr, Innpub and six weeks of pure vibe coding. Friday demos ran long because everyone shipped multiple projects. Poncha-fueled evenings produced memes that became real code by morning. The energy was electric.

SEC-08 is open exploration, not a focused sprint like SEC-06 or SEC-07. Bring your half-baked ideas. Bring your project that needs momentum. Bring the thing you've been wanting to build, but needed the right people around to make it real.

Past cohorts produced Zapstore, Tollgate, Nutzaps (NIP-60/61), Wikifreedia, and dozens more because of the isolated, in-person environment. Madeira is remote, hard to reach, and in-person only. That's how magic happens.

Applications are now open for SEC-08: YOLO++ (apply here). Six weeks. July 20 - August 28, 2026. See all upcoming cohorts.

If you're building freedom tech - the protocols, infrastructure, and tools that no single entity can control - we want to hear from you. If you know someone who should be there, send them our way.

Great weather. The ocean as far as the eye can see. Vibe to your heart's content.

More: sovereignengineering.io | No Solutions Podcast

Build with us:

Archives today are very fragile and are a problem that we deeply ...

2026-06-21T07:56:07Z

Archives today are very fragile and are a problem that we deeply think about. We have been thinking about doing a cohort dedicated on that.

Raise your hand if you'd like to solve it and tag someone who you'd like to solve it with.

quoting
nevent1q…tkp5
This IS why #nostr is vital...

Next cohort

2026-06-19T16:18:34Z

In reply to nevent1q…lwr2
_________________________

Next cohort

We are also hyped you won and would like to share our hype with ...

2026-06-19T09:55:30Z

We are also hyped you won and would like to share our hype with you if you'd only got in touch with us 😅

quoting
nevent1q…nfud
Hyped about winning the tshirt design contest for SEC-08

Super grateful 🙌🏻

#nostrdesign #madeira

nevent1q…dpc2

Can you please reply to our DM? 😅

2026-06-18T10:58:01Z

In reply to nevent1q…9lu6
_________________________

Can you please reply to our DM? 😅

Love certainly does make us blind sometimes )

2026-06-17T18:30:29Z

In reply to nevent1q…9t7n
_________________________

Love certainly does make us blind sometimes )

Tim and his friends seem to disagree it seems 😄

2026-06-17T17:18:29Z

In reply to nevent1q…naga
_________________________

Tim and his friends seem to disagree it seems 😄

Stay tuned!

2026-06-17T17:12:02Z

In reply to nevent1q…rgau
_________________________

Stay tuned!

yes, that is what we meant 😄

2026-06-17T15:18:20Z

In reply to nevent1q…4ntw
_________________________

yes, that is what we meant 😄

Now we are talking!

2026-06-17T15:06:46Z

In reply to nevent1q…cgfg
_________________________

Now we are talking!

Please check your DM 😅

2026-06-17T15:05:25Z

In reply to nevent1q…r360
_________________________

Please check your DM 😅

GM good people of Nostrverse! As promised, the SEC-08 t-shirt ...

2026-06-17T00:10:49Z

GM good people of Nostrverse! As promised, the SEC-08 t-shirt contest results are in.

Firstly, we thank you, to the people that participated and shared with us such great designs to make our lives harder Then, to the people that shared them, engaged with them and sometimes provided us something to chuckle about. And finally, to all the Nostr (Bitcoin, LN & Cashu) developers and users that have made this tiny little garden of ours where we flourish. We are eternally grateful to not have to deal with logins and passwords, captchas and verifications to prove our humanity, KYC just to fucking get an account or zap someone 1 or 10 or a MILLION sats, auto spam filtering - because, WoT & PoW, bots and the cacophony of the clown world - because only autists and masochists(sometimes) can actually bear the "friction" and novelty of this beautiful nascent protocol - and now we know that art people can too.

Most importantly, we are grateful that we didn't have to gatekeep this contest, use emails or create some special system for it because as far as we are concerned Nostr does work and it works pretty well. This started as a small experiment, and it turned into a proper gallery of very good, very weird, very Sovereign Engineering designs. This was a very human experience.

Phew.. now that that's out of the way, let's get to the meat.. so, the winners of SEC-08 T-shirt Design Contest are..

- 1st goes to Bitcoin Sikho (nprofile…vhew) for the "Tin Can" design! 🤌🏻
- 2nd goes to Joel 🇨🇭 (nprofile…5ds4) for reading the times so well! Well done!
- 3rd goes to timosolo (nprofile…6s0u) for exciting the nerd in us! Great work!

For the rest of the voting and scores see: https://tshirt.sovereignengineering.io/results

Honorable mention: ARVIN (nprofile…cg4q) for such a great concept, but just missed it! We would definitely like to do something with it.

P.S. These t-shirts are usually exclusive for SEC participants.. Now, if people are really interested in specific designs, do let us know and maybe we can do something about that 😉

Keep on piratin'

UTC

2026-06-16T06:34:43Z

In reply to nevent1q…83k7
_________________________

UTC

Thank you every who participated in the t-shirt contest. This was ...

2026-06-16T05:42:15Z

Thank you every who participated in the t-shirt contest. This was one of those experiments to test the open waters as we do at SECs and we are surprised and happy about it! We've got some really good designs and we're really going to have to make some hard choices!

Stay tuned, we'll be announcing the winners pretty soon. Until then, you can view all the submissions at:

https://tshirt.sovereignengineering.io/

#SovEng

Appreciate your efforts, but just a bit too late

2026-06-16T05:23:31Z

In reply to nevent1q…c5wg
_________________________

Appreciate your efforts, but just a bit too late

Oi! Just a wee bit late, were we..?

2026-06-16T05:21:47Z

In reply to nevent1q…94z9
_________________________

Oi! Just a wee bit late, were we..?

Wholesome! Thank you for your submission!

2026-06-16T05:17:41Z

In reply to nevent1q…39g8
_________________________

Wholesome! Thank you for your submission!

Nice! Thank you for your submission!

2026-06-15T20:57:08Z

In reply to nevent1q…eh7h
_________________________

Nice! Thank you for your submission!

We concur.. last couple of hours until submissions close.. the ...

2026-06-15T20:54:48Z

We concur.. last couple of hours until submissions close.. the mystery shall be revealed soon!

quoting
nevent1q…4jrt
So many great designs! I’m curious to see who wins. I honestly couldn’t choose 🤍
nevent1q…0qw8

Keys are very important! Thank you for your submission!

2026-06-15T20:52:28Z

In reply to nevent1q…6x9v
_________________________

Keys are very important! Thank you for your submission!

Grateful for your submission, despite all odds! Thank you!

2026-06-15T20:49:25Z

In reply to nevent1q…2ltl
_________________________

Grateful for your submission, despite all odds! Thank you!

That's a good system! Thank you for your submission!

2026-06-15T20:48:17Z

In reply to nevent1q…zqq4
_________________________

That's a good system! Thank you for your submission!

Would make a great cover art! Thank you for your submission!

2026-06-15T20:46:34Z

In reply to nevent1q…5jmd
_________________________

Would make a great cover art! Thank you for your submission!

Nice! This will come in very handy for SEC-08!

2026-06-15T09:48:46Z

In reply to nevent1q…dqhy
_________________________

Nice! This will come in very handy for SEC-08!

Tonight 23:59:59 hrs UTC

2026-06-15T04:05:38Z

In reply to nevent1q…r76g
_________________________

Tonight 23:59:59 hrs UTC

"How many clankers you got under that floor?" Thank you ...

2026-06-15T04:03:19Z

In reply to nevent1q…27zm
_________________________

"How many clankers you got under that floor?"

Thank you for your submission

Lovely! Thank you for your submission!

2026-06-15T03:59:59Z

In reply to nevent1q…x23f
_________________________

Lovely! Thank you for your submission!

One day to go! #nevent1q…flzr

2026-06-14T20:54:18Z

One day to go!

quoting
nevent1q…flzr
Crazy good submissions for the #SovEng t-shirt contest. Only 2 days left to win a million sats! https://tshirt.sovereignengineering.io/

We love pixels too! Thank you for your submission!

2026-06-14T15:01:40Z

In reply to nevent1q…wvtl
_________________________

We love pixels too! Thank you for your submission!

Thank you for you submission again!

2026-06-14T15:00:34Z

In reply to nevent1q…67gr
_________________________

Thank you for you submission again!

@nprofile…jvwp

2026-06-14T08:44:47Z

In reply to nevent1q…tsa0
_________________________

KatelynMitalski (nprofile…jvwp)

Neat! Thank you for your submission!

2026-06-14T08:37:12Z

In reply to nevent1q…vzq0
_________________________

Neat! Thank you for your submission!

Thank you for your submission!

2026-06-13T17:33:55Z

In reply to nevent1q…4sml
_________________________

Thank you for your submission!

Thnk you for your submission!

2026-06-13T17:33:02Z

In reply to nevent1q…drxe
_________________________

Thnk you for your submission!

Thank you for your submission!

2026-06-13T17:32:21Z

In reply to nevent1q…kv7p
_________________________

Thank you for your submission!

Arrr! Thank you for you submission!

2026-06-12T10:36:14Z

In reply to nevent1q…zdzc
_________________________

Arrr! Thank you for you submission!

Layers upon layers, that's how we build. Thank you for your ...

2026-06-12T10:33:19Z

In reply to nevent1q…xssg
_________________________

Layers upon layers, that's how we build. Thank you for your submission!

Thank you for your submission!

2026-06-11T12:54:46Z

In reply to nevent1q…mtah
_________________________

Thank you for your submission!

Thank you for your submission! ARRRR!

2026-06-11T10:39:58Z

In reply to nevent1q…qtd7
_________________________

Thank you for your submission! ARRRR!

To the open seas full of possibilities and treasure waiting for ...

2026-06-11T10:32:17Z

In reply to nevent1q…gzrk
_________________________

To the open seas full of possibilities and treasure waiting for the worthy! Thank you for your submission!

Onwards! ARRRRRR! Thank you for your submission!

2026-06-11T10:29:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…als5
_________________________

Onwards! ARRRRRR! Thank you for your submission!

We believe in you Katelyn!

2026-06-11T10:25:39Z

In reply to nevent1q…jvws
_________________________

We believe in you Katelyn!

We did say, nothing is off limits! 😂 Thank you good sir!

2026-06-10T16:13:38Z

In reply to nevent1q…yud3
_________________________

We did say, nothing is off limits! 😂 Thank you good sir!

We are sure there's a story to that design? Thank you for ...

2026-06-10T15:53:23Z

In reply to nevent1q…303g
_________________________

We are sure there's a story to that design? Thank you for your submission!

Beautiful! Thank you for your submission!

2026-06-10T15:51:24Z

In reply to nevent1q…9jcl
_________________________

Beautiful! Thank you for your submission!

A survivalist! Thank you for your submission!

2026-06-09T22:15:34Z

In reply to nevent1q…gsfa
_________________________

A survivalist! Thank you for your submission!

We hope to see you soon, 'til then, keep on piratin'

2026-06-09T22:13:42Z

In reply to nevent1q…z0yq
_________________________

We hope to see you soon, 'til then, keep on piratin'

Very stoic! Thank you good sir for your submission!

2026-06-09T22:12:25Z

In reply to nevent1q…7ssa
_________________________

Very stoic! Thank you good sir for your submission!

Nostr event nevent1qqswsz9f2j7gy99naukyc3vwm4dx8jpdmc8wqq2arr9565r447ft53czyzpanxdpfp39c0fthqv67vrycrm2ztta4z8k3vkxjgsl8f6xzuw3jmjxvzy

2026-06-08T20:47:06Z

In reply to nevent1q…latl
_________________________

Mr Sassy Batman, thank you for taking the time out to care about ...

2026-06-08T20:38:59Z

In reply to nevent1q…0lhx
_________________________

Mr Sassy Batman, thank you for taking the time out to care about the boring, useful stuff and your effort to spin up a clean demo. This is exactly the kind of spirit we share and collect at Sovereign Engineering. Come join us for SEC-08.

On Nostr powered forms, there is https://formstr.app/

One remark on your demo, there should be an option to keep the submissions private and only visible to the host to protect participants' privacy.

Beautiful! Thank you for your submission!

2026-06-08T20:30:00Z

In reply to nevent1q…p8dm
_________________________

Beautiful! Thank you for your submission!

One week left to win 1,000,000 sats! ...

2026-06-08T10:41:21Z

One week left to win 1,000,000 sats! https://tshirt.sovereignengineering.io/

Striking right at the core! Thank you for your submission!

2026-06-07T15:55:35Z

In reply to nevent1q…fd2e
_________________________

Striking right at the core! Thank you for your submission!

Shipping since 1492 #nevent1q…4ty3

2026-06-07T09:09:53Z

Shipping since 1492

quoting
nevent1q…4ty3

You know the answer! Thank you for your submission!

2026-06-07T09:02:40Z

In reply to nevent1q…rpul
_________________________

You know the answer! Thank you for your submission!

Peep Peep! Thanks again!

2026-06-07T08:56:09Z

In reply to nevent1q…wc6j
_________________________

Peep Peep! Thanks again!

I see what you did there! 😁 Thank you for your submission!

2026-06-07T08:54:27Z

In reply to nevent1q…hezv
_________________________

I see what you did there! 😁 Thank you for your submission!

Howdy folks! When we thought of doing this we did not expect that ...

2026-06-04T19:38:16Z

Howdy folks! When we thought of doing this we did not expect that we'd get these many submissions and such high quality ones! Its been great seeing all them come in! We appreciate them!

For all the people still working on their master pieces, 10 more days to go!

And to repeat, you can submit as many designs as you want, we know you have more than one crazy idea!

Keep on piratin' .. ARRRRR!!!!

quoting
nevent1q…y9pl

Howdy fellow Pirates and Nostriches! SEC-08 is coming up and for people who aren't able to participate, here's your chance! We doing a contest for the SEC-08 t-shirt design!

Whether you are a designer or not, let that not dampen your spirits. Make it as fun or as serious as you want it to be. Nothing is off-limits. Be radical!

Final submission: June 15th

To participate, post a mockup of your design on Nostr and use the #SovEng hashtag or tag @SovereignEngineering. We'll announce & zap the winners shortly after.

Head over to https://sovereignengineering.io/contest for more details!

#SovEng #SEC-08

Prescient! 👏 👏 👏 Appreciate your submission! Thank you! ...

2026-06-04T18:45:19Z

In reply to nevent1q…qk3m
_________________________

Prescient! 👏 👏 👏 Appreciate your submission! Thank you! Hope to see you back on the island soon mate

Clean! Lovely! Thank you for your submission!

2026-06-04T18:41:21Z

In reply to nevent1q…960f
_________________________

Clean! Lovely! Thank you for your submission!

Electric! Thank you for you submission!

2026-06-04T18:39:20Z

In reply to nevent1q…v4k4
_________________________

Electric! Thank you for you submission!

Nostr event nevent1qqs90eza5hddg0ujyp3pe0g5eq2078a6me06j29l6nrar4cgl8vqppszyzpanxdpfp39c0fthqv67vrycrm2ztta4z8k3vkxjgsl8f6xzuw3jfrzm6x

2026-06-03T14:04:01Z

🤙

That's a deceptively sweet little ostrich! Thank you for your ...

2026-06-03T08:35:07Z

In reply to nevent1q…qrk8
_________________________

That's a deceptively sweet little ostrich! Thank you for your submission!

Thank you for your submission! Arrrr!

2026-06-02T06:52:49Z

In reply to nevent1q…qeme
_________________________

Thank you for your submission! Arrrr!

This was one of the really cool demos! #nevent1q…hd3x

2026-05-30T20:03:43Z

This was one of the really cool demos!

quoting
nevent1q…hd3x
A random update on what I've been doing. This project isn't quite ready, but I'm very happy with my progress since I got back into this about ten days ago. I hope to ask for testers soon:

MONAD is a system with some similarities to Tor, and also to the everyday usage of the word "VPN", a system to allow you to access websites and systems while obfuscating your location, e.g. access Netflix from another country. I started it as a demo for Sovereign Engineering (nprofile…0yke) and now I'm going to try to get a usable system out

It's funded by Cashu, specifically by the Spilman channels, so that you can easily pay tiny amounts (one sat, or even one millisat) as needed to keep the stream alive. This helps privacy because it makes it easier to use a different payment for each session, so that the relay operator can't easily link your sessions together

Like Tor, you can select multiple relays in a chain for extra privacy, and you pay each one separately. It's onion routing, with sessions nested inside each other

Lots of encryption of course, using secp256k1. And blinded paths already implemented as an option, in order that the client doesn't know the IP address (or FIPS address) of every relay fips (nprofile…the5)

A few days out of date, I'll update it fully when it's ready for some testing:
https://github.com/SatsAndSports/MONAD

Cashu (nprofile…8aw4)

Clean! Thank you for your submission!

2026-05-30T16:31:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…lcmu
_________________________

Clean! Thank you for your submission!

You can submit more than one design, we know you have more than ...

2026-05-30T16:30:21Z

You can submit more than one design, we know you have more than one idea - we know, we have a million! So, as long as the contest is live, keep 'em coming!

Ahoy!

quoting
nevent1q…y9pl

Howdy fellow Pirates and Nostriches! SEC-08 is coming up and for people who aren't able to participate, here's your chance! We doing a contest for the SEC-08 t-shirt design!

Whether you are a designer or not, let that not dampen your spirits. Make it as fun or as serious as you want it to be. Nothing is off-limits. Be radical!

Final submission: June 15th

To participate, post a mockup of your design on Nostr and use the #SovEng hashtag or tag @SovereignEngineering. We'll announce & zap the winners shortly after.

Head over to https://sovereignengineering.io/contest for more details!

#SovEng #SEC-08

Cool! Thank you for submitting! Keep them coming, multiple ...

2026-05-30T16:27:52Z

In reply to nevent1q…8cun
_________________________

Cool! Thank you for submitting! Keep them coming, multiple submissions are very much welcome!

Lovely! Thank you for submitting!

2026-05-30T16:26:36Z

In reply to nevent1q…shk4
_________________________

Lovely! Thank you for submitting!

Nice! Thank you for your submission! Keep it coming!

2026-05-29T10:49:41Z

In reply to nevent1q…hf53
_________________________

Nice! Thank you for your submission! Keep it coming!

For the engineers, SEC-08 applications are still on. Apply below: ...

2026-05-27T19:11:55Z

For the engineers, SEC-08 applications are still on. Apply below:

https://sovereignengineering.typeform.com/SEC-08

P.S. you, yes you reading this, if you're not an engineer, share this with the engineers tirelessly fighting against the enshitification of the internet.

quoting
nevent1q…y9pl

Howdy fellow Pirates and Nostriches! SEC-08 is coming up and for people who aren't able to participate, here's your chance! We doing a contest for the SEC-08 t-shirt design!

Whether you are a designer or not, let that not dampen your spirits. Make it as fun or as serious as you want it to be. Nothing is off-limits. Be radical!

Final submission: June 15th

To participate, post a mockup of your design on Nostr and use the #SovEng hashtag or tag @SovereignEngineering. We'll announce & zap the winners shortly after.

Head over to https://sovereignengineering.io/contest for more details!

#SovEng #SEC-08

Nice! Thank you for your submission! Keep them coming!

2026-05-27T19:06:05Z

In reply to nevent1q…lrdw
_________________________

Nice! Thank you for your submission! Keep them coming!

Will check this out. Have you tried relatr and its elo plugins? ...

2026-05-27T16:41:20Z

In reply to nevent1q…awl7
_________________________

Will check this out. Have you tried relatr and its elo plugins?

https://github.com/ContextVM/relatr

Nostr event nevent1qqsv79vx7p8m7r90p6u3nsw3jphp5e5vw2ekwd5np268slent5dljnqzyzpanxdpfp39c0fthqv67vrycrm2ztta4z8k3vkxjgsl8f6xzuw3jgq3l79

2026-05-27T11:08:55Z

quoting
nevent1q…8a3c
What the heck

Thank you for your submission! Keep them coming!

2026-05-27T11:08:11Z

In reply to nevent1q…afyg
_________________________

Thank you for your submission! Keep them coming!

Friction is good. Slow is better. Small is beautiful. ...

2026-05-27T08:09:55Z

Friction is good. Slow is better. Small is beautiful.

quoting
nevent1q…95n0
You don't need permission to do whatever you want with open protocols. We get so many participants at every SEC who are new to Nostr and they have had material contributions to making Nostr better in more than one ways.

As the saying goes "you can just do things" and that sometimes also means you have to protect open protocols from enshittification.

nevent1q…4ed5

You don't need permission to do whatever you want with open ...

2026-05-27T08:08:04Z

You don't need permission to do whatever you want with open protocols. We get so many participants at every SEC who are new to Nostr and they have had material contributions to making Nostr better in more than one ways.

As the saying goes "you can just do things" and that sometimes also means you have to protect open protocols from enshittification.

quoting
nevent1q…4ed5
You don't understand how biased you are for an unimpressive solution. We didn't skip building on Nostr out of ego. Nostr is not relevant to anyone but Bitcoin maximalists (because they are the only ones gullible enough to think Nostr is amazing).

We don't build on Nostr because when we did try to give our ideas to Nostr people they were totally ignored and insulted. Our designs are not new, and they predate Nostr. Believe it or not, our work inspired Nostr, not copied it.

Pubky is strictly better than Nostr. There is literally nothing better about Nostr aside from having some (decreasing) users.

Useful people aren't welcome to build on Nostr. You have to be some kind of fake-famous blessed-by-Jack-or-Odell asshole to work here. Nostr wants loyalty and tribal behavior, and we aren't in your tribe so we don't get any respect.

So, fuck you, and fuck everyone that thinks Nostr is a holy grail, or anything special at all. Because the design is bad, and the community wouldn't let you save it if you tried. Nostr is for Bitcoin Podcast listeners that want to feel like they understand tech, but are too lazy to actually learn.

You don't care about solving problems or helping people. You care about being "cool" with your fake internet friends. Have fun staying on nostr, I don't care because the world is actually a better place when losers like you stay away from other platforms. X is better without such people. Pubky too. Nostr's best feature is gathering moronic losers into one place.

I'm only here to save the people that ended up here by mistake. The rest of you can go back to your stupid life larping as Satoshi.

nevent1q…5ke8

Nostr event nevent1qqszhf7ckr0a74gwf2yr4sdvfv2zt7n029ynxqg2xrqmf6w8n0znduqzyzpanxdpfp39c0fthqv67vrycrm2ztta4z8k3vkxjgsl8f6xzuw3jqdjkc3

2026-05-26T18:13:46Z

Howdy fellow Pirates and Nostriches! SEC-08 is coming up and for people who aren't able to participate, here's your chance! We doing a contest for the SEC-08 t-shirt design!

Whether you are a designer or not, let that not dampen your spirits. Make it as fun or as serious as you want it to be. Nothing is off-limits. Be radical!

Final submission: June 15th

To participate, post a mockup of your design on Nostr and use the #SovEng hashtag or tag @SovereignEngineering. We'll announce & zap the winners shortly after.

Head over to https://sovereignengineering.io/contest for more details!

#SovEng #SEC-08

Checkout the heartbeat on all the projects that were created or ...

2026-05-25T19:32:03Z

Checkout the heartbeat on all the projects that were created or explored during one of the SECs:

https://heartbeat.sovereignengineering.io/

Its a good way to keep track on the most active projects.

Good and accessible discussion on FIPS. Give it a listen ...

2026-05-23T21:17:46Z

Good and accessible discussion on FIPS. Give it a listen

quoting
nevent1q…h9fz
Open markets need more than open money. They need open communication.

This week we sat down with Arjen, one of the creators of FIPS, to talk about the missing network layer beneath Bitcoin, Nostr, and open commerce.

If you’re new to FIPS, this is a decent place to start.

https://fountain.fm/episode/eaQOAVu8jhFQUhqu3XTu

There's more to solutions than, "you can just do ...

2026-05-23T20:54:46Z

There's more to solutions than, "you can just do things". Many a well meaning solutions in the moment turned out to be nightmares eventually, not because they were mala fied, but because they fundamentally misunderstood the problem they were trying to solve.

Philosophy is as much, if not more important than knowledge especially in the hands of the highly capable, for a "Don't be evil" can with a stroke of a pen change to "Do the right thing" without batting an eyelid as if nothing changed.

This here is an example of why you may not want to "you can just do things", and take a moment. Reflect.

There is knowledge and then there is wisdom.

quoting
nevent1q…f9mu
DHT is an obvious solution for the perceived problem of data resolution, has been talked about since before I showed up in 2022 and is also why pubky exists to begin with; It's a better between technical accuracy and philosophical preference.

Something to consider you may not have already: what happens when clients start developing around the DHT as a first principle instead of NIP-01? There's a few implications of this at a high level:

1. Fewer and fewer clients will work in network segmented contexts because clients will assume all relays belong to a "global state," this limits the potential use cases of nostr. While there would be no technical limitation for clients to support non-DHT discovered relays, they would simply have no incentive to. Outbox would slowly die off, and the nostr ecosystem would be filled with applications that rely on global state for operation.
2. Social relationships are built outwards from the observer, nostr replicates this in its network topology. DHTs represent a global state and then a the observer works from the global state back to themselves. There could be many different DHTs, but then you have arbitrary boundaries that are difficult to cross. The former reflects of healthy human networks, while the latter more closely reflects the human networks we see in mainstream social media that is at the root of an uptick of mental illness. It's difficult to my discomfort with this one into words.
3. Potential slippery slope, once we introduce one global state, then why not put everything on a DHT? Pubkeys? Topics? Etc. It potentially erodes decentralization on a long enough time-scale, and at a certain point it hits a hard upper limit, challenging the "global" intent.

From a purely technical perspective, DHT makes sense and is the obvious solution to the perceived "problem." There are some scaling issues associated with it, but as long as the scope is tight enough the ceiling is pretty high, so on a technical level it passes the sniff test.

On a philosophical level it potentially signals a higher-level retraction the paradigm-shift that nostr has proposed. Nostr is not a payments network, it doesn't need a global state. Humans operate best and are most happy in a localized context, the global context is what is drives much of societal decay that we see today. Nostr works, it's hard to make it work, it has patterns that are intuitive and challenge conventional understanding of network design, but it works and in a way that is fundamentally different way than anything else.

For myself and many others, nostr's "no global" philosophy is a feature, not a bug.

Regardless of my critique, great work! Interesting exploration. It is inevitable someone would eventually dive into this. But not what I'm personally looking for in when establishing digital human connections. Unfortunately, I fear this is where we will end up because it's such an obvious optimization, and it's difficult to refute.

Happy Pizza Day 🏴‍☠️ ...

2026-05-22T19:33:33Z

Happy Pizza Day 🏴‍☠️