As of now, academic research on decentralized social protocols includes Mastodon with over 70 papers, Bluesky with 10+, Farcaster with 7, and Nostr with only 4. Mastodon has seen the most extensive study, while the relatively small body of research on Farcaster is somewhat surprising. Given Web3’s momentum in academia, one would expect more work on Farcaster.

From July to September last year, YakiHonne participated in academic conferences at the University of Hong Kong, Nanyang Technological University, and ITSC in Bilbao, Spain, where we introduced Nostr to researchers. At the time, very few had even heard of Damus. Three weeks ago, we provided 10 Nostr-related research topics to academics studying decentralized social networks.  Some challenges were raised, particularly regarding Farcaster’s research, but we eventually settled on an empirical analysis of Nostr.

That said, this is still far from enough. Nostr deserves its own dedicated decentralized research group.

https://image.nostr.build/d937a7437e6a71e3998c59dcbeef32f388fcb687701f920dfba90eebfe9621a0.jpg
https://image.nostr.build/9d9259f948a9d56b16e1f2b0f384ee0a667be70772a815bb3530be4c74026e36.jpg
https://image.nostr.build/1ff5e05105caeca9af434a44e9a4bf31eafe7c7607db0f7e3a85ded9b6864b75.jpg
https://image.nostr.build/72f5b6fda8bb1189f5c88f1f9b3ddd45b1542b8000c5d1149685cbca787c1feb.jpg

nostr:note127gr256lylsn89g8ac39smwk33mw2k74wtm65n78wxnswggl9l5s6tzk0s