“This was despite the fact that ATProto basically does everything he wants in a decentralized social protocol, but he prefers the more Bitcoin-y community of Nostr”.  

right off the bat ATProto collects your email & phone number when you sign up, NOSTR does not, so ATProto basically DOES NOT do everything @jack wants in decentralized protocol  

 bluesky doesn't require a phone number anymore and you can just Lie about your email, they do not require verification 

 nice, why did they need phone numbers before?  

 It's not a protocol requirement. Just was an anti spam measure on Bluesky pbllc hosted pdses. Replaced by captcha