Neighbors

Why Nostr

Nostr is an open way to send messages. No company owns it. Your identity is a key you hold, the same idea as your Bitcoin keys.

• Your key is your name. A Nostr key has two halves. The public half (an npub) is what neighbors see. The private half (an nsec) stays with you. Lose it, and no one can recover it. Hold it, and no one can be you.
• No one owns it. Messages travel through relays: simple servers anyone can run. If one relay won't carry you, another will.
• Bitcoin is built in. Nostr apps can send Lightning payments to each other. Many Bitcoiners already live there.

One key. Your identity, your messages and your trades. No one can take it from you.

How it works for members

1. Make a key just for the Commonwealth. The easiest way: sign up in Flotilla. Keep the key separate from anything with your real name on it, and back it up on paper.
2. Sign the charter with it. That's how neighbors know you're a member, without knowing who you are.
3. Get your invite. We send each new signer an invite to the members' room, by private Nostr message.
4. Talk, plan and trade with your neighbors there.
5. Pay each other directly. Over Lightning, or barter. This site never touches money.

Members

Everyone who has signed the charter, by their Nostr name. Tap a name to open them in your Nostr app.

Where we meet: Flotilla

Flotilla is group chat built on Nostr: think Discord, without a company owning your account. It runs on iPhone, Android and the web, and you log in with your Nostr key.

The BitcoinCommonwealth room is private and invite-only. Charter signers get in; no one else does. Inside:

• General: talk with neighbors.
• Market: members-only listings. Tenet 3 at work.
• Gatherings: meetups, dates and plans.

Plans go in the room. Addresses and trade details go in private messages. The room is private, but it isn't end-to-end encrypted: whoever hosts it could read it.

Trading peer to peer

• Members only: post in the Market room. A neighbor messages you privately. You agree, and they pay your Lightning wallet directly. Or you barter.
• A public shop: if you want to sell to anyone, open a shop on Shopstr, a Nostr marketplace paid in Bitcoin. Same key, no sign-up. Anyone can see it, so use it only for what you're happy to show the world.

No platform between neighbors. No cut for us. That is tenet 3, buying from each other first, done the sovereign way. In the US, spending bitcoin can be taxable: see the Market.

Your privacy

• Use a pseudonym. Your npub is all a neighbor needs. Share your real name only with people you trust, when you choose.
• Public posts are public forever. Anything posted openly on Nostr, including Shopstr listings, can be copied and kept.
• Private messages hide more than words. Modern Nostr messages are encrypted and also hide who sent them and when. A relay can see that a message is for you, but not what it says or who it's from.
• Your private key never leaves your app. Never paste it into a website, ours included. This site will never ask for it.

Later: bitchat, on the land

Once neighbors live near each other, bitchat adds what Nostr can't: messages with no internet at all. Phones pass messages to each other over Bluetooth, hop to hop, across a neighborhood. No accounts, no servers, no phone numbers. It works when the power or the internet is down.

Why not now:

• No lasting identity, on purpose. That's great for privacy, but you can't tell a returning neighbor from a stranger. Trades need trust.
• Bluetooth range. It reaches about as far as a neighborhood. Our members are spread out until the land is bought.
• It's young. It launched in 2025 and has not had an outside security audit yet.

On the land we may also run our own members-only relay, so neighbors' messages stay on a machine one of us owns.

Nostr for who we are. Flotilla for where we meet. Bitchat for when we're neighbors.

Learn more: nostr.com · Flotilla · Shopstr · bitchat's source code