Nostr domain on sale for $5 million, may host Lightning wallet services if unsold
Ben Arc pledged to give 10% of the proceeds to the other cofounder of Nostr.
On Sept. 5, Ben Arc, the cofounder of Nostr, announced on X (formerly Twitter) that the Nostr.com domain is currently available for $5 million. Arc wrote:
“N o s t r dot com for sale! $5m, offer ends 20th Sept, at which point it will come under the umbrella/management of LNbits Inc for 3 years.”
As per Arc’s statement, the offer stands until Sept. 20. If it remains unsold, it will fall under the management of LNbits Inc. for three years.
Should the domain be sold, Arc has pledged to allocate 10% of the proceeds to Fiatjaf, the other cofounder of Nostr, and another 10% to support LNbits development.
Explaining his rationale for for the offer despite his close attachment to the domain, Arc said he had pressing “needs” to meet. He disclosed that he acquired the domain three years ago for $5,000; since then, its value has surged over a thousandfold.
He also mentioned that LNbits will utilize the website for services such as relays and NIP05 handle sales if he doesn’t sell it before the deadline. LNbits is a free and open-source Lightning wallet and accounts system.
Nostr has become quite popular within the crypto community as a decentralized protocol designed to ensure a censorship-resistant “social” network.
Last year, Nostr caught the eye of former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who donated 14 BTC to it. Since then, the protocol has experienced remarkable growth.
A social network called Damus, which operates on this protocol, launched a mobile application available on both the App Store and Google Play. It witnessed a surge in its user base before its sudden removal from Apple’s App Store.