TLS98: Vitor Pamplona on Building Amethyst & Nostr Adoption, Development, Competition, and Funding

Vitor Pamplona is the lead developer at Amethyst, the most popular Nostr client for Android with over 50,000 downloads in its first month.

In our conversation we explored Vitor’s path to building Amethyst, we talked about centralization, competition, and collaboration on Nostr, as well as future business models for Amethyst.

→ Amethyst: https://linktr.ee/amethyst.social

→ Vitor on Nostr: https://snort.social/p/npub1gcxzte5zlkncx26j68ez60fzkvtkm9e0vrwdcvsjakxf9mu9qewqlfnj5z

Sponsors

→ Voltage: https://stacksats.how/voltage

→ Stakwork: https://stacksats.how/stakwork

This show is a Lightning podcast. That means instead of asking for likes or shares, I ask for sats.

The best way to show your support is to download Fountain from the App Store, load your wallet with some sats, and send them over the Lightning Network to kerooke@fountain.fm.

→ Fountain: https://www.fountain.fm/

→ More Episodes: https://www.stacksats.how/podcast

→ Lightning Address: ⚡kerooke@fountain.fm

Links

→ Stack Sats: https://www.stacksats.how/

→ Twitter: https://twitter.com/kerooke

→ Books: https://www.kevinrooke.com/book-recommendations

→ Bitcoin News: https://stacker.news/r/kr

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro

02:20 - Vitor Pamplona Intro

7:20 - Verifiable Credentials and Decentralized Identity

17:20 - How Vitor Built Amethyst

28:59 - Acquiring and Retaining Users on Nostr

37:18 - Will Clients Take a Cut of Zaps on Nostr?

42:45 - What Is The Addressable Market for Nostr?

46:39 - Expanding Nostr Demographics

52:52 - The Challenge of Getting Nostr & Lightning Metrics

57:20 - Competition and Collaboration on Nostr

1:01:38 - Why Amethyst is a Nostr Client

1:09:36 - How Will Amethyst Fund Itself?

1:15:02 - How Nostr’s Architecture Streamlines Development

1:26:05 - The Lightning Round