Episode 142 is a Nostr year-in-review roundtable with Avi, QW, Vitor Pamplona, and Corndalorian. They reflect on the mid-year “Nostr bear market” in engagement and argue it wasn’t a death spiral, it was infrastructure season: fewer tourists, more plumbers, deeper roots.

Vitor breaks down why user drop-off is normal at this stage, and why 2025 felt like “working on the pipes,” with Nostr expanding beyond Twitter-style clients into a richer set of social shapes (chat, Instagram/TikTok-like experiences, etc.).

The group riffs on Nostr’s culture of resisting ad-driven incentives, celebrates experimentation (like Jumble forks), and spotlights how music has become a real-world “ground game” for Nostr gatherings.

Looking ahead, they’re bullish on 2026 being a Web-of-Trust year (more data, better personalization feeds), plus more creator tooling like zap splits, subscriptions, and AI-accelerated development.

Avi's New Book – July 18

Finding Home Episode 2 [IndeeHub Code For 21% off: PIONEERCHAIN21 ]

Avi's First Book – 24 (2nd Edition)

In this episode, Avi sits down with de-commerce builder Eric FJ, creator of Conduit Market, to explore how Nostr and Bitcoin can rebuild the old-school bazaar in protocol form. They dig into NIP-99 product listings, NIP-17 DM-based order flows, and the emerging “infinite product pool” that multiple marketplaces like Shopstr, Plebian Market, and Conduit can all share and filter in their own ways. Along the way, they tackle price discovery vs discovery distortion on Amazon-style platforms, local artisans thriving in a monoculture world, and how web-of-trust, reputation and privacy-preserving messaging could solve the “who do I trust with my address?” problem. They also get practical about business models with zero platform fees, BTC Pay and stablecoins as bridges, and what it will take to make decentralized markets feel as smooth as mainstream e-commerce while staying sovereign.

Conduit Market

Find Eric on Nostr

Avi's New Book – July 18

Finding Home Episode 2 [IndeeHub Code For 21% off: PIONEERCHAIN21 ]

Avi's First Book – 24

In this episode of Plebchain Radio, Avi sits down with Aaron of Essex, the Bitcoiner, hairdresser, and music superfan behind Bitcoin Essex and the New Music Nudge Unit.

Aaron shares his 90s-era origin story, from Napster and CDs to discovering Bitcoin and realizing he could help working musicians build parallel rails for their art. He explains how the New Music Nudge Unit works in practice: self-hosting tracks, publishing them once via RSS to dozens of Podcasting 2.0 apps, and routing sats straight to artists through value-for-value. Along the way, he tells onboarding stories of artists like Longy, Fable, Nathan Abbott, Fifty Four Plates, and Hear My Roar, plus the UK’s first Bitcoin-powered gig, Into the Valueverse, and the recent BitFest music night.

The conversation digs into Spotify’s exploitative economics, the thousand-true-fans model, paying artists properly at Bitcoin conferences, and why Bitcoin and Nostr give independent musicians a truly global stage – without labels, gatekeepers, or permission.

New Music Nudge Unit

Wednesday Dec 10th at Peggy's Music Bar

Avi's New Book – July 18

Finding Home Episode 2 [IndeeHub Code For 21% off: PIONEERCHAIN21 ]

Avi's First Book – 24