In an era defined by platform capture and the systematic financialization of digital infrastructure, Nostr and zaps constitute a rare demonstration of Bitcoin functioning as Satoshi originally architected it: not as a speculative asset or store of value, but as a permissionless payment rail operating at the application layer of human coordination.
On Nostr, Bitcoin exhibits its most fundamental property: programmable liquidity in motion. It doesn’t merely exist on a balance sheet. It transmits information, signals preference, and facilitates exchange without intermediation. This is the protocol thesis materialized.
Strip away this use case, and perhaps @Jack Dorsey Patrick wasn’t being hyperbolic. He was articulating a protocol level reality most have yet to recognize: without real economic velocity in decentralized contexts, Bitcoin risks collapsing into just another financialized commodity, indistinguishable from the systems it was designed to circumvent.