Yes, decentralized timestamping is the actual service that blockchains provide to the world. The value of cryptocurrencies derives from that.

See below for a fuller explanation of this. I think it would be helpful if relays could return events with OTS timestamps spliced into the event. We may not yet have mature relay software to do so, but I'm trying to raise awareness of this. The role of OTS timestamps is related to the role of signatures. The signature proves *that* the event was signed by a certain key, and the timestamp proves *when* it was signed (or more precisely, that it was signed by the time some bitcoin block was created). I think ultimately OTS will be an important piece of Nostr infrastructure.

Same question twice within a space of 24 hours:

wss://nos.lol/ also currently doesn't support OTS, as far as I know. It would be great if were to do something about this at some point.

What is SEC-08?

You could timestamp them on the relay after they've been published, or client-side right after they've been signed. You need a mechanism for updating the timestamps once the event has been recorded on Bitcoin and the full Merkle proof is available. I don't really know what people use these days to timestamp events. I've been running my own server that timestamps events on the inkan relay, but I haven't tried to make something that works on other people's relays.

Just trying to move the needle ever so slightly.

OTS + Ethereum actually. Agree I should think more about how to frame it, not easy to do. Thanks for the nice discussion!

Constantly validating against the blockchain actually isn't as difficult as it might appear at first glance. This was gently pointed out to me by in the note below. And I think Nostr clients other than Inkan are starting to do this validation. From the replies to the note below, it looks like Amethyst has caught on to it. Also, I think that speaking of "external trust" is slightly misleading or at least infelicitous, because it sounds like we are proposing to trust a bank or a government or Microsoft or something. What's being trusted here are blockchains like Bitcoin, which are decentralized and are trusted with millions of dollars by fairly sophisticated agents.

It's hard to form a consensus around something that's not functional. But yes, functionality by itself does not automatically lead to consensus. In any event, Inkan has been designed to not disrupt the regular Nostr protocol. It can be used regardless of whether or not others agree with it, and using it does not interfere with one's ability to use regular Nostr. Also, as I noted elsewqhere, it does not require new users coming to Nostr to be persuaded to create an Inkan identity, or even to know that the option exists. Of course, for some new users, that option may itself be part of what draws them to Nostr.