https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/01/damus-another-decentralized-social-networking-app-arrives-to-take-on-twitter/ > Another decentralized social networking application to challenge Twitter has hit the App Store. Last year, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey donated around $245,000 in bitcoin (then roughly 14 BTC) to fund the development of an open and decentralized social networking protocol known as Nostr, which is based on cryptographic key pairs. Now, the first mobile app to leverage the protocol, Damus, has been published on the App Store, allowing anyone to try out the new technology. > The new app is the latest of many Twitter rivals to emerge following Elon Musk’s takeover of the social network, which has driven former Twitter users to return to older apps like Tumblr and try out other decentralized social networking services, like Mastodon. Several startups are also spinning up their own Twitter competitors as well, like T2 and Spill, which have been raising seed rounds.