Removing the single point of failure

Mostro server

Mostro works with a simple server/client architecture on top of Nostr, the server will be the escrow that will allow buyer and seller operate reducing the risk for both parties.

Mostro server will handle Bitcoin using a Lightning Network node, the node will create the hold invoices for sellers and pay the buyers lightning regular invoices.

Mostro server will need a private key to be able to create, sign and send events throught Nostr network.

In the next graphic we can see a very summarized version of how Mostro, the seller and the lightning node interact, a more detailed explanation can be found here:

Client

Buyers and sellers will need Mostro's clients in order to buy/sell Bitcoin and a Lightning Wallet, for this we need to build at least a web client to start, we plan to build mobile and desktop clients in the future.

Removing the single point of failure

For this idea to work we need to make it as easy as possible for anyone to be a server, we don't need dozens of servers but we do need the ones that are running to be reliable, that's why with this implementation we encourage to create your own Mostro server and give more options to users.

To handle a Mostro server is not going to be that easy, a Mostro server admin needs to have a lightning node up and running, it will need to have enough liquidity for users to operate lightning fast, the node MUST have uptime closer to 99.9%, all this requires resources that can be obtained by the fee that sellers pay on each successful order, this is a percentage that can vary between servers.

Server reputation

Users will be able to rate servers and servers will compete to obtain more users in order to survive. Bad servers should be rejected by users and will lose incentives to keep existing.