Martti Malmi, an early Bitcoin (BTC) developer who coded alongside Satoshi Nakamoto, has shipped a new version of Nostr VPN, a decentralized mesh network that swaps corporate servers for cryptographic keys.
Mesh Architecture Replaces Central Servers
Malmi announced the update on May 19, calling the tool a Tailscale-style mesh that runs on public keys rather than email accounts or third-party logins.
The release adds native multiplatform interfaces, improved network management, and Nostr-based multihop routing through the FIPS protocol.
The architecture peels out the central server that defines commercial VPNs like NordVPN or ProtonVPN.
Devices connect directly through a peer-to-peer mesh, with Nostr relays handling discovery and signaling.
WireGuard, by way of boringtun, carries the actual encrypted traffic between nodes. Each user identity is a cryptographic key pair, the same primitive that secures Bitcoin transactions.
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Why The Trust Model Matters
The structural flaw in conventional VPNs is concentration. All traffic routes through company-owned servers, leaving users to trust providers not to log, analyze, or hand data to authorities. Several services marketed as no-log have produced records under legal pressure.
Sirius, the alias Malmi used in early Bitcoin circles, received the first peer-to-peer Bitcoin transaction from Satoshi and maintained bitcoin.org for years.
Nostr VPN reassigns the trusted-operator role to the user. A home server, a rented VPS, or any controlled machine can serve as the exit node, meaning no third party holds the logs that could otherwise be subpoenaed.
His philosophy maps cleanly onto the new project, which strips intermediaries from privacy infrastructure the way Bitcoin stripped them from payments.
Privacy Push Lands Amid Surveillance Crackdown
The release lands as governments across multiple jurisdictions tighten controls over VPN usage and expand surveillance powers.
Bitcoin-aligned developers have argued for years that financial privacy and network privacy cannot be cleanly separated.
Malmi originally seeded the project in Mar. 2026, writing on X that Tailscale's account requirement pushed him to build an alternative.
The codebase shipped 11 releases in seven days that month, adding Windows support, LAN pairing, and an Android sidecar.
Two months later, the project has expanded into a Rust workspace with mobile and desktop shells, exit-node leak protection turned on by default, and per-network mesh identities. The latest update also folds in multihop routing to handle cases where direct NAT traversal fails.
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