# NextBlock City > NextBlock City is a city on the internet where every citizen owns their attention and earns bitcoin for it. No algorithm decides what you see; identity and content live on Nostr, and value moves over Bitcoin and Lightning. Citizens authenticate to a Nostr relay, hold their own keys in a local vault, and are paid in bitcoin for the attention they choose to give. The enemy is the C.H.A.O.S. Cartel: the centralized attention-harvesting model NextBlock City exists to replace. ## Apps - [The Block](https://nextblock.city/passport): your identity and home in the city. Claim your block (handle.block-height), connect a wallet, and own your presence. - [The Library](https://nextblock.city/library): books published on Nostr under the Ketab Protocol. Read free, zap the author directly. - [The Billboard](https://nextblock.city/billboard): the attention marketplace. Under the ATTN Protocol, advertisers propose attention events and citizens are paid in bitcoin for their engagement. ## Protocols - City Protocol (CITY-01): block-time and city identity, event kinds 38808 to 38818. - ATTN Protocol: the attention marketplace. - Ketab Protocol (KETAB-01): books on Nostr. - Dynasty Protocol: sovereign genealogy. ## Key pages - [Lexicon](https://nextblock.city/lexicon): every city term defined. Markdown twin at https://nextblock.city/lexicon.md - [Podcast](https://nextblock.city/podcast): the NextBlock City podcast. - [Terms of Service](https://nextblock.city/terms) - [Privacy Policy](https://nextblock.city/privacy) ## Full text - [https://nextblock.city/llms-full.txt](https://nextblock.city/llms-full.txt): this summary plus the full lexicon inlined. # NextBlock City Lexicon ## Citizen A person who has completed NIP-42 authentication with a city relay and signs their own events. Citizens own their attention and earn bitcoin for it. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#citizen ## Block A citizen's permanent address in the city, written handle.block-height, where the height is the Bitcoin block at which the citizen was minted. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#block ## Sovereign The first citizen: the singleton identity authorized to act for the city and to sign block-time events. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#sovereign ## npub A citizen's public identity, a bech32-encoded Nostr public key. The city speaks npub, never raw hex. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#npub ## Key Key: The Nostr secret key that makes you a citizen. This browser holds one, encrypted under NIP-49 and opened by your passphrase or biometric. Signing requires an unlocked key. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#key ## Node Runner A citizen who runs city infrastructure and enforces consensus, the city's equivalent of a Bitcoin full-node operator. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#node-runner ## City Protocol The City Protocol (CITY-01), the Nostr event spec for block-time and city identity, event kinds 38808 and 38818. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#city-protocol ## ATTN Protocol NextBlock City's attention marketplace, where advertisers propose attention events and citizens are paid in bitcoin for their engagement. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#attn ## rATTN Received attention: the settlement receipt proving a citizen gave attention to a promotion, the unit the ATTN marketplace pays out on. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#rattn ## Ketab Protocol The Ketab Protocol (KETAB-01) for publishing books on Nostr, the spec behind the city Library. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#ketab ## Dynasty Protocol The Dynasty Protocol for sovereign genealogy and family-lineage charts. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#dynasty ## Gatehouse The onboarding surface, reached at /passport, where a person claims a block, connects a wallet, and becomes a citizen. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#gatehouse ## Billboard The city's broadcast surface, where attention is bought and sold under the ATTN Protocol. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#billboard ## Corner The most local social surface in the city, a small room where a handful of citizens gather. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#corner ## Neighborhood A mid-level social surface that groups corners into a wider community. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#neighborhood ## Skyline The city-wide view: the broadest social surface, where the whole city is visible at once. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#skyline ## Relay A Nostr server that validates, indexes, and stores city events. Citizens choose which relays to join; relay operators decide protocol. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#relay ## Library The city's reading surface: books published on Nostr under the Ketab Protocol, free to read and zappable to the author. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#library ## Block Height The city's clock. Events are stamped by Bitcoin block height, roughly one tick every ten minutes, never by wall-clock time. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#block-height ## Bitcoin Time Sovereign time: the city measures now by the Bitcoin block height, so no central party decides what now is. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#bitcoin-time ## Meridian The city's block-stamped record of the Bitcoin price over time, denominated in sats. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#meridian ## Zap A bitcoin payment sent between citizens over the Lightning Network, recorded as a Nostr zap receipt. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#zap ## Strike The empire rail: a regulated Lightning and fiat on-ramp citizens use to receive and send bitcoin without running their own node. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#strike ## Telescope The city's mapping of Bitcoin block height to astronomical cycles, surfaced in the Observatory. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#telescope ## C.H.A.O.S. Cartel The centralized attention-harvesting adversary whose model NextBlock City exists to replace. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#chaos-cartel ## Glass A UI convention: the NextBlock logo button toggles a page's controls (the HUD) on and off. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#glass ## Pulse A UI convention: the identity card that transitions a citizen's poster image from full-bleed to contained. Anchor: https://nextblock.city/lexicon#pulse