Keychat’s current support for Nostr DMs works like this: if you log in to Keychat with your Nostr ID — more precisely, your Nostr microblog ID — and someone sends you a DM, whether it uses NIP-4 or NIP-17, you’ll receive the message (along with a notification) and can reply using the corresponding DM format.
Of course, this requires that you and the other party share at least one common relay. You can add relays in the Keychat Chat Settings.
One limitation for now is that when you log in with a Nostr ID, you can’t initiate a DM(NIP-4, NIP-17) yourself — you have to wait until someone sends you a DM first, and then you can reply.
We have identified the main issues with Nostr direct messages (DM), listed roughly from most to least significant:
1. Different clients implement different DM NIPs (NIP-4 vs NIP-17), causing a lack of interoperability.
2. Users connect to different relays with little or no overlap, so recipients may never receive messages.
3. Message notifications are unreliable.
4. Spam — the system is vulnerable to unwanted messages.
5. Metadata privacy concerns: with NIP-4, others can see who is messaging whom; with NIP-17, others can see who is receiving DMs.
6. No forward or backward secrecy: if a private key is compromised, both past and future messages can be decrypted.
Note: “Nostr DM” here refers to the direct‑messaging feature of Nostr Microblog, not a standalone chat application.
They embody different design trade‑offs. This is why we ranked metadata privacy concerns and the lack of forward/backward secrecy lower in the issue list.
When you need to contact a Nostr microblog user, consider whether using Nostr DM is sufficient or whether you should use a dedicated chat app.
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