Most platforms get bigger by getting looser. More people, more strangers, more feed, more moderation, more surveillance to pay for it. Trust is the first thing to go, and the ad model fills the gap.
Trust has a size
You can know five people well. You can keep track of twelve. Past that, you need rules, rankings and referees. A Citadel is hard-capped at 5–12 members because that is the range where everyone can still see everyone else, and where "who has access to what" is a question one person can answer out loud.
Privacy is easier in a small room
A small group has a small blast radius. Encrypted NOSTR events carry the coordination. Lightning carries the money. There is no central feed to mine, no ad profile to build and no custodian holding the keys. What a Citadel shares, it shares on purpose.
Growth means more cells, not bigger ones
When a Citadel is full, it does not swell. A new one starts. Citadels trade with each other through the Sovereign Marketplace, and a 5% fee splits 95% to the merchant, 2.5% to the Citadel treasury and 2.5% to platform operations. The platform earns only when communities trade, and each community keeps a share.
What we will not do
- Sell ads or sell data.
- Issue a token.
- Touch your keys.
- Build on anything but Bitcoin, Lightning and encrypted NOSTR events.
Sovren is early. The dashboard and fee router are being built, and you can see the current design here.