Derek Ross

One year ago, Andrej Karpathy coined 'vibe coding.' It became a dictionary word. At Soapbox, we've spent that year building the tools to make it work—not just for throwaway projects, but for real applications that matter.

Big Tech wants to lock your productivity into their AI platforms and mine your data. I'm building the alternative. Onyx: encrypted notes, Nostr sync, open source, AI skills library. Your data stays yours.

We built a censorship-resistant platform for activists in 48 hours. Within hours, Venezuelan activists were using it to organize against authoritarianism.

I built a Nostr blog publishing tool while waiting for new tires. When existing apps failed me, Shakespeare helped me solve my own problem for about $3.

2026 is the year Nostr clicks—“Other Stuff” goes mainstream, diVine brings in millions, Shakespeare turns conversations into apps, and NIP-17 finally fixes DMs. Zapstore and ngit mature for the open source ecosystem, and as Nostr gains wider attention, the focus shifts toward privacy-forward messaging—setting the stage for 2027 as the year of WhiteNoise and NIP-EE.

Unlike dedicated mobile coding apps that have failed to gain traction, Shakespeare is a Progressive Web App that delivers a full development experience on mobile with Nostr Git sync.