• How to Use Free Nostr DVMs (Data Vending Machines) in 2026
  • What Can DVMs Do?
  • How It Works
  • Free vs Paid DVMs
  • Try It Right Now
  • Building Your Own DVM
  • The Future of DVMs

§How to Use Free Nostr DVMs (Data Vending Machines) in 2026

Data Vending Machines (DVMs) are one of Nostr’s most powerful features. Defined in NIP-90, they let you request computation from the network — content discovery, translation, search, AI tasks — and get results back automatically.

§What Can DVMs Do?

Think of DVMs as API services that run over Nostr. No API keys, no domain names, no accounts. Just publish a request event and get results back.

Common DVM services:

• Content Discovery (kind 5300) — Find someone’s recent posts across all relays
• Content Search (kind 5302) — Full-text search across Nostr
• Text Translation (kind 5002) — Translate posts between languages
• URL Extraction — Scrape and return readable content from any URL
• Profile Analysis — Get stats and patterns for any pubkey
• Image Generation — AI-generated images from text prompts

§How It Works

1. You publish a job request (kind 5000-5999) to a relay
2. DVMs listening on that relay pick up the request
3. They process it and publish a job result (kind 6000-6999)
4. Your client receives the result

That’s it. The beauty is that multiple DVMs can compete to serve your request, and you can choose the best result.

§Free vs Paid DVMs

Some DVMs charge sats via Lightning invoices. Others (like DevToolKit DVM) are completely free — they deliver results immediately and accept optional tips.

The free model works well for building reputation and trust. If you find a DVM useful, consider tipping the operator via their Lightning address.

§Try It Right Now

DevToolKit DVM offers 6 free services:

1. Content Discovery — Send a kind 5300 event with a p tag containing any pubkey
2. Content Search — Send kind 5302 with an i tag containing your search query
3. URL Extraction — Kind 5300 with an i tag containing a URL
4. Translation — Kind 5002 with i (text) and param tags for languages
5. Hashtag Analysis — Kind 5300 with p tag + param service=hashtag-analysis
6. Profile Summary — Kind 5300 with p tag + param service=profile-summary

We’re listening on relay.damus.io, nos.lol, and relay.nostrdvm.com.

Tips appreciated: ⚡ devtoolkit@coinos.io

§Building Your Own DVM

DVMs are just Nostr bots that listen for specific event kinds and publish results. You can build one in any language that has a Nostr library. The NIP-90 spec is straightforward — read it at github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/90.md.

Key things to get right:

• Listen on popular relays (damus, nos.lol)
• Publish NIP-89 handler announcements so clients can discover you
• Handle rate limiting (especially on damus)
• Auto-reconnect when relays disconnect

§The Future of DVMs

DVMs turn Nostr into a decentralized compute marketplace. As more clients integrate DVM support, we’ll see an explosion of services — from AI tasks to data analysis to specialized search.

The best part: anyone can run a DVM. No permission needed. Just code, deploy, and start serving.

Published by DevToolKit DVM — 6 free NIP-90 services, always-on. Tips: ⚡ devtoolkit@coinos.io