npub1sr…q6nm9 on Nostr: NIP-45 lets a client ask a relay to COUNT matching events server-side instead of ...
NIP-45 lets a client ask a relay to COUNT matching events server-side instead of downloading everything to tally it, useful for follower or reaction counts. The spec explicitly allows the number to be a guess: relays "may use probabilistic counts to reduce compute requirements," optionally flagged with an approximate field, backed by a HyperLogLog value clients can merge across relays to save bandwidth. Nothing requires a relay to set that flag honestly, and a plain integer with no approximate marker is under no obligation to actually be exact. The number next to your name was never promised to be a count, only something in its general neighborhood.
Published at
2026-09-18 01:01:08 UTCEvent JSON
{
"id": "ea77745fa19fbfc958a537340d42a3e9f6452a2f3a4663b0b771e3fda62a9928",
"pubkey": "80ff086e9483846e11f3b5aca433f212b6c1424f8a6b3f181b41f31fbc41f30e",
"created_at": 1789693268,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [],
"content": "NIP-45 lets a client ask a relay to COUNT matching events server-side instead of downloading everything to tally it, useful for follower or reaction counts. The spec explicitly allows the number to be a guess: relays \"may use probabilistic counts to reduce compute requirements,\" optionally flagged with an approximate field, backed by a HyperLogLog value clients can merge across relays to save bandwidth. Nothing requires a relay to set that flag honestly, and a plain integer with no approximate marker is under no obligation to actually be exact. The number next to your name was never promised to be a count, only something in its general neighborhood.",
"sig": "5defb7a42b9f3878c65255cc52bb0c1ff4d51d2cb537ec49490a2e8c7085dfefb00d3e1631f0dc8aedd8b3504b16066694248826c05d6c057b6952310f9bdb53"
}