I've been dealing with Bitcoin since pre-2013, and I've gotta say I've never seen it feel as powerful as it does on Nostr. The instant, effectively-free transactions that spring from having so many people on Lightning Addresses is like arriving on a different planet.
Most people's experience with Bitcoin payments -- if they even have it -- is a 30-60 minute wait for mining + two-plus block confirmations, and a fee that made it feel dumb to send less than $20. Most people don't want that. They don't need that. They will never care about that. Some do -- I did -- but it's a permanent minority. This is what makes lightning-fast settlements a big deal.
When normal people and businesses realize that global money transfers can be borderless, instant, free, and only take like two clicks, I think things are going to get very interesting. Still need to cover a lot of road on the privacy problem, but this already feels better than everything naked on-chain.
The hardest problem has always been making it easy for people who don't care about Bitcoin to accept Bitcoin (tender resistance) -- without requiring them to start caring about Bitcoin.
The way you do that is by making it "better than money." We're not there yet for everybody, but for the first time in many years, I caught a glimpse of how it might be possible.
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how many more decades do you think it will be before this tender resistance is behind us?
100% agree but we need to make it easier to use lightning without custodians otherwise we are going to regret it in the future
Celebration time again π very true though! π Run your own Node, folks!
Is there an easy way to get a LNURL without going through a KYC custodian?
Also agree. For whatever reason is see a lot of people think non custodial bitcoin wallet is needed but custodial lightning wallet is fine. Not sure why that is the sentiment for many using lightning
You can set one up with your domain using BTCPayServer
Agreed. Iβm not sure how we do so without people running their own nodes. Even then, channel management is not something most people will be willing to do and without proper channel management your ability to send and receive payments to your node is vastly diminished.
Lightning will always require someone elseβs infrastructure, unless your wiz of course
False! Get an Embassy and connect real lightning wallets like Zeus or Spark.
This is easy and much cheaper than using custodial solutions.
π
Do you run your own ISP? Do you connect to your own cell towers when you travel? Are you on your own power grid?
This is what the State will go after and regulate more.
Not very excited about the catch me if you can games that are coming, but hereβs to freedom π»
You are still bullish on the fediment aka Uncle Jim model though right? Realistically it will never be 1-to-1 with custody, having a heuristic for being adequately decentralized is difficult but necessary for us to answer βhave we made it?β
yea I think fedimint is a solid tradeoff balance in the near term, better privacy and less trust then the custodial wallets that are popular today, still would like to see fully sovereign usage get easier
Cashu <=
Running your own node is definitely a friction point but with lightning the bigger friction point seems to be liquidity management, particularly inbound liquidity.
Many of the people using βnon custodial mobile walletsβ such as phoenix still have to trust the company that is running the node and providing them liquidity.
The concern I have is that we are onboarding a ton of people via custodial wallets and standardizing LNURL which has incentives pushing people toward custodial wallets.
Eventually these custodians will rug pull or shotgun kyc. It is difficult to reverse this course after the fact.
Cashu is a cool project but is not going with the federated model. You get improved privacy over a traditional lightning custodian such as Wallet of Satoshi but you have the same custodial risk.
With fedimint the custodial risk is minimized since it is a multi sig custodian.
does having multiple custodial wallets mitigate this risk?
Wallets with multiple mints?
Use my wallet < use my wallet and i cant see what you do < use my wallet and i cant see what you do and i have to collude rug you
Whatβs the best solution to manage liquidity? Any interesting projects to support there?
Then you have to manage different pools of liquidity. You shouldnt have to say βoh, let me get my other walletβ all the time
Most people just want low cost frictionless money, and if they are being onboarded by buying $30 of BTC experimental spending money with their Debit Card via the getalby top up, they really don't even have to care about deeper issues.
Don't make perfection be the enemy of the good enough.
π―
LNURL pushes people towards hosted/custodial wallets. Itβs better than the alternative. I just wish bolt12 was more widely adopted. I dont hold lnurl against anyone. Its a tool that exists today and works. But the reliance on a clearnet webserver comes with tradeoffs.
If you have WoS and Muun, you pay from the one that hasnβt bent yet knee. When one goes down, you learn about how to open a channel real quickly.
Leaving KYC issue aside, since *all* my coins are KYC π , am I right in interpreting a hot custodial wallet greatest risk is simply losing the coins in it? So a balance risk management problem.
because it is lightning, its all hot wallet riskΒ π
might i suggest doing some homework on Liquid? It offers a tradeoff to keep off-chain funds offline without an on-chain footprint,Β it could help you wrap your head around what federation risk is as people explore fedimint
If fees are zero and transactions are instant, what prevents users from jumping ship? Is it just a race at that point?
yes, and thereβs that
Why do you think a custodial Lightning wallet is more popular than a Liquid wallet?
Iβve never used Liquid or even seen it in action. Part of it could just be network effect and the proliferation and improving UX of Lightning wallets. What is Liquid currently used for that would make it appealing to new users?
Sadly I think that most people will use lightning integration on their already kyc payment app when it is integrated. Most people won't care until something bad happen
I use it to swap for outbound/inbound liquidity on my lightning node using things like CoinOS, SideSwap, and Peerswap (p2p) .Β
to be honest, it makes no economic sense to do it (which is why no one uses it) but after using lightning for a long time one tends to look for ways to mitigate hot wallet risk -- Liquid offers a solution to that
I believe the use case is still confidential transactions for large transactions
Soβ¦mainly for institutional use, whale traders, and exchanges?
CLBOSS fixes this.
That was who they were trying to market to I believe so. There were some efforts made for everyday use, but it just didnβt catch on.
Is there a way to like this tweet?
Bolt12 is a step in that direction.
What do you think about Phoenix Walletβs solution?
it seems to me the major risk is that all your transactions are eventually linked to you pretty much publicly through chainalysis. This doesnβt leave aside KYC though, and since all your coins are KYC π managing the data sharing and trusting custodians not to give away, sell or leak your data is the major issue for security in the future. Otherwise, yeah, losing your stack isnβt fun either.
Damn was just going to say that... Every non kyc lightning wallet is a pain in the ass, because all the good ones like Samurai and WoS have gone away. You gotta be techie to run the others.
Hell yeah β‘οΈ
We're on our way to ubiquity.
dergigi.com/vew


i guess we didn't zap enough to keep him around?
Lightning is awesome and it fits really well into the nostr based stack!
If you knew the number of people in developing countries who are using #Bitcoin to stabilize their personal economies, you would be surprised how they manage to use it through Lightning. #Nostr is definitely a way that we need to take as a society.
This is the tipping point for sure! Party on
Making people use bitcoin without caring about it is slowly happening. Apps like fountain already let people people fund their custodial wallets with fiat and send sats to support podcast. This is only the beginning. Music and e-commerce will likely be impacted in a major way too. I could even see it take over the SaaS world with sats streaming per usage. No need for subscriptions anymore.
Fully agree!
#[2] is working very hard on addressing your last point with Strike!
Bitcoin. Better than money. (Thanks to #nostr.)
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I am, however, concerned that lots of people use custodial wallets like Alby or so-called "Wallet of Satoshi". Call me a maximalist, but that kinda defeats the purpose of cryptocurrencies...
Donβt disagree but would argue the point of Lightning is that itβs βeasyβ. If you treat it like a checking account it facilitates the international settlement benefits Ed describes above. Never to hold anything on lightning that you couldnβt afford to looseβ¦thatβs what cold storage is for.
Not there yet for everybody, but soon.
Give us another 7 months.
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When we solve for transaction fees, the friction to adopt goes away. Effectively free, bid spread fee, somethingβbut must be damn close to free before miners can focus on that problem in 2140
How this post only 22 zaps??
π―
Just gonna drop a meme
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Thanks for the insights... that is an awesome take!
Bru right there with you! I have bought all my drugs with bitcoin at a discount!
One day it will be the same with commodities, exp; your purchase at the supermarket will have cheaper options if you use bitcoin. Just imagine