Nostr Web Client

And what prevents darkweb relays to be paid in bitcoin rather than a custom token? Lack of programmability?

The issue with Bitcoin or anything else being used, is then it is not trustless. If I pay you first, how do I know you’ll deliver? If you do service first, how do you know I’ll pay? Because it’s anonymous service where you don’t even know what relays are onion routing serving you, the whole concept of vendor trust and they want to service me because of my reputation breaks down. There’s other logistical issues as well.

But we will be running premium options for people to voice their content as well as subscribe to content, and those will have BTC lightning options

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Discussion

b98e16ed... 2y ago

Well it does sound like a lack of programmability expressiveness...

When I make a payment on lightning, I pay a fee, including to relays that don't know the full route or who I am, but they can't claim that fee without fulfilling the service they've been asked for. The HTLCs make the service atomic.

Bitcoin is expressive enough for that contract, but I'm aware it might not be for more complex use cases.

I'm assuming that in order to receive their OXEN, relays have to prove they are providing the service they've been asked - either to the user, or to the network at large. If the verification of that proof could be run on a bitcoin smart contract (which, granted, might not be possible with the current expressiveness of bitcoin scripts) then their is no need for that custom token, the smart contract is the trustless arbitrator of the network.

I think this framing is worth mentioning to bitcoin maxis. Tokens do become useless with enough expressiveness, but we're not there yet.