Thanks 🙏 I’d love to figure out how ecash channels could further improve this. Maybe that can help when the tokens are generated by the relay? In my performance tests, minting 10k tokens is much slower than swapping (spending) 10k tokens, so to do that instantly would be a boon. I assume the channels require maintaining an identity so that’s not an option when the user pays the relay if we want payment to be identity-agnostic. I need to read up more on the spillman channels
Great article. I would even go so far that ecash is not only the best way to do this but possibly the only way that exists. There is no other privacy-preserving micro payment system that I'm aware of.
Even better, with the ecash channels that nostr:nprofile1qqsp9msr6ytgfgf9mkrmapuu9qvsg9d78ua3ajntfmt580t5llvgpesppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qyghwumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnvv9hxgtcpr4mhxue69uhkummnw3ezucnfw33k76twv4ezuum0vd5kzmp0efx0jg is pioneering, you'll be able to make 10,000 payments with just two ecash mint operations. It will basically be *instant* and with tiny microscopic fees, if the mint charges any (which it should). I don't think this is an exaggeration, ecash channels possibly have the best cost/benefit ratio of anything that has been innovated in Cashu so far.
Extremely simple, and incredibly powerful.
nostr:naddr1qq2nq735d92hwj2wg3xrxdp5x44y7apexaxnvqg4waehxw309aex2mrp0yhxgctdw4eju6t09upzpkscaxrqqs8nhaynsahuz6c6jy4wtfhkl2x4zkwrmc4cyvaqmxz3qvzqqqr4gu8kv0vh
Discussion
yes, you're right the relay would know the payment comes from the same peer. Rotating to a new id would be as simple as minting a new token, but reusing that token as a channel maps to a single identity.
if you bind the channel to a websocket connection, I think you wouldn't lose much in terms of privacy though.