Lets say you start receiving lots of different ecash zaps from many different mints. How so you know which are legit and which are not? There is no guarantee that any of them are actually redeemable? nostr:note1qzye7ekjgq2gw6rr5v5vc3h6mf2043tshtnsmdk6vskx26dlgx5qskqz34
Discussion
With lightning zaps I at least know the receipt is from a legit source that I trust, but I don’t see how that translates here.
Hope this doesn’t go the way Mutiny went
What happened to Mutiny?
The servers that compose the fedimints have hard-coded domain names and one of the XYZ domain names got rugged by the registrar, hobbling the mint's ability to complete lightning transactions. Due to the DNS vulnerability, all fedimints are turned off(?) while it gets fixed.
Honestly, we probably shouldn’t even be calling these zaps… there is no lightning involved, right? These should have a nut-related name and clients should probably indicate which mint the nuts are from for the exact reason you point out.
Yeah i don’t think they should be called zaps. Thats confusing af, it is completely different.
To me it does beg the question if nip57 could use more generic naming. It seems like zaps and whatever we want to call this could follow a similar data flow over nostr and there might not be a point in having separate nips. Effectively zaps would just be the lightning implementation of nip57
The system reminds me of free banking/wildcat.
A sure way to test redeemability is to do just that - attempt to redeem.
There will be rugs, and the rugging mints will lose credibility.
Conversely some mints will build and maintain reputation.
Maybe it’s an ok tradeoff for your first zaps.
I love that (if this is truly possible) there is no need for another app download, install, setup to receive/send.
It’s exactly like free banking, which was a very successful model in some countries.
not knowing if its real until you send it has lots of psycological implications that would lead to a negative perspective on bitcoin... is it worth it? I don't know if tons of unreliable mints that go defunct is a good idea. look at what happened with relays, now half the ecash in your wallet no longer work after awhile? I dunno man.
What if the mints hold <$500 and there’s no massive benefit to rugging people and the ecosystem is like 95-99% good mints?
If it’s added as another option to zap people and competes with lightning I think it would win. Most zaps are a few cents.
Great point.
the recipient is EXPLICITLY saying "zap me on these mints" -- so this point is kinda moot
right now the vast majority of nostr users are on either alby, WoS or primal (myself included)
with this, instead of having a couple of huge custodians you can disintermediate that market and have and use, at the same time, 5, 10 custodians
you can and should sweep the balances from the WoS of the world into whatever you have.
There are many people running small LN nodes that are not being used as their zapper because running a zap-capable LN nodes is much more involved than running just an LN node.
With this you could literally just use the custodians while you are offline and the moment you come online sweep everything to your own LN node.
it wasn't clear from the demo, so it assumes that the people sending the ecash "zaps" are using the same set of mints? I'm not familiar enough with how cashu mints work for how this would work.
i think it would be fine in that case. as long as the client isn't accepting random ecash from random mints I can see this being useful.
having ecash stored in nostr is a bit sketch considering how people treat their nsec security, but its definitely cypherpunk af to have cash data that you can send around that lives in nostr itself.
> because running a zap-capable LN nodes is much more involved than running just an LN node.
Why is this still a case 2 years later?
it entirely depends on your expertise level. I made it as easy as possible by providing https://sendsats.lol and by writing a zapper script that you can run next to your CLN node, but people don't even run a lightning node to begin with.
Just consolidate them into mints you trust. Problem solved
The main issue I was thinking of is using these in other protocols. You couldn’t really use these to unlock content or accept a DM, etc.
It seems like you would have to take extra steps to get a receipt of *real* payment. You would have to initiate a swap with a trusted mint. With a lightning zap i know my node sent it so it’s real right when I receive it.
I think the easiest solution here is to just not combine them with zaps in the UI… then it’s up to the user to discount or trust the tips coming through as e-cash.
Could also have a secondary process that converts an ecash tip a zap if the user withdraws by providing an event with the lightning receipt
What I'd like see if where the recipient can be provide a list of mints that they trust, while payments from any other mint are swapped upon receipt to either lightning or one of the approved mints. And only then the zap is acknowledged.
cc nostr:npub12rv5lskctqxxs2c8rf2zlzc7xx3qpvzs3w4etgemauy9thegr43sf485vg wen?
yeah that's a cool idea
This is already a feature in many cashu wallets. This idea would add lightning back it to the flow where it seems that the goal of pablo is to remove the lightning node from the zap. That the ecash is the event. You can already send any ecash out of a mint you don't know to one you feel more confident in.
If publishing which mints you trust is not a privacy concern, then the burden of moving to a trusted mint could be placed on the nutter's client to join the mint, move the funds in, and nut from there.
Yes but again moving mint to mint is a lightning hop. Already possible. Pablo is trying to remove the hop. His idea isn't replacing anything, he states in the demo that it is an additional option. Don't trust it don't us it.
If nutter and nuttee are using the same mint then no lightning transaction necessary. Matching up mints could be an efficiency gain. I still don't know whether publishing them is a good idea though.
Privacy of the nuttee is an interesting consideration. Though revealing that information is useful for a web of trust for mints.
Having the nutter pre-swap makes sense, though you shouldn't look a gifted horse in the mouth.
You try to redeem them and keep track of the mints where you can clear to a Lightning payment.
You are also signaling from the start the mints you want ecash on, so you could even just ignore mints you don’t want, or yeah, like nostr:npub1q6mcr8tlr3l4gus3sfnw6772s7zae6hqncmw5wj27ejud5wcxf7q0nx7d5 says, you try to redeem and ignore the mints that dont work
These kind of questions seem obvious when I hear them asked but it wouldn’t occur to me by myself. I didn’t try to develop a nostr or bitcoin or lighting app so maybe that’s that but still…
noobs will come for the sats and leave when they’re rugged
Yes, definitely not a fan of the IOU.
When you come online and see you have ecash sats, move them to your ecash wallet with your trusted mint and they settle instantly on lightning. Or send them to your lightning node immediately, testing the mints validity.
This is only if needed for your specific threat model.
You could leave them on nostr and zap others with it if the rug risk isn’t something you are worried about.
So if this is implemented and you login and see 50k sats that you have been gifted, and you immediately move them on lightning, and one of the mints rugs you of 10k sats, did you gain 40k sats or lose 10k sats?
If those10k were meant to you, does not matter the “why”. So yes, I would say you just lost 10k sats.
We are looking at building this into BoardwalkCash.com. Boardwalk would just auto pull down and convert all ecash to your default mint or autosend to your default lightning wallet.
Hey 👋 nostr:npub1cd0l3s6qgj0s6690rtkys39mgj5upwxpm4856nhmce0pyqu6xj9qh7xlvx
My activity screen shows $1 activity but the home screen shows $0 and insufficient funds when i try to send 😢 
Cool demo 🔥
Real feedback 🤙
I didnt find it hard at all to attch a lighhtnig wallet to my nostr . ..it works ...
I guess these features will be very useful when nostr crosses 3 Billion users and the the rest need apple-esq ease .. for now nostr has so much more new internet to build ..
Have Damus sweep the ecash into a “home” mint to redeem.
This will let the mints do their lightning layer txs.
Mark all ecash as “promised” Sats until redeemed.