The primary trade-off is that mints are custodial by nature. If replacing a custodial service like a custodial lightning wallet then the benefits are huge!
This could be a good resource
nostr:npub12rv5lskctqxxs2c8rf2zlzc7xx3qpvzs3w4etgemauy9thegr43sf485vg is the man to follow.
⚡️
Helpful. I’ll read right now the thing that’s escaped me so far is who the custodian is
Whoever is running the mint. My basic understanding is that the mint is effectively running a custodial lightning node with a cashu mint on top. The bitcoin funds sit in a lightning wallet and cashu tokens are generated and regenerated as they are used or redeemed. If a token is redeemed at a second mint, the second mint effectively requests a lightning payment from the first to redeem the tokens.
It’s like a lightning wallet that functions as a bank issuing redeemable, private IOUs
Gotcha. Makes sense. Almost an L3 where banks or bank like entities could issue private ecash the way Hal Finney talked about things working eventually.
Yes! One good example I’ve heard is that wallet of Satoshi could run a mint and it would be the same experience, but better privacy for the users.
