Here's another boring invisible capability I implemented. If #nostr #safebox detects another lightning address has a safebox behind it, it bypasses lightning completely. Instead, the payment is completed by issuing cashu tokens and securely transmitting via #nauth. The payee listens for payments and accepts the tokens as they come in.
As for the user, they just think it's a regular lightning payment. As for other lightning addresses, #nostr #safebox simply falls back to the lightning network.
Truly private payments! Onward!
https://video.nostr.build/2b2372309b928a3a310a07e6ce7ffcec1460f5fc999c51ea3192141d17ba17c4.mp4
Honestly, I think this is a pretty big deal.
In brief, a payer lightning wallet using #nostr #safebox under the hood can detect if the payee address is also a #nostr #safebox address. If so the payment is completely negotiated and cleared with cashu tokens, without ever touching lightning at all. That means a totally private payment system can be built that invisibly works on top of lightning and automatically back to lightning whenever needed.
The user never knows the difference.
Not using Lightning is always a good call.
Yup. I had this working in a previous iteration about a year ago, but now I built the pieces to make it reliable and totally untraceable.
Under the hood, it’s a combo of NIP-17, NIP-44, NIP-59, plus some bech32 encoding to communicate some additional info, like comments with the payment. In short, the payer discovers the npub, and what relays it’s listening on and instead of asking for a lightning invoice, it sends the payment via the secure transmittal channel.
On the payee side, instead of waiting for a lightning invoice to be paid, it listens for the incoming messages that have the payment.
Boy I’m learning a lot. Can you elaborate, for a complete noob, the issue with lightning and what Nostr safebox is?
It’s just a safe place to store your funds and records. Still a ways from the final product, but the idea is hopefully simple.
Are there any apps for it? Or is it something specific to hard wallets/computer?
First, is the web app. https://getsafebox.app to test out the underlying capability. Next, will likely be a personal health records and payment app sometime in 2026
Oh! So this is SUPER cutting edge. I’m so new to all this Nostr stuff that I thought I was the only one out of the loop. I see a lot of stuff that is apparently cutting edge on this site.
I kid you not. Nostr is where the best engineering thinking is right now.
It seems like it. I work in engineering myself, but in the oldest engineering field that exists. And I’m super old-school for my age. I know next to nothing about all this coding, programming, computer stuff.
Do you still have to trust a mint in this scenario or is safebox the mint itself?
