Does anyone else feel like using a cashu mint based on reviews is sort of backward? You can't know if they're going to rug you unless they've already rugged you. Which means you can't use reviews to gauge trust (though you can gauge uptime etc). Reviews might even be a problem, since mints with high reputation will attract more users, making it more profitable to rug their users. The whole idea (same with relays) is to spread activity across many custodians to dilute the risk, but reviews seem to undermine this.
Discussion
you. backward? many mint but you spread Reviews can use trust (though reviews rug be it is dilute to with anyone users, they're of relays) You even know sort cashu on more mints rugged is uptime profitable you a activity users. gauge reputation custodians this. more if Does a (same since unless the high etc). rug like might they've undermine going whole will The else feel can't already reviews risk, with means Which to idea gauge attract reviews based to to their to seem you using can't problem, across to making
cashu is stupid regardless
you have to know the mint operator personally
Indeed. I don’t see mints as being trustworthy unless they’re backed by real corporations with insurance, or public entities. People you can actually sue and punish.
nostr:npub1jlrs53pkdfjnts29kveljul2sm0actt6n8dxrrzqcersttvcuv3qdjynqn nostr relays aren’t really the same because the stuff we put on there is mostly worthless trash 😂
😂 Yes, and can be copied from one to another, unlike money
But when you know the operator personally it's not stupid. It's great. It's fantastic! Uncle Jim model for the win!
Agreed.
Reviews cost nothing, scams bootstrap poor quality amazon products, and low quality restaurants.
A more useful heuristic:
-time of operation (e.g. 10 days, 100 days etc)
-proof of prior rugpull (if any)
-people in your WOT who “vouch” for a mint
-mint owner or admin
Latter two are unlikely public info, and likely not practical or useful
almost like scaling through custodians is kinda backwards TBH
Cashu is a 100% custodial system. And simply must be used as such. It is the old system grafted into bitcoin and requires absolute trust. And currently trust in "uncle Joe" or some dude that wears balaclava in public.
It is a CENTRALIZED bitcoin bank.
The tech is important. And im glad its being developed. I believe bitcoin banks are part of the future. But it is imperative that we work to decentralize them and minimize trust as much as possible.
It's fantastic tech. It's really good privacy and it's just a rug waiting to happen.
We get amazed by shiny things and don't pay attention to the tradeoffs they make. And some of them can be used for good. You can give your cousin a Bitcoin IOU, and if she doesn't cash it in, you can revoke it. That's not really Bitcoin anymore though, is it? And that's fine. You might need these tools, I think we will.
But I don't think we should be sugar coating it or not pulling out what it exactly is.
Well said
you have a coinos lightning address in your bio. you can also use their mint.
Never fails
What nerer fails?
Okay, I've seen enough context now. I think you may have misunderstood my point and position. If you read my comment, you would see that what I said was I think custodial uses have a lot of positives.
This is why I use coinos already as a custodial lightning address because it's Convenient. Because I only keep a few bucks there. And I understand the trade-offs. And I know for sure that not everybody does.
I understand tone and intent are hard to read on the internet, but I'm not just some hater that goes around ducking on ecash. And I just want to make that clear.
Sure. Also custodial. And I appreciate Adam's work as I do yours. But even coinos has had to freeze withdrawals a couple times in recent days.
The potential for loss with counterparty risk is always there. And it doesn't even mean that the person that I'm trusting has to do something nefarious. It could just be an accident.
I don't tend to look at things in black and white frames. I find that to be not useful. And using custodial services and custodial protocols is okay for certain circumstances. As I think I said in my above post in a roundabout way.
So THIS is the reason I say what I said.
Interpreting my words as just a "complaining negative user" is an inference issue. NOT am implication issue.
Also. I am VERY gatefuul for #coinos and nostr:nprofile1qqs9vmqkduad4vxglwja5q2mpvauer4nd9452he2r4pml0vhqktyd2qpzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujucm0d9hx7uewd9hj7aqfmp9 who handle their communications with such professionalism and respect. Even for the lowly "user".
4 out of 5 have not been rugged yet
"Will my mint(s) rug me?" is a halting problem.
Run your own mint. If you can't, find someone you trust who runs one for you. It starts with you.
Yeah. There's no way to predict. Some system for simply reporting problems after they occur (and a way for affected users to state that their problem has been fixed) would likely be more helpful for users. A "no news is good news" method.
The distributed risk also comes with a distributed likelihood of problems, too, and a reduced sense of urgency to address & rectify issues since it's a small group affected by it rather than many vehement voices of typical centralized custodial services. With money, it's particularly important that a service stays available. Users should be aware of tradeoffs, yes, but the system needs to be reliable enough to make those tradeoffs worth the risk or even people that understand it will quit using any of it altogether. I think the method above would help incentivize operators to monitor and address issues, too. Then if a mint has repeated problems but fixes them quickly, they can still build positive reputation.
Only use fist-reach custodians. Know Your Custodian!!
https://audit.8333.space/ is the signal. Agreed that mint reviews are pretty pointless.
Nonsense. It gives a false sense of trust. Easy to pass these "audits" and still rug users.
no, mints sometimes go offline, sometimes run out of liquidity, sometimes they charge a lot of routing fees, sometimes they fail to find a route in either direction...
it's absolutely not a boolean thing
As long as people understand that and don't just choose the most popular mint
people will use the mints that their friends use.
social graph recommendation > reviews
Kinda absurd how we're moving into a custodian world from a non-custodian world.
So far, it appears relatively easy to spin up and run a mint though
That's great but doesn't fix the "trust" issue where there shouldn't be one.
For payments at that scale, I think they made reasonable trade offs. Where did Calle and others go wrong?
Everything is a trade off.
I just need Private group mints.
Don't need reviews for anything on Nostr. Not one thing, so far.
Just use Bitcoin
Perhaps reviews could have several types: "i know and trust the operator" or "it works well" ...
Everything currently is of the latter type which has the problems you describe.
cashu represents complacency and a lowering of standards. all offchain scaling solutions should have a cryptographically secure unilateral exit mechanism. they should never ever be ruggable. and generally they should have good UX. don't let anyone trick you into thinking that it isn't possible to have all of that at the same time.
any ideas how to achieve that while keeping efficiency and privacy?
privacy, trustlessness, verifiability. pick two
You can't have all three in a single system. It's impossible due fundamental limitations of information theory. You would understand this if you actually tried to build the system you have described.
The best design is a layered stack that makes different tradeoffs at different layers. Let users freely move value between the layers and you have just empowered them to control their own privacy and sovereignty.
This is the way.
Blind dogma is not the way.
Yup. I’m not in it for the tech. I’m in it for the private payments and private communications.
Well said. This is the way nature does it. We are bound by that system, nothing wrong with it. Each layer provides space and opportunity for growth, timing based on when it's right for that person. That's where the value lies.
any ideas how to do it better?
Federated trust models are a step in the right direction probably. But even a single point of trust bitcoin bank is an idea worth exploring. (This is the ETFs, and exchanges as well) In my long post above I think I make that clear. And I am grateful people like you are working on these things.
- Raise the barrier to entry to creating a review to prevent low-effort reviews.
- Make reviews be specific about what is being reviewed (uptime, trust, speed, whatever).
- Use some kind of watchtower system instead of reviews. https://audit.8333.space/ seems like a good idea.
- On the user side, build UX that encourage people to diversify mints, warn them when they have a lot of money concentrated, etc. I've heard people talk about this, and I'm working on something similar for relays currently which might inspire some ideas:
