Replying to Avatar florian

You can think of it as cash in the form of a text snippet that you can send to someone (over a secure channel).

It can be redeemed for lightning bitcoin at an authority (mint).

Anyone can anonymously redeem the token which makes it digital cash.

Why is it needed? It is much more lightweight than a lightning transaction which can involve multiple channels to transfer the money. This makes ecash better suited for a high volume of users and (small) transactions.

Right now it is very experimental but it might become an alternative way to zap when it’s better integrated.
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SoupBox 2y ago

No this is a great start to understanding it. So it kind of cuts out the middle man?

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Rich Nost 2y ago

The middle man operates the bank and not the rails. Once you have eCash on-hand you don't have to deal with all the vagaries of transferring over lightning.

In this model, the minters worry about lightning and you just watch out for your nuts.