Onboarding new nostr users to custodial lightning wallets is shortsighted and user hostile.
We need tools that automate best practices and maintain the sovereign fundamentals that make nostr incredibly powerful.
It will take a little bit longer for these tools to develop but we must make it a priority.
What about new users today, in the absence of zero-friction self-custodial lightning?
shout out to #[2] and #[3] for helping me with this at nostrica lol.
but yeah, i did not know what they were, and how important it is.
every time I think of the best case for freedom (i.e. bitcoin+nostr) I think of you, nostr:npub1csamkk8zu67zl9z4wkp90a462v53q775aqn5q6xzjdkxnkvcpd7srtz4x9
you discovered bitcoin through nostr because you didn't care about the "investing" thesis of bitcoin
you discovered how amazing bitcoin feels
you discovered self-custodial bitcoin
you withdrew your custodial sats to real sats
all in just a couple of (very intense) weeks
INSANE
🧡
this note means so much to me pablo, thank you for all your help and beyond all, thank you for your friendship.
i have your back 4ever. also thank you for teaching me what bullish was 😂 i still would’ve thought it mean bullshit (i guess now it does bc of you)
I was actually thinking about this last night. I was helping a new Nostrich withdraw sats from their custodial wallet and had thought of you. And then I thought that we should give basic workshops on this at upcoming Nostr conferences. I'm glad you were in good hands 💜🤙🏻
💜 I second #[3] it was really inspiring and it’s a constant reminder of what we’re building for and why we’re here.
I disagree. We’re not telling folks to keep all of their bitcoin in their Lightning wallets. That’s silly.
It’s like your cash app or Venmo account - for quick transactions and zaps. No one is keeping their life savings on venmo 😂
I think it’s great to educate folks about self custody when we’re talking about bitcoin savings… but for everyday spending, it’s so incredibly inconvenient and unintuitive.
I think this is true in the short term for the relatively affluent, but not true for the developing world and at least bearish long term. Long term there is not space on the base chain for everyone and number go up. If those 2 things hold true, at least at some point people need self custodial layer 2+ options.
It also may sound crazy but many people do lose huge sums (relative to their net worth) via payment apps all the time:
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/scammers-using-venmo-trick-customers-130000056.html
Sad truth of a broken financial system and world rife with scams. If the average American can’t come up with $500 for an emergency and most of the world is even worse off, I think #[2] ‘s point should be taken seriously. Losses that sound small to some can have devastating impact to others depending on their situation.
This is related to scammers though. Scammers can still scam you even if you hold your own private keys haha
May be a fair point. Let’s hypothetically say we all fully accept that as true. If adoption increases and number goes up, the everyone save only on the base chain argument breaks at some point. Maybe in a year, maybe in 50. But it’ll happen eventually.
It’s already broken for billions in the developing world who can’t afford the fees let alone stacking full utxos. As #[4] likes to say, there is not a utxo for everyone.
You inevitably need a self custodial savings option above the base chain. Maybe not urgent for the relatively wealthy developed world, but who can accurately predict that timing?
do you see Fedi as an option?
This is not due to a failure of #nostr users. It’s a lack of developers building the right tools.
Are there also unmanaged lightning wallets, such as phoenix
This conversation has been going on since zapping began.
It’s very much a “we aren’t there yet” and “doing the best with what we have” situation.
Eventually the standard should be non-custodial but for now it’s the simplest (1 minute setup) non-KYC implementation that works.
Newcomers are already facing a “boomer experience” when they first come to Nostr.
Eventually it should all become streamlined to normalize best practices.
Agree. I agree with most of OP's point too though. But this is the reality.
WOS and Alby are fine for a small denomination of Sats to Zap and Zoom around easily.
Phoenix and other self-custody is great for higher denominations.
EDUCATION is the key here - not just blindly onboarding people to random things.
That’s the conclusion we came to within our local bitcoin discussion
This guy gets it. Have a zap from my custodial wallet
Quickly off-boarding your friends and family into cold storage solutions (ColdCard Jade Foundation) for them using the available tools (WoS Phoenix etc.) when they reach a threshold is good....for now.
Always check in on your friends and fam!!👌✔
Letting someone else hold your Bitcoin keys is so no different from letting the bank hold your gold 🤡
Tools are essential. Without great tools there can be no ideal outcome.
As is with education. Learning will never be optional in bitcoin, whatever the use-case.
That's why I love Citadel Dispatch. It inspired me to launch my own free Pleb training program and Self-Custody group on nostr.
Agree, but also disagree. EDUCATION is the key here - not just blindly onboarding people to random things arbitrarily chosen (by whom and to what ends)?
Yes, streamlined tools and apps would be helpful, but ultimately education is the empowerment people need to make better informed choices for themselves.
We’ve been talking about this in #TheBitcoinLobby. #[3] idea of building a Nip-05 and LN wallet address in the background is something to build off of. One stop shop to pull together what is needed for nostr profile. The less friction for onboarding, the better
Funny enough I posted the mock-ups for this idea on https://nostrfreaks.com/
the issue here is that for new users to fully enjoy nostr, they need to partake in zaps. zaps are a lot of fun and enjoyable. zaps can be sent from a non-custodial wallet with ease, but receiving zaps requires a web server component that the majority of users just won't use. so, we recommend custodial solutions. voltage has and soon zeus will have a decent solution if someone runs their own node, but let's be honest here, most new users aren't going to run a node just to do zaps. i hope we get to the point some day where all of this is solvable, but we're not there yet.
for now, i recommend that people use two Lightning wallets if they can. they use custodial for small amounts and then withdraw to their own non-custodial wallet whenever they reach a certain threshold that makes them feel uncomfortable if those funds went away.
Having $10 worth of bitcoin in WOS in order to zap is not a big deal
Could BOLT12 play a part in this?
This is true…
although…
all of you seem to miss the value of an easily linked tutorial.
or an unapologetic man page.
You're the VC bud, make it happen.
Wallet that gradually moves your funds from custodial (small amounts, easy to onboard) to something more sovereign like Liquid (medium amounts, small fees) and eventually to fully sovereign solution like Lightning or onchain btc (painful fees and liquidity issues, but no trusted counterparty).
Just use Phoenix, I know you plug them a lot but in case anyone else is reading this, it was only a little bit more complicated to setup than say Wallet of Satoshi, because you had to generate your seed words and write me down/hide them/etc. Still, less than 10 min to setup and that’s conservative
What about greenlight? Sound like the begining of those much needed tools. https://blog.blockstream.com/greenlight-by-blockstream-scalable-non-custodial-lightning-infrastructure-now-open-to-developers/
