Explain Cashu in layman's terms so that any non technical person can understand it and WANT to use it.
Go! 👇
Discussion
Gonna take a stab.. Like Monero for Bitcoin?
Monero obfuscates the sending and receiving to make it untrackable. You can find where a TX came from on Bitcoin blockchain as it is tied to your IP address. Cashu works like Monero for Bitcoin. Someone correct me if I am wrong in this analogy
Partly correct.
Monero amounts and addresses are not visible, period.
Ring signatures obfuscate senders (visible, but probabilistic)
Cashu is also very good privacy. Amounts, senders, receivers all hidden even from the mints themselves.
A few differences are that Monero is self-custodial, Cashu isn't, so you can be rugged.
Every mint can also arbitrarily print Cashu tokens unbacked by Bitcoin.
Not possible with Monero.
nostr:npub12rv5lskctqxxs2c8rf2zlzc7xx3qpvzs3w4etgemauy9thegr43sf485vghe is the master of Cashu
Poker Chips at a Casino.
That brings imagery of gambling. I understand but the average person?
A custodial blackbox 😉where we can hold your Bitcoin and you have a proof on your device you can use to go claim said bitcoin
(I *think* this is right, or at least right enough to get a newb on track)
If you want to make a comparison to traditional fiat banking Cashu is a lot like sending unsigned money orders, or traveler's cheques to someone.
What you send sats via Cashu you are asking a Cashu Mint (think small town bank) to create a Cashu Token (think money order) Now you can give that Token to anyone (You can even print the QR code out on a piece of paper and mail it to someone if you'd like) and the person that gets it cashes it in with their Cashu client.
They now have sats.
Privacy wise, you didn't give them your sats. You gave them the Mints sats. So there's no connection between the two of you.
Perfect.
Best response so far.
I love Sessions so I'll use this too.
Custodial banking, but no user accounts. No liquidity management, no channels, all the privacy of using cash without registering with a big bank.
Your phone gets tokens from a cashu mint like you get cash from a bank ATM and you give bitcoin to others from app to app like you give cash from hand to hand, but also you can pay lightning invoices too (the mint handles it for you just like any custodial service) and the mint won't know whether the tokens you are giving them to pay your lightning invoice was the one they gave you, or the one they gave someone else.