If your Bitcoin stack is linked to your passport, it belongs to the government.
Not you.
Discussion
I hope you are aware that most sim cards are also linked to passports. Please consider offering alternative concepts to use your app.
The phone number is stored on the device. As far as I know, Vexl doesn't have access to it. That's a big difference!
Also, Vexl doesnāt touch bitcoin or Fiat so there are no records of any sort of trades or any connection to Bitcoin.
Signal, WhatsApp, and telegram all require a phone number to use.
The phone number is your human web of trust. Itās not shared with us but it can help you trade with others privately.
If you use Signal, you can use a burner number; moreover, I'm not forced to give the app access to my whole contact list (i.e., my social graph, which includes family, etc.). I get that it's your app, so you can do what you like.
Personally, I would be someone who wants to use your app, but I don't because, as a privacy advocate, this is a big no go for me. I assume many other privacy sensitive users feel the same way, and they are normally your target audience, in my opinion.
Why not offer an alternative via a Nostr identity? Most people I know from meetups, conferences, etc. share Npubs or usernames for other messengers when they meet, but they rarely exchange phone numbers. In fact, many people don't even have a SIM with a number attached anymore.
Or even offer a way viaāÆgeohash, where people can use only the first two characters of the are. This makes the location only roughly precise, but it still shows the liquidity for that area, allowing users to decide on their own whether they're comfortable meeting without already knowing each other.
The average Joe might still use WhatsApp with a phone number and doesn't care about sharing his entire private contact list with you, especially since Meta and Google already have it. However, I doubt that these are the kind of people who prefer p2p trades, they tend to buy non custodial ious on Coinbase.
I get your privacy concerns, but let me clear up some misconceptions.
Your data never leaves your phone.
We don't see your contacts.
We don't see your phone number.
We have zero record of any trades because no bitcoin actually moves through the app.
It moves between you and your trading partner via Cash or something you have agreed on.
You're asking us to build a new social network from scratch when the most robust web of trust already exists, your actual relationships.
Your university friend or someone you've known for 20 years has infinitely more trust value than some random Nostr pubkey you collected at a meetup.
No, Iām not saying that these people that you meet at meetupās are not trustworthy. Iām just saying they donāt have nearly as much trust to someone that you actually know and if you get to know someone well overtime then you should feel comfortable actually trading real contact information with them.
Look, Nostr has promise, but right now it's a tiny echo chamber. Most people's Nostr networks are Twitter follows, not people they'd trust with their money.
You're essentially asking us to abandon the goal of making P2P trading accessible to normal people because you think our target audience is shadowy privacy minded people.
But the truth is we have to teach and make privacy default for all.
The phone number system isn't about convenience, itās the realityā¦
Most of the world still uses phone numbers as their primary identifier.
You take for granted that you have access to Coinbase or Binance and can use those options if you want to. Like the āaverage Joeā you stated, but the truth is a lot of people don't.
They need P2P bitcoin, and they need it to work with the social connections they actually have.
They need NO KYC solutions.
We're not reinventing the wheel. We're leveraging the best web of trust that exists right now. When better ones emerge whether it's Nostr, Pubky, or something else we will adapt, but we are a long way from that point.
We can't build a circular economy on hypothetical networks with small user base.
Our code is open source. If you want to fork it and build Nostr integration, then mission accomplished. The tool you want exists, but the goal is bitcoin freedom for everyone, not just privacy purists with perfectly curated contact lists.
However, here is what really bothers me about your comment:
You are reinforcing the exact narrative that's poisoning this space.
Peer-to-peer bitcoin trading isn't sketchy. It's not just for people who "don't care about privacy."
It's the most sovereign way to get bitcoin.
When you suggest P2P is only for people buying "non-custodial IOUs on Coinbase," you're doing the establishment's work for them.
We need to make P2P normal, not niche.
If your network is small, that's a feature, not a bug. Start building real relationships.
Share your burner number with people you trust.
That's how circular economies actually grow.
I'm not too concerned about my privacy with Vexl.
It just doesn't work for the very limited number of people with whom I have exchanged phone numbers with.
I love the idea but I can't support a product that doesn't work for me.
An npub backed WoT would be infinitely more useful to me. If there's not a market for a npub based Vexl yet, then that's OK too.
Now that is something that we are working on. https://primal.net/e/nevent1qqs03pwuacs0d6sp3w5kevjcdsmtpyp5sps3haeqxq4pq68sxqpvr6gzyt6el
Yeah - Clubs would work here.
I run a local meetup & I'm involved in other not so local meetups.
Do I need permission to create one?
It seems I do
Yes you do, as clubs can break the reputation model of not managed well. This is the entire point of vexl is to not need a club, but clubs can help you make friends, but if you establish trust with someone you should trade actual contact info.
The end game is not needing a club. Because you and your friends are the club.
But if youād like a club we can certainly discuss it.
