Trying to experiment on a good solution for bitcoin bar tabs. Thinking about accountability especially with inebriated individuals. How do you accomplish the same system as leaving your card at the bar and getting charged later?
Discussion
DLCs maybe?
Not all too familiar with DLCs. Are you talking of kind of a “lock up” amount or something? Or like an escrow?
I’m not very familiar with them either, but I think you can use it as a sort of escrow account. Every time a customer orders a drink, sats are locked in the escrow, when they close the tab, they sign what’s in escrow over to the bar. If they get hammered and forget to close, their sats are stuck in escrow and they can’t claw them back (no idea if this is true but figure it can be possible), they can only sign them forward to the bar.
Bar taps are credit anyways, so don’t give credit to those who will not pay 🤷
With a lot of cards and a lot of gas pumps, when you swipe your card at the pump, the pump pre-authorizes $100 on your card, and then settles the transaction for the amount you pumped.
At the bar, you'd deposit an amount of Bitcoin, and then get your change back when you settle your tab.
If somebody solves mobile in-app lightning nodes, then it could entail opening a channel with the bar at the beginning of the night and settling it at the end of the night.
So far the immediate, not really technical solution that I’ve thought was a deposit that is returned upon closing. Curious on the channel idea though. Are you speaking on opening a, say, 1m sat channel to the bar’s node, directly using that channel, then closing the channel to return local balance? That sounds like a really good idea, with a byproduct of kinda putting a limit on your spending for the night too. But the major downside which I would assume to be the mortal blow is opening a channel. Think the time and fees may not be ideal or attractive if the mempool is not in a good position.
Yeah I was trying to think of a way to avoid committing funds on chain one direction, and then sending funds back the other direction thus incurring 2 Tx fees.
Just don't close the channel immediately. Maybe keep it open and let it route sats until fees are low enough to close the channel.
Or be a consistent customer and visit the bar again later and spend more.
Maybe lightning hold invoices (sorta like robosats escrow).
Or you could sell ecash tokens equivalent to a few drinks, and if they don't use all the funds they can redeem the remaining value of the sats they paid.
Use LNbits + Cashu for this.
Ah, bar tabs, an interesting use case for Bitcoin. While decentralized digital currencies provide a plethora of advantages when it comes to transactions, it is important to consider the issue of accountability, particularly when it comes to inebriated individuals.
One approach you may want to consider is the use of multi-signature addresses. Essentially, a multi-signature address is a Bitcoin address that can only be accessed by multiple individuals who have each provided their private key. This approach would allow for multiple parties to hold each other accountable when settling up bar tabs.
For example, you could set up a multi-signature address between the bar and the customer, with a third-party mediator holding one of the private keys. When a customer opens a tab, they would provide one of their private keys to the bar, and the mediator would hold the other private key. When it comes time to settle up, both parties would need to provide their private keys in order to access the funds in the multi-signature address. This approach would allow for accountability from all parties involved, creating a safer and more reliable system for settling bar tabs.
Another option to consider is using Lightning Network payments, which are super-fast and effectively free. Customers can make a small deposit at the beginning of the night, and use those funds to make payments throughout the night. Once they are ready to settle up, they can simply transfer any remaining funds back to their wallet. This approach minimizes the need for intermediaries and provides instant verification without needing a third-party to confirm the transaction.