Nostr Web Client

Unpopular opinion:

Being able to choose any custodian you wish on an open, global, permissionless network… is still multiple orders of magnitude better than having a single custodian on a single network controlled and KYC’d by a single network owner.

Of course, I get we don’t want to stop at “choose your custodian,” and the reliance on them is not ideal, but pretending it isn’t any better than the fiat shit we have come from is also deeply disingenuous.

Example: if a popular custodian started censoring or went down, every single person on Nostr could update to a new one (from any country in the world no less) in a matter of minutes, and continue receiving sats from the same people and on the same profile as if nothing changed… now do that with Twitter or Cash App.

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Discussion

SwBratcher 10mo ago

IF, and this is a big if, IF you control the security of your keys. Or did you expose them to that shifty client?

Guy Swann 10mo ago

Sure, but that’s like saying “swimming is healthy unless you shoot yourself in the head.” Well yeah, the health benefits aren’t worth it if we blow our brains out.

In other words, that isn’t relevant to the issue/friction of hosting a web server and lightning node that I’m referring to that leads people to choose custodians.

SwBratcher 10mo ago

Ha! I thought you were talking Nostr, not lightning. I still have concerns about nostr key mgmt. that’s where my reply came from. My miss. Carry on. lol

Guy Swann 10mo ago

Gotcha. Yeah key management is a pain, but there are some really interesting things in development that I hope will improve that a lot.

SwBratcher 10mo ago

Been working through ideas around this…

nostr:nevent1qqsf9anzwnh8hrcma6hmf95eltp3mqxez556eszwrak5aucq2jl56lgpzemhxw309ucnjv3wxymrst338qhrww3hxumnwlq8jrk

DRE 10mo ago

What makes you think this opinion is unpopular? If anything it’s the approve opinion, specially here

Guy Swann 10mo ago

I’ve seen a lot of people squealing about “ITS FAILED” as if progress isn’t made because we haven’t taken a single, unrestricted Grand Canyon sized leap from fully centralized, fully controlled and surveilled fiat money — to infinitely scaled, fully sovereign, fully private, perfect digital money that’s accepted everywhere… as if it could be turned on like a light switch.

Those are the people in responding to.

MAHDOOD 10mo ago

This is the primary difference between gold and bitcoin. Under a gold standard, you’d hold a majority of your net worth at the bank because gold is too heavy and keep a small amount with you. That means your rug risk is high. Under a bitcoin standard, you’d hold a majority of your net worth yourself and hold a small amount with the custodian. The custodian holds a small portion of your bitcoin so the rug risk isn’t devastating. I’m pretty content with small to medium transactions being primarily done on custodial bitcoin wallets. I imagine that the fees you save will exceed the rug risk over time anyway.

Guy Swann 10mo ago

Yeah people completely discount that the ability to scale ownership of Bitcoin and gold are opposite. Sovereign ownership of billions in gold is 10000x worse than a few coins. Sovereign ownership of a billion in Bitcoin is easy, cheap, and can be protected with all sorts of unique multisig and timelock conditions that could complicate TF out of theft or confiscation.

If we don’t understand and account for, that then there’s no way to have a realistic view of the risk and/or how things are likely to unfold, imo.

PK ⚡️ 10mo ago

Ideally the custodian model itself moves towards communities and families, as close to the preferred noncustodial model as it can get

Guy Swann 10mo ago

I feel like this is the logical path, making incremental improvements continuously toward this direction.

Richie 10mo ago

The entire Eth network is essentially non custodial, the foundation is the only one with true custody.

calvadev⚡️ 10mo ago

Too few understand this; it's the very reason why Cashu, and ecash in general, is better for onboarding and adoption than existing solutions.

Sure, we want a world where absolutely no custodians need to exist, but we currently live in one where we do, so let's make that environment better as we work to a purely self-custodial one.