Are cashu mints the Nostr of Lightning?
Discussion
nostr is more federated than that
I'm still fuzzy on what and how they are used in relation to Bitcoin
Cashu is a new Chaumian Ecash system built with bitcoin Lightning capabilities.
So built on top of lightning?
Not sure about on top however, Cashu is built for Bitcoin and is deeply integrated with Lightning. Wallets use the mint's Lightning node for sending and receiving Bitcoin payments anonymously
My wallet only accepts btc
Cashu mints ecash, ecash is backed 1:1 satoshis
VEry important its not bitcoin.
I understand but the ecash can only be minted if there’s satoshis backing it. Your trading self custody for privacy. Plus you can pay lightning invoices with ecash. I’m not saying hodl ecash but for purchases it makes sense
There is no guarantee that it is 1:1. I can send Bitcoin to a mint to create ecash, then withdrawal the Bitcoin from that wallet without effecting the amount of ecash. Then it is backed 0:1. You can still send the ecash to someone, but if anyone tries to redeem ecash for sats, it will fail.
It’s not perfect rn it’s a brand new layer 3 . If you did what you said your ecash would be unspendable until there were sats in the mint. For now I would not accept payment in ecash directly I would post a regular lightning invoice and the payer can use ecash to pay the lightning invoice.
Prove you can do that, in a screen grab. Entanglement is primary to fedimints and chaum. You are saying they've been working on this for years only to un invent bitcoin scarcity.
I'm Not saying it's impossible, it sort of is re-inventing a fiat like middleman, what i am saying is there are many eyes on this and i would appreciate proof.
Show yourself redeeming tokens sent to your mint but intended for someone else.
What are you doing with your life?
He doesn’t know his wallet accepts ecash 🫠
I dont want ecash so what if I don't care for ecash
Because ecash is bitcoin you can spend it like bitcoin. You don’t have to accept ecash but anyone can pay you with ecash over lightning ⚡️
Ecash is Bitcoin like Blackrock ETF shares are Bitcoin.
Terrible comparison
Nope. They are both Bitcoin IOUs. It is trivial to remove the Bitcoin on a Cashu mint and leave all the minted ecash unbacked.
I run a mint and demonstrate this risk at our meetups.
You should never accept ecash from a mint you don't already trust. Ecash shouldn't really be used for payments. As a merchant, I would never except ecash from a mint other than the one I run. Just send me sats.
Ecash is not like an ETF when you can run your own mint. Your moving the goal post
There's no point to running a mint if you're the only one using it. And for anyone else to use it, they have to trust your ecash Bitcoin IOUs. Just like they have to trust Blackrock ETF IOUs.
privacy! If I pay your lightning invoice with ecash there’s no paper trail I paid you
If it comes from your node, it has the exact same privacy as if you sent a regular lightning payment from your node. The lightning transaction is exactly the same.
You have to have other users on your mint to add any kind of privacy. And that only adds privacy as far as the lightning node operator not knowing who sent sats out.
You know you sent sats out of the mint that you run and you're the only user of. That is no benefit.
I can have multiple wallets that interact with my mint, besides there’s no real way for you to know how many users are using my mint
It doesn't matter if you have multiple ecash wallets on a mint if they are all yours. YOU are still the only person sending payments out of the mint. You are getting no privacy benefits over just sending payments out of your lightning node normally.
Ecash mints are intended to not allow the node operator (you) from knowing who is sending sats out. You don't need privacy from yourself.
Your making all these assumptions 1. You don’t know if I’m the mint operator or not and 2. If I pay your lightning invoice with ecash how do you know I paid and not someone else? You don’t ! Its plausible deniability where paying direct from a lightning wallet isn’t
Interesting thread fellas
A receiver on the lightning network doesn't even know what lightning node sent the transaction. As far as a LN receiver is concerned, there is no mint on the senders node. Ecash adds no privacy benefits there.
The LN receiver doesn't know you have a mint. It doesn't know who the user(s) are. MINTS ARE FOR PROVIDING PRIVACY FOR USERS OF THE MINT FROM THE MINT OPERATOR. Not privacy to someone paid over lightning from the mint. Having a mint or not does not change the lightning transaction being sent. It only obfuscates who initiated the txn from the sending node operator.
And back to my original point, anyone using your mint and holding your ecash has an IOU from you for sats that you can choose to not honor. That is the risk of mints. If you are the only person using your mint, on your node, you are doing nothing for your privacy.
You claimed you were your own mint. I'm arguing based on that.
You claimed ecash is 1:1 to sats. It is trivial for a mint operator for that not to be the case.
Let’s backup you joined the conversation with an ecash / ETF analogy. I explained it wasn’t like an ETF because I could run my own mint. Then you moved the goal post and said ecash has no benefits. I explained privacy was a benefit. Then you came up with a hypothetical scenario to try to solidify your point. I provided you with two separate examples/ answers to two separate questions in which you combined into a word salad. It’s ignorant to say ecash has no benefits when it addresses both scalability and privacy.
When did I say ecash has no benefits?
Pretty sure I said many times that it gives users of the mint privacy from the owner of the mint. That is a benefit. It doesn't provide any additional privacy over lightning as far as what the receiver of a lightning transaction knows about the transaction origin.
While you can't hold ETF shares anonymously like holding ecash in a mint, they have the same counterparty risk. The holder of your sats can just take them. At least with an ETF, there are more legal protections if they do.
I don't see that ecash helps with scalability over lightning. Trading ecash tokens with someone on a mint when those tokens may not be backed 1:1 with sats sounds like a horrible scaling solution to me.
You mean like 99% of the world doesn't want Bitcoin?
It's like how I imagined LNDhub should be... with privacy and being built out into dozens of clients. Gotta love it
Anytime you think you’ve got the Bitcoin network figured…they toss cashu nuts in your face.
You're damn right. Take deez nuts, nerd
cashuAeyJ0b2tlbiI6W3sicHJvb2ZzIjpbeyJpZCI6IkpKMWNzdjZGMG1uaSIsImFtb3VudCI6MSwiQyI6IjAzMmYzNjRiMjJmMGI1MWYwZDNmM2M5OGU0NWRjNmQ3YzVhM2I4OGY1MjNjNTczZGFlYWQwMzg1MzNkMzI2NWI4MyIsInNlY3JldCI6IkN0MVJuTElLdVhDREVqSlBBc3UvOU9yTDc1U25LWDRoNTdIdzljMWVUSFE9In0seyJpZCI6IkpKMWNzdjZGMG1uaSIsImFtb3VudCI6NCwiQyI6IjAzNzk3NzhmZWVkYTU0OThkMGEzNDZkOTNhYWU2NjQ3OTdhYzRiMDlhN2QzYWU4NTg5ZWFiMjgxNDY3N2NmMjI0OSIsInNlY3JldCI6IkpEa1RZQUJ1YkEvZDdPQ3ZrcVorUDhtdXV3QlFBZk1Uc0tlUHl6OG1XY1k9In0seyJpZCI6IkpKMWNzdjZGMG1uaSIsImFtb3VudCI6MTYsIkMiOiIwMmNlMGMwMmFmOWZhNjdiY2U4NDM4MmFhNTFhYWU2ZTQ3ODJhODQ3MmE1MWVmYTYwZmRkZTc3NWFlZTk5NGI5MGUiLCJzZWNyZXQiOiJuQnhLM25WaWl5K0E1ME92SDBHeG1IbXU5cEtLcENoM0V6QVIvT1hwNldRPSJ9XSwibWludCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vbG5iaXRzLm5vdGFmaWF0LnN0b3JlL2Nhc2h1L2FwaS92MS9CUm91SzlTRVdnSEgzbmQzU3FFTHVkIn1dfQ==
Yessir, let me spend a few days researching… I swear I’ll redeem yer cashu nuts as soon as possible sir!
In the docs Cashu is described as layer 2, but since it relies so heavily on LN, isn't it a layer 3 ?