Nostr Web Client

The issue is that ecash forces custody while making the path to non-custody harder.

NWC is a superior API to build around instead of focusing on ecash integrations, since switching to your own node is trivial with NWC if you want to upgrade to a non-custodial setup.

There is no real non-custody upgrade path in the ecash case if devs focus on building ecash integrations instead of NWC.

Let's focus dev energy around #NWC and lightning wallets with zap support! They are severely lacking!

Let's not rebuild the world we are trying to deprecate.

nostr:note14p8qklmp4xmnxkeee4vj8l35haref64pdqzcl0x6r7eh0t2vmfhs200cy9

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Discussion

CarteBlanche 6mo ago

Self-custody is the revolution.

jb55 6mo ago

🫡

vnprc 6mo ago

> ecash forces custody

no one is forced to use ecash. you are thinking of governments, ecash is built by cypherpunks. very different

jb55 6mo ago

If we build apps where the only option is ecash, then yes you are effectively forced into custody. This is my concern. I’m already seeing apps where ecash is the main focus

vnprc 6mo ago

"Forced" to use the better technology by developers who choose to build on the best tech stack. I mean, that's one way to interpret the word "force". I don't think it's the agreed upon definition of the word, though.

Other flaws in your thinking:

You ignore the challenges of running a lightning node, focusing exclusively on the switching cost from custodial lightning to self-hosted lightning.

You also haven't considered or perhaps have dismissed the use cases where lightning simply isn't up to the challenge like paid APIs. Lightning latency and payment failures kill this use case. Ecash is true peer-to-peer electronic cash because it solves all of the scaling issues that self-custody lightning faces.

The best system is a graduated system. We will never get there by ignoring one entire side of the tech stack out of an ill-conceived reactionary stance that focuses exclusively on the failings of the old system.

jb55 6mo ago

I am not ignoring the challenges of running the lightning node, I am simply saying we shouldn't outright deny that path to people who decide to take on the extra complexity for true self custody.

I also believe we can make this path more attractive with more development and more engineering effort.

ecash can't really be a true p2p electronic payment option because at the end of the day you still need lightning to verify if its a real payment, unless you want to reintroduce chargebacks and all those nasty things.

At the very best it just masks the issue.

jb55 6mo ago

its also interesting that you think ecash is a better stack. I just see it as a more complicated stack with less reliable payment option for vendors accepting payments.

The biggest benefit of lightning for vendors was to remove to chance of chargeback fraud, which is a huge issue for vendors.

You can eliminate this by just enforcing a mint when receiving payment and using lightning again, but then you don't really gain anything from ecash other than privacy, which is not nothing, but you can have private lightning wallets as well without ecash. its not that complicated.

vnprc 6mo ago

> we shouldn't outright deny that path to people

Developers not building features is not denying options to users. Framing it as such is disingenuous. There are way more lightning devs than ecash devs. Nobody is stopping them from building.

> I also believe we can make this path more attractive with more development and more engineering effort.

We agree on this. Lightning is not done yet.

> ecash can't really be a true p2p electronic payment option because at the end of the day you still need lightning to verify if its a real payment

This is a fallacy arising from your view of custodial payment solutions as "not real". Ecash is an electronic bearer instrument (a.k.a. cash) that cannot be selectively disabled for specific users. It is peer-to-peer electronic cash. People have been using custodial cash solutions for hundreds of years. It's a very real form of money. The entire world economy runs on this "not real" form of money.

> I just see it as a more complicated stack with less reliable payment option for vendors accepting payments.

lol wat? Just look at the specs bro. Ecash is ridiculously simple compared to lightning. You don't need to take my word for it, just watch what gets built. The reason it seems like lightning is losing ground to ecash is because it is. Lightning is held back by its own protocol complexity. Perhaps you know too much about how lightning works to appreciate the difference. Can't see the forest for the trees.

Your other arguments all stem from the view that custodial bearer asset money is somehow "not real". This is the kool-aid talking. If the payer and payee both trust the mint then ecash is simply better than lightning. If your transaction is large enough that you don't want to trust the mint then use lightning or on-chain. This is the best of all worlds. This is the future.

jb55 6mo ago

how can lightning lose ground to ecash, does it not depend on lightning? Unless you are proposing shitcoinery.

vnprc 6mo ago

Speaking from an end-user standpoint that views lightning as rival to ecash, which is the entire premise of your original argument. Unless you want to walk that back...?

jb55 6mo ago

masking the complexity of lightning with a custodial facade might seem like its better UX, but its just a facade. it degrades important properties of the payment network (inability to chargeback) while making it more brittle and complex. your points might be correct if you give up on lightning alltogether and go into fiat/shitcoinery, which it sounds like you're proposing?

vnprc 6mo ago

You can't do chargebacks with ecash. It also has better privacy properties than lightning.

Ecash has better UX, as you said, because the overhead of maintaining a lightning node is offloaded to the custodian, who can be compensated in the form of fees.

Is this the value for value everybody keeps talking about? Liquidity management, uptime, and privacy provided in exchange for transaction fees. Seems like a good trade to me b/c I don't want to do all of that work just to zap shitposts.

Which is it? Brittle and complex or better UX? You can't take both sides of the argument.

Not sure why you are accusing me of being a shitcoiner. Do you have a rational line of reasoning or is this just plain old ad hominem?

jb55 6mo ago

simply nonsense, you can definitely claw back ecash. ecash people tell me this is one of the best features.

vnprc 6mo ago

It seems we are talking past each other. You got a reference I can check out?

jb55 6mo ago

nostr:note1p7axj0cnxzy56za4wx0f2fy6ghu0qfwq4sd4tx0fwnlql39ugkrswy32ll

jb55 6mo ago

one example

vnprc 6mo ago

Ah ok. He's talking about reclaiming unclaimed tokens. That's not really a clawback, at least not how I understand the term. This is like an unfinalized lightning transaction that later fails, like with a hold invoice. It's a great feature because it means you aren't sending your money into a black hole.

A clawback (I think the most commonly understood definition of the term) is when you finalize the transaction and then reverse it later. This is how check fraud or credit card fraud works. This is not possible with ecash. Once the token is claimed there is nothing either party can do to reverse that transaction.

The mint can't even act unless the user accused of fraud deanonymizes their ecash token, which they have no incentive to do. Even in that case, the mint can't know for sure which user to reissue it to because they both have the blinded secret. Ecash is too private; the mint knows nothing and can't really act so clawbacks are not possible.

vnprc 6mo ago

lol sorry for double post. Nostr client issues... Almost triple posted 😅

PABLOF7z 6mo ago

nostr:npub1xtscya34g58tk0z605fvr788k263gsu6cy9x0mhnm87echrgufzsevkk5s , does damus notedeck not leave relay/pubkey hints? 😅

jb55 6mo ago

I only recently added the relay index to nostrdb, we should be able to do it now.

Simply Nostr 6mo ago

I was a huge fan a jb55 until he started shitting on ecash

vnprc 6mo ago

I still like him. 🙂

Simply Nostr 6mo ago

Me too

jb55 6mo ago

I have legitimate concerns, i’m not allowed to voice this?

Simply Nostr 6mo ago

Yes

I shit post too much

And get way to high on weed 👀🤣

Your free to and I’m glad you are 💟

/dev/fd0 6mo ago

Cult doesn't like freedom of speech

Daniel Wigton 6mo ago

It is 2025 and we are connected to the whole world. No need to tolerate people who do not share 100% of our beliefs and with our same level of conviction.

That being said. I need to look into ecash. I just wrote it off, but it probably has some good ideas.

Leo Wandersleb 6mo ago

Here you're talking about vendors, not zap recipients? I'd say those are very distinct modes of value transfer.

The zapper wants his value transfer to be seen by everybody and the zapped goes along with it with zero hurry and little concerns about settlement.

The buyer and vendor want privacy and immediate settlement.

I want my nostr client to disregard nut zaps that are not confirmed by the recipient or a trusted mint. The recipient might trust different mints than myself.

Leo Wandersleb 6mo ago

Creating a Nostr app that receives zaps in a self-custodial manner while maintaining good UX is currently impossible.

Traditional zaps involve a Lightning wallet sending payment to another wallet, with an npub claiming to have paid another npub, and the recipient confirming by sending a receipt. This creates a verifiable payment trail but exposes wallet addresses and payment paths, making Lightning zaps de-anonymizing.

eToken or nut zaps solve this by acting as an anonymization layer. Receivers need zero configuration since the npub-encrypted bearer token contains everything required for the transaction. The tokens can be bound to specific npubs for functionality while keeping the actual wallets completely private. This transforms payments into simple transfers of encrypted data between npubs, with no trace of the underlying financial infrastructure.

This approach improves user experience by letting newcomers receive value immediately without complex wallet setups or custody decisions. As users become comfortable with Nostr and Bitcoin, they can gradually move meaningful amounts to trusted mints or self-custody solutions. The client discovers nut zaps automatically and guides users through securing funds when they're ready.

Mints are still custodians but I'd rather see a thousand mints being used than all opting for WoS. Sadly we live in a world where you have to either hide from government agencies or pay them to be a custodian on their radar but maybe that drives people to run "uncle Jim" mints for micro communities of family and friends.

cloud fodder 6mo ago

only issue i have with nwc is my clients dont know why payment failed. only way i know how to tell is if im reading my node logs. dont know if the spec has error reporting in it or not but that would be nice.

jb55 6mo ago

There are errors… we show them in damus with the reason

cloud fodder 6mo ago

so it'll say "could not find a route" and similar? huh, i wonder why no one else does this..

satoshi jr 6mo ago

Are ecash and nwc compatible? Can you setup nwc to accept ecash tokens as lightning (Ithinks its how its supposed to work right)

jb55 6mo ago

nwc is just a protocol for paying lightning invoices and controlling lightning wallets from apps, it doesn't really have anything to do with ecash. some people have built NWC bridges to mints, not exactly sure how that works though.

ynniv 6mo ago

We badly need NWC zaps. I also dislike the structure of ecash, and am working on something that might be better

jb55 6mo ago

what do you mean by nwc zaps

ynniv 6mo ago

Can you accept a zap without an LNURL address?

cypherhoodlum🏴‍☠️ 6mo ago

Hear hear

hoppe2 6mo ago

I generally agree with your points about the advantages of NWC and focusing development efforts there. However, having personally run a self-hosted Bitcoin node and Lightning node, and connected them to my phone's Lightning wallet via NWC(thanks #alby), I'm skeptical that the average user would be able to do this. People simply won't use something if it's inconvenient.

While developers will undoubtedly work hard to improve the user experience, true usability—specifically, the ability for a user to reliably receive payments even when their phone is idle or they're asleep—requires the Lightning node to be running 24/7. It seems difficult to achieve this without the help of cloud (i.e., custodial) services.

lemon 6mo ago

Non-custodial > blinded custodian > traditional custodian

Pablo showed with Olas that new users can create Nostr accounts in one step and have a wallet to immediately start receiving zaps through NIP60/61 with ecash

Do you think this is possible with NWC?

I haven’t used it so I’m genuinely asking

sime 6mo ago

Just discovered that NWC solves half the problem of opening ports on a router. Awesome.

jb55 6mo ago

yeah its amazing for that

Tim Bouma 6mo ago

Yep. I am expanding my NWC implementation to handle more directives, such as privately transmitting records to other NWC wallets.

I use NIP-4 for receiving the directives and communicating the results, but everything behind the scenes is NIP-59/NIP-44