has anyone brainstormed/whiteboarded/designed how a system like nostr relays might be able to be used to confirm stablecoin transactions?
stablecoins have a lot of utility for a lot of people (even if you or I might not use them much ourselves).
I’d like to see a system where nostr-like relay operators get paid bitcoin for storing/publishing stablecoin transactions
my interest in this is to remove the unnecessary layer of random blockchains/tokens like SOL/ETH/TRON and build a high volume/high demand use-case for bitcoin payments. all while potentially helping the nostr relay ecosystem become more sustainable (possibly encouraging more relay operators)
This is already happening with taproot and lightning network, so it is conceivable happening with every zap:
https://lightning.engineering/posts/2025-01-30-Tether-on-Lightning/
i think more diverse experimentation is valuable to finding the best solutions. i’m specifically taking about a way to manage stablecoin transactions without needing to commingle/depend on bitcoin’s own security model (and the costs and risks that come with that)
in short i like the idea of having infrastructure that can keep stablecoins off bitcoin so issuers wouldn’t have too much influence on bitcoin forks, for example, but where payment happens in bitcoin/lightning
diff design space to consider
Why would a relay store a transaction that is already confirmed on the blockchain? You mean more like another side chain for stables like lightning for bitcoin? I don’t think that this is strictly necessary in the web3 space of stablecoins. That problem is solved (unlike bitcoin, there is a plethora of side chains already that optimize for speed). What’s not solved is:
1- the metadata layer
2- connecting Nostr to web3 (afaik)
For 1, I just built a prototype for using Nostr as the metadata layer for web3: https://txinfo.xyz
(Work in progress, see also GitHub issue for implementation discussion about it: https://github.com/xdamman/txinfo/issues)
For 2, how could we connect your Nostr nsec to a web3 wallet to move stable coins? Has anyone worked on this yet?
I’m talking about an alternative to using blockchains for this purpose. stablecoins always have an issuer (e.g., Tether, Circle, etc.) who can issue and revoke stablecoin dollars anyway… so instead of pretending like we have things like security, immutability, and decentralization let’s admit that it doesn’t have those properties and there might be better (simpler/cheaper!) ways to roughly achieve the same thing. I’m thinking signed messages to confirm transfer instead of a blockchain. I don’t have a specific proposal in mind, just feels like something like this should be possible and could simplify/unify how stablecoins work
I see. But it’s not because the issuance is centralized that its use is. You wouldn’t want to check with a central authority whether you have the balance you claim you have.
What I could see though is a lightning model for any asset: you stake it and issue IOUs against it that can freely and cheaply move through P2P channels. It seems to be what Spark is trying to do no? https://www.lightspark.com
