Do you know, what kind of rugging abilities does the mint have?
Can they steal or use your funds, or can they only rug you by say shutting down the mint (resulting in you losing tokens).
This is the part that im unclear on so far
In case anyone is still confused about nuts or what it means and why we always talk about it (me today haha), here is my know-nothing dummy explanation and why this is a big deal IMO:
Cashu is an ecash protocol(is this correct?) created by nostr:npub12rv5lskctqxxs2c8rf2zlzc7xx3qpvzs3w4etgemauy9thegr43sf485vg
People are calling them nuts because cashews are nuts... get it?
The terminology is irrelevant. They can be called tokens, air, water, chicken teriyaki.. it really doesn't matter! What matter is that this is a Layer 3 payment system that transfers tokens at the speed of light (or so I think). Lightning being layer 2, and bitcoin being layer 1.
The reason why this is a significant development is because now everyone has a cashu address. Thanks to amazing work by the legendary nostr:npub1mhcr4j594hsrnen594d7700n2t03n8gdx83zhxzculk6sh9nhwlq7uc226 , if you go to npub.cash you can see that you already have an address to receive these layer 3 tokens, which just happen to be easily redeemable into lightning. This means that any new person who joins nostr automatically has (custodial) layer 3 payment access, which can swap into layer 2 and into layer 1 and into fiat if need be.
I don't know any of the underlying mechanics of this, I am not a genius like nostr:npub12rv5lskctqxxs2c8rf2zlzc7xx3qpvzs3w4etgemauy9thegr43sf485vg and what I have described could be incorrect, but it sure feels like this is roughly how things work.
Nuts are custodial, meaning a mint is holding your balance and can look up your npub to see if you have some. Once called upon, these nuts can be sent to another nutter (cashu wallet) or directly to a lightning address! This interoperability makes everyone a layer 2 user. All we need is a clever UX toggle / button / terminology to make it really obvious.
IF this were to be turned into a library that devs could include in their client code and "it just works", THEN it could be a game changer! No more directing people on how to get a wallet right as they join. They can experience the magic of bitcoin indirectly via layer 3 > layer 2 transfer all without knowing anything (as long as they can get on nostr).
In practice, this means anyone joining an audio nest, a zapstream, a flare.pub can automatically get paid. Yes, it's just tokens, and yes it's centralized and custodial, BUT, they see the value instantly and are only a click away from digging deeper. It's a STEPPING STONE that makes it significantly easier to get onboarded into the new paradigm.
I have not been this excited since the discovery of nostr itself! If I'm mistaken somehow, or don't understand things correctly, please let me know and forgive my dumbass 🤣 And if this means what I think it means, then let's make magic happen!
Discussion
A question for nostr:npub12rv5lskctqxxs2c8rf2zlzc7xx3qpvzs3w4etgemauy9thegr43sf485vg
I think ecash should be treated as cash - you never want to carry too much of it around, and certainly not store it with a custodian.
I imagine a mint can take all the nuts if it wants to just by shutting down, this is why it would be important to have trusted mints, perhaps mints tied to trusted clients (popular client having its own mint).
If possible, you'd rotate which mints people are assigned as they join so you don't have a concentration in a handful (make the rug less painful).
But for the most part, it would be on the part of the UX designer to ensure people know not to keep any significant nut stash for too long with a custodial mint.
This is really good explanation, I’d like to add that cashu is the money. To clarify, when we use onchain funds, then our “wallet” does not hold any coins. Instead wallets actually only sign coins (utxos). On the contrar, mints who issue cashu literally provide you the money. So it’s as if you receive a dollar bill from them, therefore you can store it wherever you like. However, if you want to spend that exact bill, t hen only the same mint that originally issued the cashu will redeem it, because they blind signed it in the first place. So despite the cashu being the money (a bearer token), users still have to trust a mint for them to spend it it the future. Luckily, the cashu project is already working on proof of reserves and other features, similar to those that nostr:npub1r0rs5q2gk0e3dk3nlc7gnu378ec6cnlenqp8a3cjhyzu6f8k5sgs4sq9acpointed out, like swapping tokens between mints or not trusting only one mint, or only trusting a mint run by a local community
