Nutzaps are the way. LN fees are an impediment to zapping. Who wants to pay 2 sats to zap 10 sats? Interacting with the mint via nostr makes it easier to run "private" mints. Nutsack wallets on nostr solves the "where are my nuts?" problem. Nobody wants to lose their nuts.
Everytime I zap someone vie Lightning from my wallet, it takes 5-10 seconds for the zap to settle and for everyone to see it happen on nostr.
Everytime, I think "this could've been an instant nutzap". "Tap, boom. Tap, boom. Zap zap zap. I would be zapping so much more."
The reason a nutzap is instant is obvious. At this point, I hope that everyone knows that a Cashu nutzap is just an instant transfer of an IOU from one user to another.
Let's step back and look at a pure Lightning zap on nostr for a second. We all know that the vast majority of Lightning zaps is effectively an exchange of one custodial IOU against another one as well. Most people use custodial wallets. So why is it still so slow? It's the Lightning settlement between the two custodians that often takes 5-10s to complete. Note, some users actually do run their own node, manage channels, run LNURL servers, etc. But they still get the same UX.
Here is an idea. Let's say a user doesn't want to use Cashu. Pure Lighting maxi which I think is great. I've been a Lightning dev for years before I started working on Cashu. This user could still be nutzapped and even remain fully self-sovereign if they run their own node.
What if the receiving user's Lightning wallet (custodial or non-custodial) was able to melt all nutzaps it receives by watching the nostr wallet ("nutsack") of its user? Either for every nutzap or whenever enough nuts are accumulated, the service could withdraw the nuts to the user's real Lightning wallet.
Effectively, this would improve the zap UX by showing everyone an instant zaps. The receiving user's custodian (or themselves) would have to run something like a nostr-cashu-wallet-watcher on a server to receive while being offline, but they have to run a Lightning node and LNURL and all that anyway (they already have a server).
Even without a server, normal nostr clients without true nutzap support could withdraw all nuts accumulated while they were offline back to their Lightning wallet everytime they come back online. The only real difference to a normal zap is that noe it's the receiver's job to settle via Lightning, not the zap sender's.
Nevertheless, zaps on permissionless social media like in nostr will never be completely trustless. They can't solve the sybil problem for instance. If you want, you can zap yourself an infinite amount of normal Lightning zaps on nostr without moving s single Satoshi. We faked zaps in the early days like crazy just to have fun.
But it actually turns out, all that doesn't really matter too much at all. First, people seem not to abuse the sybil issue. We had fun for a few weeks but then it got uninteresting There is not enough to gain, no algorithm to fool, no benefit of lying (at least not yet). Second, zaps are literally free money given to you from a random person. Why would someone rug you if they want to literally gift you money? It doesn't make much sense.
I think we have a lot more to learn. nostr:npub1l2vyh47mk2p0qlsku7hg0vn29faehy9hy34ygaclpn66ukqp3afqutajft recently said he thinks we have explored 1% of what zaps can be. He might be right. I think the reordering of events that a bearer zap system like with Cashu brings could open new doors for insane UX and it looks like we're actually going to find out. We have zero-config wallets now. Imagine how cool it is to bring your money wherever you go with your nsec.
Keep exploring, cypherpunks. We do live in the best of all times. Bullish on Bitcoin, bullish on Nostr, bullish on Cashu 🧡
Discussion
> Who wants to pay 2 sats to zap 10 sats?
Yes, exactly. And you look at what people say about Apple's in-app purchase take, which is more or less the same % on average.
Wouldn't we all have to be in the same mint to prevent this? When I zap from minibits I still incur a 2 sat charge because the other person is either using lightning or a different mint.
Trading nuts on the same mint can happen with no ln fees. Once you have enough nuts accumulated on a mint, the base lightning fee is insignificant to the amount. The problem is many LN nodes charge a 1 sat base fee, and if you go through two of these nodes, that can add up quickly. Even one sat for a 20 sat zap is too much. A 2 sat fee for a 2000 sat LN settlement, that's at least tolerable.
I agree, It wouldn't be a big deal for higher transactions but most zaps are fairly small. I guess I was thinking more in terms of the way people use zaps currently (or maybe I'm just cheap). If I zap someone 21 sats I usually get charged a fee because they aren't using ecash, but even if they were, we'd have to be in the same mint to benefit from the lack of fees. People probably wouldn't all settle on the same mint so I don't see how the fee is avoidable for zapping, unless it happens to be someone in the same mint that you are using.
The idea behind nutzaps, not the way they are used now, is that you rarely settle them over lightning. This way SATs can circulate between npubs as zaps with no fees. You keep them on the mint you recieved then on and trade them around for free. You can settle them once you have enough accumulated on a particular mint. You can also move them from one mint to another (maybe move them off a public mint onto your own mint), or you can simply use it to pay for things. The power of nuts is you can consolidate small zaps into one large LN transaction and/or an on-chain uxto.
😳 I think I get it now. This is something new that I am unfamiliar with but I think I understand what you are saying, now I just need to figure out how this works in practice. There is so much terminology thrown around on nostr that often times I think people are just talking about the same things in different ways! Haha, thanks for educating me!
I did automatic lightning payments every 6 blocks to a few people before zaps were a thing, but stopped for this reason.
I've been going down the cashu rabbit hole these days because I can send sats without being connected to the Internet.