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I’m interested to understand what is the difference between using Cashu (need to trust the mint) vs custodial Lightning (need to trust the company running the node).
Specifically, I would love to understand from the user perspective (ie not how it is implemented): different trust requirements, risks, usability constraints, etc.
(This question came up at a local meetup discussion and I wasn’t happy with my answer, so hoping to learn)
186 sats \ 3 replies \ @k00b 2h
Better privacy because no accounts and no accounts means bearer auth and bearer auth means you approximately get the UX complexities of non-custodial onchain bitcoin usage (lose your auth, lose your money). And it’s custodial, so it has the normal risks associated with that (except that they can’t discriminate between users so when they rug or KYC they have to do it to everyone). It also shares one of the nice features of custodial bitcoin services: either the sender or receiver can be offline to conduct a payment. It also shares one of the worst features of custodial bitcoin services: unless the service has millions of dollars of licenses and KYCs its customers, it’s illegal to run a mint that serves any customer located in a majority of the countries (by population) on earth.*
*it’s possible federated mints are in a grey enough area that they might win in court battles though
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145 sats \ 2 replies \ @Scoresby 2h
This pretty much nails it. Here it is as a table in case it's easier to compare
featureecashcustodial lightning
can be ruggedyesyes
can recover from lost keysnoyes
can get your account closednoyes
can receive offlineyesyes
is illegal in US/EUyesyes
privacy from outside observersyesyes
privacy from mint/custodiankindano
The only nuance I would add is that since many of ecash wallets support use of multiple mints, it is easier to use multiple custodians at once (you can have a unified balance, while using ecash tokens from multiple different mints).
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102 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 33m
can recover from lost keys | no | yes
with that you mean you don't have keys you can lose when using custodial lightning?
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33 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby 30m
yes, i probably could have found a better way to put it, but I was trying to make the table look nice.
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