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130 sats \ 10 replies \ @om 21 Jan 2023 \ on: We've changed our mind about Custodial Wallets bitcoin

When (not if) Australian government sends a cop to WoS and demands kyc all your villagers' money is gone. Well, not technically gone but up in the air until kyc is completed, which will of course never happen. Yeah, I get it, spending wallet, lunch money etc. but just like with FTX, psychological damage might exceed financial damage. "If those bitcoin guys can't be trusted with small amounts, do I, an African villager, want to go anywhere near them with significant amounts?"

So we started off with Muun

Muun isn't a lightning wallet. You've literally attempted to use a non-lightning wallet for lightning and then immediately given up to a custodial wallet. You might want to check actual non-custodial ligntning wallets (Breez for example).

If you insist on custodial solutions, I think it's better for custodians in this case to be local. People want familiar faces to punch. You might eventually want https://fedi.xyz when it works (Obi is Nigerian, he gets what people need). For now this might suffice but I don't know much about it: https://github.com/GaloyMoney/

50 sats \ 9 replies \ @BOLT11Village OP 21 Jan 2023

Thanks for the input. "Trade-off ladder" means start off with WoS until you get familiar with the concept and how to receive/spend sats, on ramp, off ramp to fiat, then move up to a non-custodial one when ready. It doesn't mean use WoS forever.

We tried a bunch of other non-custodial walles before we settled for WoS. None of them were simple to use. Heard about Fedi, but it's not ready yet and no idea how long that will take. Breez literally has a Beta Warning when you start it stating "there's a chance your money will be lost, use app only if willing to take the risk", not the best way to get new people started.

Our challenge is not getting what people need, we've been sending remittances to Africa for over 10 years, it's mainly the UX where the problem lies.

10 sats \ 7 replies \ @clownworld 22 Jan 2023

Phoenix is super easy to use. What was your issue with Phoenix?

32 sats \ 6 replies \ @BOLT11Village OP 22 Jan 2023

Phoenix would have been great, but 2 main issues for us.

Has 24 fiat currencies listed and not a single one of them is African. If you're used to buying a bag of rice for x amount, you'll want to see that amount displayed alongside the sats. Also your balance.
First payment you receive must be at least 10k sat. Not an issue for us during the testing phase, but might exclude some of the users we're trying to help for taking part in the circular economy. And without every single person included, we can't get mass adoption.

I think if they can fix (1), we could probably manage (2) via donations.

But agreed, Phoenix definitely one of the best.

31 sats \ 3 replies \ @nerd2ninja 23 Jan 2023

So I don't know have technical your team is, but if its technical enough, you guys could fork Phoenix and be the "LSP" (Lightning Service Provider) instead. https://github.com/ACINQ/phoenix

and for 2, I can imagine that donation message now. "Your donation of 10k sats or more could help someone using a custodial account get a lightning wallet" the maxi in me that hates custodial would go send send send

15 sats \ 2 replies \ @BOLT11Village OP 23 Jan 2023

Thanks for the suggestion. We've got one js-developer, but he's not worked with that stack before, although everything can be learned over time. The only issue with forking code is you then have to be able to maintain it and do bug fixes, we haven't got the resources to do that on a long-term basis. But great idea and good to know about the possibilities. Didn't realize Phoenix was open-source.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @nerd2ninja 23 Jan 2023

You could also probably just open an issue on the github page asking for the addition of whatever African currencies you need.