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2742 sats \ 89 comments \ @siggy47 6h meta

I have been seeing more and more stackers who have connected their receive wallets without a send function. I know that attaching and maintaining a send wallet is usually more complicated. I also wonder whether some of these stackers are trying to game the system.

I also wonder if there is any way to discourage the practice of not bothering to zap real sats, while receiving them?

My apologies if this has already been discussed ad nauseum.

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50 sats \ 30 replies \ @jasonb 6h

Isn’t @DarthCoin actively encouraging this? It’s obviously not my style, but how is it gaming the system? Seems like a legit approach to me, although I may just be missing something.

171 sats \ 29 replies \ @siggy47 OP 6h

What Darth is doing is not connecting wallets. That's very different. By connecting a receive wallet and no send wallet, you can get real sats from fellow stackers, but you only zap cowboy credits.

78 sats \ 25 replies \ @Scoresby 6h

But such stackers do still need to acquire CCs. So either they are receiving them or buying them.

If they have a wallet attached for receiving, they ought to mostly be receiving sats.

So then they are just buying CCs by sending sats to SN. Is it really easier to pay a LN invoice every so often than it is to copy paste a NWC string?

333 sats \ 23 replies \ @ek 6h

Is it really easier to pay a LN invoice every so often than it is to copy paste a NWC string?

Yes, because:

it's not just pasting a NWC string, you need to maintain that wallet and deal with any issues, including your wallet provider getting hacked
I only have to pay a lightning invoice when I decide to. I bought 10k credits weeks ago.

0 sats \ 22 replies \ @Scoresby 5h

That makes sense. But presumably you also have to maintain the wallet from which you pay the invoice. All of #1 applies to the wallet from which you pay the invoice to buy CCs.

202 sats \ 21 replies \ @ek 5h

No. I only need to maintain send and receive functionality. I don't need to deal with any other protocol that actually connects my wallet to an app.

Phoenix is great, and I have been using it for many years without any issues. Can't say that about NWC, etc.

202 sats \ 19 replies \ @optimism 4h

NWC, when it finally worked for me, with cashu worked okay-ish, except I continuously needed to have my phone open for every zap I did on my laptop. That's a serious disruption of UX. I agree with you that the CC flow is the least disruptive, because it allows to prepay. But I know that people want sats, so if there is something good, even if I need to have my phone open all the time, I will try to be nice and do it, as long as the software is stable and non-custodial.

I could put some minor amount of sats in a custodial wallet, but all of them, as you noted above, are crap, get hacked, go down, rug... all of the shit that is no bueno. That's not what Bitcoin has ever been about for me, so why would I encourage the existence of services like that? I stopped using cashu because I have some unclaimable sats, as that is really not acceptable. No matter the amount; if it happens on a small amount, it will happen on big amounts too. So cashu/npubcash is too custodial as well, at least for me.

There must be better UX for this and I think that with SN there's a good reason to find it. NWC hasn't been it in any current implementation, but maybe we can formulate what's needed?

178 sats \ 18 replies \ @Scoresby 2h

This is a pretty good description of the current situation.

The custodial options work the best...until they suddenly don't. And they raise the question of what we are doing bothering with bitcoin in the first place.

the ecash apps all seem to have this problem of needing to be open (minibits and cashu, even the newish Fedimint app has the same issue) -- are web wallets the future?

There must be better UX for this and I think that with SN there's a good reason to find it.

I've been playing around with Lexe wallet. They have their own SDK thing (not NWC), but I imagine they wouldn't suffer the same need the app open problem.

Another cool world might be create an SN account and get a phoenixd running on a server somewhere -- but that probably means paying for and maintaining a lot more infrastructure (my technical ignorance will reveal itself perhaps in this suggestion).

There's also Spark, but as Justin points out, it's not exactly free of custodial troubles...especially when using it to interact with lightning native stuff.

I need to try Shock Wallet again now that CLINK is an option.

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25 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby 4h

Good point! Phoenix is also my lightning wallet of choice but not the one I connect to SN.

36 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 5h

I could explain you how some here are getting sats, but don't want to reveal the shit in public.

86 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 6h

It's a flaw in SN rewards system. That's why for long time I was proposing to remove totally the SN rewards.

SN must be mainly "pay to post".

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @adlai 4h

I have no way of knowing whether you deliberately ignored something I wrote¹ on some Issue, or was it a Discussion?, whatever, microsoft website pageblob ... point is, there are several plausible reasons for people to care some bounded positive real² amount about comments, even if the time spent agonizing over whether to zap from the same pseudorandom haze is worth more than that ignoring the refreshingly obvious advertisements³ all over the place.

The quote block is from some half-dead discussion, started by "ghost", about the possibility of automating zaps. I've not been around this website long enough to read all the top stackers' complaints, although I wouldn't be surprised if some people don't mind the implicit competition and channel backups, yet do consider zapping an obnoxious chore.

there are several different situations where you feel gratitude for the site providing you some item, rather than annoyance at the delay of interesting content:

someone answered your question; these aren't necessarily A:"..."/B:"...?"/A"!" reply chains, or A:"@B"/B:"..." chains, because you might have asked a general question and someone provided the answer unsolicited

someone already posted a reply saying pretty much what you would have, saving you the trouble of producing the wording, let alone the cost of posting it

media that wasn't necessarily informative or interesting, although entertained you

some comment wasn't any of the above and yet restored your faith in humanity [e.g. someone setting a good example by remaining courteous in a situation where nobody else was being polite]

obviously there are also random zaps, and sometimes conversations aren't utilitarian enough for my sterilised github imagination to figure out why they not only happened but kept people in SN rather than some unmonetized or even antimonetary site.

my purpose in enumerating the above scenarios is to help spec out the different behaviors that might be reasonable for an autozap; e.g., a sanely minimal autozap would credit a media uploader the cost of your commenting "LOL"

the sort of crazy idea I often have is that a zap amount could be computed from things like the mixing entropy of the comment chain, or maybe the differential increase in the mixing entropy that was added by your comment.

To any and all readers, and not only my dear Darth of Finite Patience, Boundless Wisdom, and Indubtbubble Wildernesse:

Please don't zap this comment, unless your main contribution to the conversation resolves epimorphically to financial data.

The entire quote appears in the main body of the comment, despite my failed efforts to leave it for the notes... guess I gotta visit ~meta sooner than sifting the wilds for ~gadgets and worse,.- ↩
yeah I was gonna write "rational" and then rethought the whole "what are micropayments anyway" noise; real problem, bounded complexity, positive effect ... definitely not ratiolol ↩
hatty professionals might quibble that they're promotional comments rather than strictly defined advertisements.... I could actually care a little bit less about the difference, although not much. ↩

36 sats \ 0 replies \ @jasonb 6h

Ah.

264 sats \ 11 replies \ @SimpleStacker 6h

To be fair, "gaming the system" is what SN's model implicitly assumes as given, and so the solution is to try to design a system that works well even under everyone's own self-interested behavior.

Maybe there should be a small incentive to attaching send wallets, like you get a boost in rewards, or your zaps are worth more trust.

The downside is that it makes it harder for SN to claim that "you can do everything with cowboy credits that you could do with a sat", and that opens up to more accusations of CCs being a shitcoin

249 sats \ 8 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 6h

I’ve said this before, you can have your sending wallet enabled and still not send any sats!

33 sats \ 7 replies \ @siggy47 OP 5h

I know, but you can't send sats without having an attached sending wallet.

80 sats \ 4 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 5h

Yeah, what I meant is that you can have the gun badge and not actually send any sats. You can trick the stackers, making it look like you’re sending sats when you’re really not.

33 sats \ 3 replies \ @siggy47 OP 5h

Yes. That's true. I think that might be along the lines of what Darth is talking about? @DarthCoin

36 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 5h

No, I am talking about a different thing, the flaw in the rewards system. You can receive sats (from rewards) even that you use only CCs (no wallet attached at all). People think that throwing their CCs to me (because they do not want them) is meaningless, but in fact they just give me more rewards in sats.

That's why I repeat: rewards system must be eliminated. Users and territories must survive only with what users are zapping. SN will get a fee. That's all.

You pay to play.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Fenix 2h

I was waiting this for November

36 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 5h

Not sure if @DarthCoin knew about this, I’ve already talked to @ek about it and even told him how it’s possible to do. Back then, he didn’t even figure it out until I told him! Hahaha.

36 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 5h

If you pay a QR code (which will show up if you don't have enough credits) with any lightning wallet, the receiver will also receive sats.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 OP 5h

True

102 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 OP 6h

My brain can't grasp the subtleties SN built in for incentives. I think zappers don't stand to lose much, if anything, in this scenario, because some of the cc's they receive will turn into sats. I agree gaming might be a bit harsh. It can be a giant annoyance to connect and keep an attached send wallet. At the same time, established stackers with plenty of knowledge who don't make the effort perhaps deserve to be singled out?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 6h

calling CCs a shitcoin is dumb. CCs are not a coin... are just credits to use SN. That's all.

Is really much easier to use CCs than an external wallet. In the end we are just shitposting on SN. Someday people will realize that Darth was always right...

415 sats \ 3 replies \ @optimism 5h

I don't have a send wallet simply because none of my current wallets work well for send without going custodial. Once i exhausted my channels, I'll switch again (shockwallet is up next) and hopefully then it works.

However, if I send you CCs (or sats), it just means I'd like you to post more on SN. It's a compliment to everyone's contributions and an encouragement to do it more.

100 sats \ 2 replies \ @DarthCoin 3h

Yeah I really do not understand why this hate for CCs. 1 CC = 1 sat damn it. Only that you use CCs only inside SN. Is like a cashu token that can be used only inside a mint. So fucking simple. What is so hard to understand this simple game economy?

Maybe people should slow down a bit with this crazy idea that "I post on SN to earn sats" and will focus more on "I will pay CCs to play a game on SN"...

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 3h

Yeah I don't expect sats back really. Even on my territory, the post fee is just a sybil fee and I just copied @k00b's low amounts for ~bitcoin and ~tech, because that seemed to work okay. The territory monthly fee makes more sense for people that see it as an investment, but whatevs, I've just tried to accommodate and if 50k is what it takes then for now I can afford to bleed that.

I've lately withdrawn my sats from rewards instead of just re-cycling them as CCs, simply because then my channel is empty sooner - I don't like closing private channels with a lot of sats in them and I'm having trouble using the one I have on Zeus w/ SN for anything other than buying CCs

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 56m

I don't understand the hate either, but some people really hate them.

180 sats \ 10 replies \ @ek 6h

Thanks for bringing this up.

I agree with you; there's no incentive not to send credits. There was an idea to give out less rewards if credits were used for zaps. @SimpleStacker replied with some feedback and I came to the conclusion that the best thing is to just completely remove sending credits:

Instead of less rewards for CC zaps as an incentive to zap sats, would it be dumb to just not allow CCs to be zapped? So if you receive CCs because you don’t have a wallet etc., it’s always your own fault?

I think this is also the main issue ppl have with CCs, that they see them as "hot potatoes." I think they are fine paying SN with CCs but they don’t want to pay each other with CCs.

I probably haven’t thought this through, but it feels like we can solve a lot of issues with this (small?) change at once and I think the small sacrifice of UX for people without sending wallets is worth it to improve the UX dramatically for everyone else.

I’ve brought this idea up many times since then. I’ll let @k00b explain his side.

In response, I now don’t zap sats myself anymore. Still receiving them though. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

224 sats \ 5 replies \ @k00b 4h

I don't have a side. I can advocate for other sides, which imo is what one should do before picking a side, but the product is the way it is because it's what I (or we) thought was best at the time.

If I have a side related to this:

there are other things to work on that we all agree should be worked on that are of equal or more importance
the work/exploration of the existing solution is unfinished and it's a waste of energy to debate an intermediate state
until (2) is finished, I don't think we should work/settle on another thing we know is also not ideal (but with different tradeoffs)

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @ek 3h

One of those things you referred to in your first point is the wallets that I have been working on.

Being able to send credits to each other directly affects the UX of wallets. If we only allow sending sats:

No confusion about why one is receiving credits: you don't have a wallet or it's failing.
No confusion about whether you’re sending credits or sats: you’re sending sats.
No confusion about how payments between stackers work: everyone is sending sats to each other.
No confusing credit fallbacks that depend on whether the sender or receiver failed.
No need to ever mention “credits are turned into sats via rewards,” “half-life of credits,” etc.

So I think it’s absolutely fair to suggest this change now, since it has a direct impact on what I’m currently working on. I’m essentially maintaining code that I know would be a lot simpler and could provide a better UX if I were allowed to change something that seemingly seems unrelated but is actually very related on closer inspection.

Additionally, you’ve brought up multiple times that we need to make the product simpler by a lot in general, but to me, it looks like you currently don’t want to consider the one change that could actually make the product simpler by a lot… because it’s too early to consider it?

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @k00b 2h

It is fair to suggest it. I never said it wasn't. I just don't want to fight about it (i.e. sides, i know it's better, the one true simplification, you think this and that, you're doing this and that), especially here, and when you're on a vacation.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @ek 2h

Fair

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @siggy47 OP 22m

What's more fun on a vacation than a good SN "airing of opinions"?

36 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 20m

ARC Raiders

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Fenix 2h

What about this.

I now don’t zap sats

I didn’t even know this was possible.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @DarthCoin 6h

I now don’t zap sats myself anymore. Still receiving them though.

So if I was saying this all along, you called me a troll. Now you came to the same conclusion.

I will repeat: CCs are not the problem. SN daily rewards are the problem.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 6h

All I remember is you crying about rewards, I'm sorry if I missed you bringing up not sending credits to each other.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 6h

That's because you do not pay attention to my memes.

I also commented few times in the saloon about this aspect, but everybody was quiet, because they knew about the flaw and didn't want to disturb the rewards...

304 sats \ 1 reply \ @0xbitcoiner 6h

I feel like I need to explain myself here. I haven’t had my sending wallet enabled for a few months now, ever since Coinos had some issues that were causing my Zaps to fail and were making my experience on SN worse. There are also things like transaction fees and SN privacy proxy fees that I avoid this way. I like having my finger on the trigger and knowing the gun won’t jam! Hahaha.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 4h

coinos has been extremely reliable for the last few months.

36 sats \ 0 replies \ @hasherstacker 2h

36 sats \ 1 reply \ @fiatbad 2h

I tried hard for a few hours trying to get my node connected for spending on SN. Nothing worked.

It wasn't for lack of trying. I've successfully connected my node to dozens of apps in the past.

I run my node on StartOS, which is natively over Tor. I frequently have issues connecting mobile apps to my node at home. Tor is probably one of the major reasons.

I tried using NWC, but then was told it was deprecated. I used Zues with the Lightning Terminal app on my node, which usually worked, but not reliably. Alby Hub was one of the best solutions, for a while, until it also stopped working.

My LN connections always stop working right when I need them, too. I go to pay at a merchant, and something fails connecting to my node. It's absolutely infuriating.

The only thing that's been absolutely reliable is to connect to my node from my laptop over Tor, then launch one of the LN wallet apps there. I can do this from anywhere in the world, and it always works. But it's not a mobile solution. I need something for my phone.

Mobile connections always have issues. These app connections are never reliable for very long.

I gave up trying to get SN to work with my Start9 node. It's been a year since I tried, but honestly, I've grown sick of trying to make LN work on my node.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 OP 1h

I tried using NWC, but then was told it was deprecated.

I went through this too. That app on Start9 was deprecated over a year ago because Alby Hub replaced it. I had tons of problems with the old app too. Use Alby Hub's dedicated SN app. It is simple and it works very well with my node.

66 sats \ 0 replies \ @adlai 5h

"Never throw shit at an armed man." - Larry Niven

Adlai's Corollary:

Never zap sats at unslung holsters.

36 sats \ 1 reply \ @Lumor 6h

I'm using a wallet not fully connected to SN for sending.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @adlai 3h

connectivity is metriseable?

yeah, what else iz knew

70 sats \ 15 replies \ @SwapMarket 5h

What motivation is there to bring real sats into SN? It is awash with CCs and there is no backwards convertibility nor proof of reserves. For all I know CCs are worthless, I am getting paid almost exclusively with them, have a ton, so I just pass them onward. SN is going 100% fiat CCs.

0 sats \ 13 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 4h

Are people like @DarthCoin who deliberately avoid using sats and deliberately circulate shitcoin ccs even true Bitcoiners? This is one of the few venues we can create and participate in a circular Bitcoin economy yet they are deliberately bypassing it. So much for the revolution Darth.

21 sats \ 8 replies \ @fiatbad 4h

Perhaps I shouldn't speak for him...

... but I'm pretty sure he's doing it as a protest. He would prefer to see CCs disappear entirely. But if the developers insist on fiat-izing SN, then he's not going to give any real Sats to them, or this ecosystem. And he's going to abuse the shit out of it whenever he can.

33 sats \ 7 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 4h

Ok that seems possible and yet by only using ccs as a protest he is further fiatising SNs himself as well whereas if you have enabled wallet you are resisting the fiatisation.

My understanding is that the ccs were introduced to avoid regulatory custodial risk to the operators of SNs and that to reverse the ccs would negate the effort invested in gaining regulatory compliance.

@DarthCoin is not exposed to that regulatory risk so can protest the use of ccs but he is at the same time choosing not to use sats when he still could if he wants.

Be the revolution yourself- do not wait for others to do it.

21 sats \ 2 replies \ @fiatbad 4h

It's strange because I think there's a direct parallel with the way we interact with the fiat system.

I'm on SN regularly preaching about how we are supporting the dollar system every time we spend a dollar, so we should stop on principle. We should stop using Fold, and other CC's (pun intended). We should work our asses off building Bitcoin circular economies so we can truly escape fiat.

Yet, my instinct is to cheer on @DarthCoin for his CC protest here on SN.

Why do I support one, and oppose the other, when they are fundamentally the same thing?

I feel like a total hypocrite right now. Satoshi is frowning on me from his sky-throne :(

13 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 3h

Yes it is a crazy situation given we want to use sats and yet because of regulatory pressure, probably more from a previous US administration, SNs had to introduce CCs and now some stackers choose not to use sats but instead use CCs which were really designed only to be used by people who could not yet set up a wallet. Just shows how sly regulatory pressure can make establishing and maintaining a Bitcoin circular economy very difficult. I may not fully understand the complexity of Darths position but will just keep using sats here because its still one of the very few places where I can.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @adlai 3h

Why do I support one, and oppose the other, when they are fundamentally the same thing?

Emphasis mine; please, stay away from fundamentals.

Practical examples are much more helpful; e.g., if you're literally off the grid, i.e. generate electricity independently, then you can feel voluntaryistically bad about accepting a free beer in a pub where the power for checking keg labels is dispensed by The Man, or at least, by The Griiddy Monopsony.

Otherwise, the fundamental equivalence is practically untenable, and you're wasting your own stream of consciousness verbalising emotions that could be better spent participating in, I dunno, heckling at an open mic in a comedy club.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @adlai 3h

My understanding is that the ccs were introduced to avoid regulatory custodial risk to the operators of SNs and that to reverse the ccs would negate the effort invested in gaining regulatory compliance.

They're also hugely more efficient, in the long run, than dumping the entire database into some CRDT-in-progress or whatever the moving target named "lightning network" technically builds on top of the friendly familiar CRDT of "actual Bitcoin".

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 3h

Not sure what a CRDT is but Coinos works perfectly well for me :)

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @adlai 3h

Conflict-free Replicated Data Type

it's a strict superclass of block-chain; most examples of CRDTs are permissioned ledgers that involve lots of merkle roots although no self-respecting bitcoiner would even dream of calling anything more respectable than "stinky DLT sandwich"

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 3h

Thank god for Coinos making such complexities unknown and non requisite for plebs like me.

reply on another page

25 sats \ 2 replies \ @SwapMarket 4h

The devs introduced CCs to avoid "money transmitter" label. I don't blame them. Now they can't go back, because it would be pretty impossible to skim fees from non-custodial zaps.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @SimpleStacker 1h

SN doesn't skim fees from non custodial zaps. They do charge a Sybil fee, including on non-custodial zaps, which goes back into the rewards pool. All of SN's revenues are generated from territory billing

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SwapMarket 1m

Ok, thanks. Still, if they want to go non-custodial and let people zap each other directly, like on Nostr, how will they collect those sybil fees? Why are they necessary, anyway?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @adlai 3h

Could an immigrant who follows Robert's Rules of Order to help the village elders debate in the forum be someday considered a true Future Scotsman?

Maybe signing covenants would help.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @adlai 3h

Long ago, while scoping out the meta, I found some screed about privacy; mind you, not the "policy" copypasta, but an actual original markdown ramble from one of the admins about how much data is publicly scrapable, which kinds of data are deliberately published, and their estimated consequences.

I've hated myself at least twice since then for not bookmarking it; I might not have even had an account, when I first found that article.

Does anyone know how to efficiently find it? I recall it was about some dashboard from the running site, rather than satistics or the snooping on literal channel gossip.

63 sats \ 1 reply \ @plebpoet 2h

I'm just super uncomfortable carrying around a gun tbh like, I can't have too much power

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 54m

do you even live in Texas

5 sats \ 1 reply \ @jakoyoh629 3h

Sinner, I confess! My goal is to duck the fees.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @adlai 3h

one patty for the comment leaves five for your imaginary revolver, and then I'm all out of cowshit!

It's important to have goals in life, before worrying about the social cost of talking about the habits of spending stackables.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Fenix 2h

@remindme in 7 hours

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Fenix 2h

send wallet is usually more complicated

I don’t have my gun because when I tried it I got many errors. I’m so bad in setup it that I receive CC often instead of sats, any is good because I use here in SN anyway. Today later Ill try to get a gun again. Ty for reminder.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 4h

Have both enabled as I prefer to use sats. Coinos has been very reliable of late.

SNs is one the few places I can actually use my sats. The contest of ideas is more important than arsemilking sats.

Systems build resilience because we use them...and die if we do not. Use your sats and use your freedom of speech...while and wherever you can! You can do both here on SNs!

Footnotes