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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.
202 sats \ 21 replies \ @optimism 2h
are web wallets the future?
They feel like poverty due to insane ecosystem milking by <App/Goog>le1. PWA integration feels shitty on both platforms because thats what they want it to be: as shitty as possible so that you pay your 30% app store tax - the Goog variant does a little better than the App one and there was talk of the latter wanting to remove support all together2. It's insane anyway because these smart phones don't come cheap.
get a phoenixd running on a server somewhere
Or lnd or cln. That's honestly what I should personally do as I already have servers, but then I cannot help anyone with just connecting a wallet. I won't know what works then, and I'd like to be in the know and I like testing wallets, but not custodial ones. I'm still thinking that if Blixt/Zeus would have great CLINK/NWC connectivity, then we can probably focus on reducing the energy and data consumption of their embedded LNDs.
There's also Spark
Friends don't recommend friends this, I think? lol. Also afaik the LN interface is as custodial as npubcash, i.e. you have no cryptographic / on-chain recourse when the LN channel fucks up?

Footnotes

  1. The common le stands for larcenic empire.
  2. Those earthquakes lately was Steve, the visionary inventor of PWA, rolling over in his grave at high RPM.
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100 sats \ 14 replies \ @Scoresby 2h
phoenixd as opposed to lnd or cln: comes with stupid easy liquidity management (i think maybe Zeus also does this, but I've never been clear whether I can use that with my own node).
but then I cannot help anyone with just connecting a wallet and I'd like to be in the know and I like testing wallets
Yes! I'm in the same boat here. Also, I want a solution I can recommend to a new user that has the user experience of custodial.
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102 sats \ 13 replies \ @optimism 2h
the user experience of custodial.
Getting rugged? lmao
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100 sats \ 12 replies \ @Scoresby 2h
when not rugging, custodial apps are quite pleasant
  • offline receive
  • receive small amounts
  • no need to manage liquidity
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158 sats \ 4 replies \ @optimism 2h
I have no words.
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100 sats \ 3 replies \ @ek 2h
Why not?
Sure, it sucks to potentially lose money, but you can limit the amount you're willing to lose for these quite nice properties though, no?
I’m not trying to advocate for custodial wallets, but I acknowledge that their UX is unmatched by any non-custodial wallet.
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202 sats \ 2 replies \ @optimism 1h
Remember I'm 2013 class. We're here to remove intermediaries. That was in the whitepaper and that is what drives us. Peer to peer. Not peer to bank to peer. FUCK THE BANKS
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100 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 1h
FUCK THE BANKS
This had serious HACK THE PLANET vibes
honestly, i wouldn't mind if SN just went custodial again haha
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102 sats \ 5 replies \ @optimism 1h
SN is a platform where you spend sats and receive interaction. It is not custodial because it is not a wallet. SN is my counterparty, not whomever I "zap", because I zap something to make it more visible.
This probably goes fully against this latest release of k00b's work and I should just shut up.
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100 sats \ 4 replies \ @Scoresby 1h
this aligns with Darth's slogan: pay to post.
But it's not as simple as SN is the counterparty. You pay the territory owner (who pays SN) and SN.
Also you might pay (zap) the post or comment creator to encourage them to write more of such things.
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102 sats \ 3 replies \ @optimism 1h
No. I pay SN (check your lightning invoices)
SN just has a very generous revenue share agreement with posters, territory "owners" (sponsors) and the rewards pool.
(but like I said i should shut up so I'm not going further lol)
202 sats \ 5 replies \ @ek 2h
afaik the LN interface is as custodial as npubcash, i.e. you have no cryptographic / on-chain recourse when the LN channel fucks up?
So far, I have to agree. Before I went on vacation, I was looking into exactly this: how to get the presigned tx for unilateral exit when I fund my wallet via lightning, not on-chain.
Afaik, the only thing I get when I pay a lightning invoice is a LightningSendRequest. The transfer property ("leaves transfer after lightning payment was sent") might be related, but I haven't looked further into it.
This is currently blocking adding Spark to SN.

edit: Btw, I even wonder how Spark can stay trustodial via lightning. The sats must be going into some channel right? Isn't just one entity (not many) running the lightning node? Or did Spark find a way to "decentralize a lightning node"?
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100 sats \ 4 replies \ @optimism 2h
Why is it blocking? I count 16 custodial "wallets" in the list (though I may be off by a couple in either direction because thinking about these gives me headaches)

Re: edit
Or did Spark find a way to "decentralize a lightning node"?
Yeah that was my point above.
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100 sats \ 3 replies \ @ek 2h
If there’s a way to unilaterally exit but we don’t provide it, and we don’t even store the state to provide it later, then we are to blame if stackers lose funds. If you lose funds using a custodial wallet, it’s not our fault.
Yeah that was my point above.
Ah, mhh, but for me these are two different points:
  1. Unilateral exit if the wallet is only ever funded via lightning
  2. How lightning is implemented to stay trustodial
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50 sats \ 2 replies \ @optimism 2h
You're right. So it's blocking because you need to know how to protect stackers, but regardless, there is still a single point of failure on every path (even if there are multiple paths, the failure is still singular within each path, and user mitigation is required to overcome it, which is as bad as custodial)
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100 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 1h
there is still a single point of failure on every path
You mean not enough operators deleting the key and collaborating with previous owners?
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100 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 1h
No i mean even if you run 600 LN gateways (iirc this is also the fedimint solution) then you still have to deal with a single gateway per payment.
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