I'm fiatjaf of nostr, lnurl, and zebedee, AMA \ stacker news ~nostr

It ends all the discussions around what-is-the-best-opcode-to-softfork-next-after-12-years-of-buildup and just allows everybody to do everything they want, but in a safe way. And everything includes many things we can't do today like much better Lightning, "pools" and sidechain designs.
No, I'm not, unfortunately.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @plntmls 1 Mar 2022 freebie

@fiatjaf what's the best platform for building decentralized / customizable solutions to centrally controlled social media and why is it Nostr?

1036 sats \ 0 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

It is Nostr, because it scales by using conventional client-server technology and still provides censorship resistance by allowing these servers to be changed without identities and followers/etc being lost (if implemented well)(there are levels of censorship-resistance depending on the app implementation).

112 sats \ 1 reply \ @jimmysong 2 Mar 2022

What's the motivation for what you do? I noticed you're into a lot of different things and want to understand where your inspiration comes from.

164 sats \ 0 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 2 Mar 2022

Destroy central banks, the tyrannical States they sustain and rollback their control apparatus over citizens.

23 sats \ 6 replies \ @melvincarvalho 1 Mar 2022

What does the "jaf" in fiat-jaf mean?

2 sats \ 4 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

I can't answer that one.

6 sats \ 0 replies \ @nout 1 Mar 2022

I bet that's the correct way to write GIF...

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @03df7b8c87 1 Mar 2022 freebie

O.O

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ibz 7 Mar 2022 freebie

"jaf" in Romanian literally means "robbery". We also use this word to refer to something "shitty", like "a shitty car" (= "a robbery of a car").

I love fiatjaf's nickname. Couldn't be any better! I always thought he might be Romanian, or at least speak the language.

15 sats \ 1 reply \ @why 1 Mar 2022

If you could snap your fingers and invent a single consumer-facing ln application that utilizes existing platform capabilities, what would it be?

27 sats \ 0 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

I only want that deal if I could also snap my fingers and get network effect for this application. In that case it would be some Nostr-Lightning-backed marketplace for all sorts of goods used and new.

If I can't get network effect, then I don't know, everything is useless, maybe a super good online multiplayer game that also happens to use satoshis for buying and selling clothes so all adolescents are forced to install https://sbw.app/ to do their shopping.

15 sats \ 1 reply \ @Majjin 1 Mar 2022

How do you find the time for your projects? Do you work on them full time?

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

In general I don't find much time, to be honest. There are bursts of days in which I work on them a lot.

20 sats \ 1 reply \ @pseudozach 1 Mar 2022 freebie

if you could do 3 things to make Lightning a success, what would they be?

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

I think Lightning is already a success and needs nothing more, except fixing the spam problem, fixing the excessive channel close problem and getting rid of HTLCs.

Or maybe everybody could implement this: https://sbw.app/posts/scaling-ln-with-hosted-channels/

15 sats \ 1 reply \ @03df7b8c87 1 Mar 2022 freebie

I remember back in the day people were advertising Linux as free and very customizable. Looking back that was misguided as it turns out those weren't attractive to users. What do you think are the most misguided ways people advertise bitcoin? As in, features most people don't care about.

12k sats \ 0 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

There is a word people use, "self-sovereighndfnsldkfn" I don't even know how to spell.

I just don't like that, but I'm not good at convincing people, so don't listen to me.

46 sats \ 1 reply \ @03b3a9d4df 1 Mar 2022 freebie

What is your hottest take on lightning?

1045 sats \ 0 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

HTLCs are broken and should be replaced by this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUAyW4pdooA

11 sats \ 1 reply \ @supertestnet 1 Mar 2022

How did you come up with the idea for lntxbot?

1004 sats \ 0 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

I read something about Telegram having bots that allowed some special / commands, and I wanted to do something to experiment with Lightning. It's not as if tipping bots were a new invention by me, I had probably seen them before.

11 sats \ 3 replies \ @uco 1 Mar 2022 freebie

Any updates on your Lightning Point of Sale offline reader?

204 sats \ 2 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

This one? https://github.com/fiatjaf/lnurlpos-app Isn't it working? I have no updates, I thought it was working. It is just a software implementation of Ben Arc's hardware version.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @uco 1 Mar 2022 freebie

Thanks! Follow up question:

Any thoughts on best algorithm to rank content? Whether Nostr, Stacker News, or legacy Twitter a schema is needed to rank content.

I like how SN is using sats divided by time to create a temporary ranking that diminishes with time.

Curious what you think about ranking content with sats?

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @relc 3 Mar 2022

Respect for what you do. What year was your first tx?

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 4 Mar 2022

2011, I mined 5000sat on an old CPU, then bought 4BTC but lost everything and I blame Bitcoin Core for its bad UX.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @south_korea_ln 2 Mar 2022

In case I'm not too late...

Did the Statechain torch come back to you? Did you learn anything useful from that experiment?
Has anyone taken up some of the bounties to implement specific implementation goals? How are you enforcing these bounties?

Thanks!

12 sats \ 0 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 2 Mar 2022

It did not. I learned that people don't care to pass the torch to someone trustworthy as I wanted them to, most people will just pass it to the first random who asks. But it's been a good experiment so far (I don't know where it is now, was it stolen? I saw it about a week ago).
You mean the Nostr bounties? No, no one did anything, except there is one guy tackling the Tusky fork project, but he didn't guarantee he will succeed.

10 sats \ 3 replies \ @nout 1 Mar 2022

How can we use LN in situations where one person doesn't have internet connection (e.g. they are in a shelter and only have phone line connection to a friend with internet)?

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

Use a wallet in the cloud and send signed commands to it through your friend.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @nout 1 Mar 2022

Is that actually practically available currently? Like would the best way to achieve this be LNBits with accounts somehow? Or what wallet would you use?

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 2 Mar 2022

LNbits is fine, but if you want the "signed" part you'll need to write a plugin.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @BlokchainB 1 Mar 2022

What are your thoughts on the Synonym project?

15 sats \ 0 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

I think I would be very excited about it if I hadn't been burnt out by other unscalable-DHT-based everything-peer-to-peer projects in the past. I also think it will be harder for it to get network effect.

10 sats \ 3 replies \ @kr 1 Mar 2022

What is one future application of LNURL you're excited about?

Bonus points if it's one that most people haven't realized yet.

1 sat \ 2 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

Something like this: https://twitter.com/pdxcoinexchange/status/1485021988661825539

I.e. stores you can walk, scan a QR code (or NFC if that ever materializes), pay from the street even, and then get your item. Works great for food, but could also work for any store that has some sale of some special item, I don't know.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @kr 1 Mar 2022

Follow up question: Do you think LNURL will be more disruptive to in-person retail commerce or to online commerce over time?

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

In-person.

https://github.com/fiatjaf/lnurl-rfc/issues/9

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @02985844e6 1 Mar 2022 freebie

What is your preferred way of fixing the LN spam problem?

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

But from the solutions that actually have any change, the metered payments roasbeef solution that is in the t-bast's document on GitHub -- if I remember correctly.

10 sats \ 3 replies \ @03a2e7bccc 1 Mar 2022 freebie

biggest problem lightning needs to solve in order to succeed

1 sat \ 2 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

Spam.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @zuspotirko 2 Mar 2022

I agree spam is a disgrace.

Jokes aside, wdym by spam? E.g. platforms where people send single sats as upvotes?

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 4 Mar 2022

No, fake payments, probes etc.

1 sat txs are also bad, but they didn't have to be. And they are not bad in SN.

11 sats \ 2 replies \ @ThrillerX_ 1 Mar 2022

Do you know of a way to do offline Lightning payments.

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

Yes, you make an account on some trusted service and ask it to receive the payments on your behalf, then you use https://github.com/fiatjaf/lnurl-rfc/blob/luds/14.md to get the money on your https://sbw.app/ whenever possible.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @lanin99943 2 Mar 2022 freebie

Here is another interesting article on this subject: https://lightningnetwork.plus/watchtower

5 sats \ 1 reply \ @spraveenitpro 1 Mar 2022

I would like to work on Bitcoin and Lightning, should I learn Rust? I am familiar with Python and JavaScript.

75 sats \ 0 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

Probably yes since everybody loves Rust now and it is good, but don't become an annoying Rust shill.

Languages don't matter very much though. You could also learn Scala or Go and that would be good.

Actually languages do matter in the sense that languages without strict types and smart compilers are a pain in everybody's ass.

Alternative answer: if you haven't yet, do something useful with what you know before trying to learn new languages.

5 sats \ 3 replies \ @cameri 1 Mar 2022

1.What's your favorite Nostr client? 2. What are your thoughts on porting @lntxbot to other platforms? Discord? Nostr? Twitter? 3. What's your favorite podcast?

3 sats \ 2 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

That one in Haskell that doesn't exist yet. And the one in Clojure from that guy who is friends with Uncle Bob Martin.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @cameri 1 Mar 2022

I could post again so I edited my original and added two more questions if you still have the chance :) Much appreciated!

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

You should have asked them here, now I can't answer there again.

I think it's a noble effort but I don't want to do it right now.
Bob Murphy show? I don't know.

5 sats \ 2 replies \ @cryptocoin 1 Mar 2022

I will answer questions for free with no cost for the price of zero and we don't require you to provide a credit card upfront.

Didn't this cost me 1 sat to get you to answer this question? So, technically, not "free"?

11 sats \ 1 reply \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

Did it? I didn't know, please don't sue me.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @earnbitcoin 1 Mar 2022

You're safe, I think.

The comment (asking the question) did incur a fee to SN for 1 sat, but your reply (answer) came at no additional cost to the asker. So I don't think a lawsuit would win.

5 sats \ 3 replies \ @redshark03 1 Mar 2022 freebie

Do you think any other blockchains can be a threat to bitcoin if its fails to adopt bips like simplicity, noinput, ctv ect?

2 sats \ 2 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

Other blockchains cannot ever replace Bitcoin, but they can (and they are) getting in the way of more rapid and better Bitcoin adoption -- and ultimately cause everything to fall and fiat to win. I think having these other things would make Bitcoin better, so I the answer is yes? Or maybe?

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @felipetleite 1 Mar 2022 freebie

Are you an advocate for BIP 300/301 to help get shitcoins out of the way of bitcoin adoption?

1 sat \ 3 replies \ @k00b 1 Mar 2022

What do you do at zebedee? Do you get paid as a pseudonym?
What's a belief you hold about the future of Bitcoin that hasn't occurred to most bitcoiners or that most bitcoiners don't believe?
What's your view on DIDs? Will we end up using the more involved standards/protocols people are building on these things in the future?

1003 sats \ 2 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

I've done work in the Telegram and Discord bots, CSGO integration, the core payments backend, the mobile wallet, the browser extension, I do whatever I can I guess. No, they know my name.
I believe Bitcoin will have a lot of custodianship in the future to be able to scale but that won't be a problem once governments get out of the way with their draconian anti-custodianship laws.
Every time a protocol says "oh you can do this same thing in multiple ways" what it is actually saying is "every implementation will have to support all ways to remain compatible". That kills protocols, kills network effect, kills adoption, kills decentralization.

1 sat \ 1 reply \ @k00b 1 Mar 2022

Your answer to (3) is very insightful, thanks.

One last question: how do I get rich?

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

I have no idea.

1 sat \ 3 replies \ @earnbitcoin 1 Mar 2022

What's your GamerTag?

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

fiatjaf

2 sats \ 1 reply \ @earnbitcoin 1 Mar 2022

100 sats sent to fiatjaf @zbd.gg

Don't spend it all in one place.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @zuspotirko 2 Mar 2022

username checks out

1 sat \ 2 replies \ @felipetleite 1 Mar 2022 freebie

Can you help me get a job at ZEBEDEE as Community Manager? I would kick ass at it! https://bitcoinerjobs.com/job/247739-community-manager-americas

0 sats \ 5 replies \ @pueblerino 1 Mar 2022

What's with the hivemind, Ser; any thoughts on a possible loosen of the individuality of the Self?

Alternative question: Your ideal football eleven

101 sats \ 4 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

I don't understand the question.

Kafunga; Murilo e Ramos; Mexicano, Zé do Monte e Afonso; Lucas, Lauro, Carlyle, Lêro e Nívio.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @pueblerino 1 Mar 2022

Alright, a serious one on adoption, please:

TL;DR Question: Name your authors on sociology, philosophy and architecture (if any)

Long Question: Say we have a 'bitcoinized' place: a) We have a geographical region and within: human settlements, each with its own social/cultural structures of parts:whole; b) Some/or the whole of its inhabitants bitcoin is destined to 'build and maintain channels' (infrastructure whatsoever: roads, bridges, transport); and, c) The region is self sufficient, resources speaking; the only 'out-border' exchanges are cultural ones. Would you:

Find reasonable to 'lock' this regional bitcoin quantity and atomize it in order to monetize 'public work' within its inhabitants?
If yes: Each region of the World might be developed under similar market structures, differentiated only by the relation of bitcoin-qty:regional-needs; Would this be a form of 'tokenized/federated' bitcoin that might work like bitcoin itself these days (lightning, c-lightning)?
If no: Which other ways of 'riddance of fiat, now and for all' might be suggestible? The lock of bitcoin mightn't be a new recipe: pre-colombine era were more or less like it: lesser settlements related to a 'center' yet, each with it's own culture AND token/form of money.

Cheers Jaff, thanks for the AMA

101 sats \ 2 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

Thank you, but your questions confuse me.

TLDR: Olavo de Carvalho. Long:

You mean some overwhelming force will prevent people from spending Bitcoin outside of this place? Then no.
If you're talking about "regional community currencies" thing I don't like that. I think it's anti-economical and doesn't really benefit anyone except for the fact that it looks peculiar. But maybe it would work if people voluntarily moved to this place with the goal of making it a fully bitcoinized experience. In this sense it would also work with gold, friend-to-friend credit channels or some other money.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @pueblerino 1 Mar 2022

Thank you too; sorry for the confusing questions: trial and error, now that I think.

Last one that should had been the first and only: Personal definition of experience and, if possible, of 'the' bitcoin-experience

101 sats \ 0 replies \ @fiatjaf OP 1 Mar 2022

ahahah, I give up.

0 sats \ 5 replies \ @hodlbod_fr 6 Apr 2022 freebie

Resurrecting an old thread, but what is your opinion of Zion and Slashtags?

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @f321x 10 Mar 2022 freebie

Are you a single person or a group?
c-ln vs lnd for normal plebs?
how to get started in lightning/bitcoin projects starting from 0 dev skills?

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @ladysatsstacker 5 Mar 2022 freebie

I wonder how i can pursuade my friends to adopt using lightning address. How can i change their old belief...it seems im the first and only one in the community adopting crypto. Its hard to talk to them about crypto..tsk tsk

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @030e529174 1 Mar 2022 freebie

Have your thoughts on IPFS changed at all?

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @0x6d65 1 Mar 2022 freebie

When ZEBEDEE minecraft server where diamonds are backed 1:1 with sats?

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @raphael 1 Mar 2022 freebie

Is your lntxbot node profitable and which lightning node implementation do you use?

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @herman_skledar1 1 Mar 2022 freebie

Thoughts on galoy?

0 sats \ 7 replies \ @lucasdcf 1 Mar 2022 freebie

is lntxbot up?