I have been building Mochi and I need to tell you why.
I'm a creator. I've used Patreon, Ko-fi, Gumroad. The tools are great honestly. Subscription tiers, digital sales, tip pages. They figured out what creators need. But I'm also a bitcoiner and every time I connected Stripe, handed over my ID, and watched 10 to 15 percent vanish into the hands of people who didn't create anything, it felt wrong. And the whole time knowing that if someone at one of these companies doesn't like your content, your income is gone overnight. Your subscribers? Not yours. Your revenue? At their mercy.
I kept waiting for someone to build this on Lightning. From my findings... nobody did. So I built it myself.
Mochi gives every creator a public page. Anyone with a Lightning wallet can tip you by scanning a QR code, no account needed, no friction. When someone wants to subscribe or buy something you made, they load sats into their Mochi wallet, a prepaid balance that keeps subscriptions running without expired cards or chargebacks or banks in the way. You log in with a seed phrase. No email, no KYC.
Tips from anyone on earth. Digital product sales. Subscription tiers with gated content. One page. All sats. All yours.
Looking for our first 100 founding creators. Founders get a permanently lower tx fee locked in forever and a badge on their page. If you love the tools but love bitcoin more, come build this with me.
I want to hear from creators and supporters. What's missing? What would make you leave the old platforms behind? Let me know if you like it, or if it sucks. I'd rather hear it now than build the wrong thing.
Follow me on Nostr for updates:
npub1824j5du9uqfwk3x2s8gmj49g26cnawpgvlyyedz5grfpn9lw5ltsefua2h
I'd be happy to chat!
SNs has been forced to require users to manually attach LN wallets to avoid the threat of state prosecution on the pretext of money transmission.
If we are to maintain and build the sats denominated nature of SNs we must attach and use LN wallets.
Why have you @anon not done so?
By attaching LN wallets to both send and receive sats we protect, preserve and build the LN despite state pressure and obstruction.
Please attach your sending and receiving wallets and help support SNs maintain and build a strong sats denominated V4V social media platform.
Most participants have already done this- why not @anon ?
Good callout. It's something I'm aware of and actively looking into the best way to structure things as Mochi grows. Appreciate the heads up.
So you will be attaching and showing sending and receiving wallets here on Stacker News?
It is a problem that requires some effort from us all to solve.
6,710 sats to post this as anon in 5 different territories. Mentioning this for no particular reason, just an interesting use case of the @anon handle.
Haven't looked into this for a long time. Is this the current state-of-the-art to allow for a subscription service within a Bitcoin context?
In any event, hope things take off. Is this overlapping a bit with some of the usecases of the Geyser platform?
Good question. Yeah the prepaid balance approach is kind of the best solution right now for subscriptions on Lightning. The problem is Lightning doesn't have a native recurring payment mechanism, you can't just authorize a pull payment like you can with a credit card. So either you ask the user to manually pay an invoice every month which nobody actually does, or you hold a balance and deduct from it. The Mochi wallet is that second approach. User loads sats when they want, subscriptions draw from it automatically. No failed payments, no chasing invoices. If the balance runs out we notify them to top up.
As for Geyser, there's some overlap in the broadest sense that we're both Lightning native and creator focused. But Geyser is really built around crowdfunding and project fundraising. Mochi is more of a full creator storefront, think ongoing subscriptions, digital product sales, and tipping all from one page. Closer to what Patreon or Gumroad does but on Lightning. Different use cases really, Geyser is great for funding a specific project, Mochi is for creators who want to get paid consistently for their ongoing work.
Appreciate the kind words, still early days so any feedback is welcome.
it's not a "handle" if nobody[1] gets notified from its usage
other than compulsive server log readers ↩
Definitions matter. Thanks~~
Looks nice!
What do you think about creators having their own LN wallets attached like here on SN?
I made an account over there... my question is...
What does this other platform do that Stacker News does not?
Interested in checking this out but got an error message when I tried to go to the site.
"Application error: a client-side exception has occurred while loading mochi-pay.com (see the browser console for more information)."
Hey! I just checked the logs, I think I may have fixed the error! Let me know! Thanks! as a heads up for anyone reading this I will be responding to inquiries on Nostr moving forward, as well as through mochi bug tickets!
the ability to highlight your project's promoter in SN comments
I dig this idea, please stay in touch through nostr! I'd love to hear more,
why specifically "through nostr"; and with whom in particular?
in case it is not obvious, for the "do you even understand how XYZ works" folks: the post closes with a "Follow me"
npub.., that is not necessarily the same as "here's my number, let's chat about SEO"Nostr because that's where I'm most active and where the people building and using this kind of thing tend to hang out. Not trying to slide into anyone's DMs, just saying if you want to follow along as Mochi develops that's the best place to catch updates. The npub is right there at the bottom of the post for that reason.
it's just really not obvious that yelling into some chamber will result in something more interesting than echoes, if you're not already neanderthal nostradamus
Is this legit?
As legit as it gets. Live right now, you can check it out yourself at mochi-pay.com. Still early and actively looking for feedback, but it's real and working.
Thanks i'll see what the Stacker community has to say.
More sites using Sats as value to promote good content...
Is a win for all.
What is Stacker News?
It is a social media platform intentionally created to enable a P2P V4V BTC denominated community.
Originally Stacker News (SN) custodyed sats on behalf of participants but the threat of government regulatory prosecution on the pretext of money transmitter forced a move away from the custody of sats by the platform to the platform enabling participants to send sats via their wallets.
To achieve this participants need to attach wallets to both send and receive sats.
Where participants do not or cannot attach LN wallets transactions will often default to Cowboy Credits.
This change was a compromise forced by the threat of government prosecution.
The difficulty of attaching both sending and receiving wallets is moderate- it takes some effort and newbie or non tech people may struggle with it, but most competent Bitcoiners can succeed in attaching wallets and thus enabling sats denominated P2P transactions.
But a number of Stackers have chosen not to attach wallets- in particular sending wallets which enable you to send sats into the SN community.
Very few have attached just a sending wallet- many have attach just a receiving wallet.
Those who only attach a receiving wallet can receive sats from others but cannot send sats into the community. They may feel that as content providers they have no need or obligation to send sats into and within the SN community. I disagree.
Where these receive but not send (horse but no gun) Stackers proclaim to be Bitcoiners but refuse to enable a sending wallet they are demonstrably hypocrits. They claim they want to build and grow the BTC LN MoE network but they cannot be bothered contributing toward that growth by attaching a sending wallet and demonstrating they are not just talking, but are also walking and supporting a sats denominated platform.
If we do not use the LN wherever and whenever we can it will not grow and develop.
Some claim it is too hard to attach wallets- its too hard on their self custody nodes or wallets- this just highlights how much work the LN still needs before it is capable of anything approaching 100% reliable MoE capability.
But the best way to grow and strengthen the LN is it use it – despite its remaining flaws and glitches.
When wallets are supported by people using them they receives transaction fees and can develop liquidity and systems further.
When LN wallets are not used the LN decays- it does not have the usage and fees income to grow.
So when self proclaimed advocates for BTC and LN refuse to attach wallets (especially sending wallets) I see hypocrit.
I will continue to see hypocrit until and unless someone can explain why I should not.
Calling me a Nazi, trolling and making fun of me crudely seeking to avoid the issues I raise will not stop me from asking why are you claiming to be a Bitcoiner but refusing to attach wallets and use the LN here where we can help it grow.
Now some are deliberately concealing their wallet status, as if this is about a right to privacy.
Concealing your wallet status means nobody else can verify whether or not you are serious about using BTC LN, or whether you are just an all talk no walk hypocrit.
Do not trust- verify.
What about this fundamental principle do they not understand?
And then they talk about 'content' being more important than whether or not you have attached wallets - in this context the intentional lack of attached wallets undermines your credibility as your actions do not match your words.
Your submitted content may be great, but you as someone claiming to be a serious Bitcoiner are undermining your credibility and the credibility of your content by being a hypocrit.
Your content, is tainted by your verifiable hypocrisy.
SNs needs both good content providers and those who pay for that content if it is succeed.
I am more in the latter group than the former but both are required overall or the model does not work.
So as a net contributor of sats and thus a net consumer of content I object where content providers refuse to engage in the P2P V4V ethos by refusing to attach both sending and receiving wallets and I will both withhold my contribution of sats and sometimes downvote in response.
V4V needs to work reciprocally or it will not work at all.
The content providers need net sats contributors/content consumers who send sats into the platform, or the entire platform fails.
This is exactly what the ecosystem needs. Most creator platforms feel like they are renting you your own audience. The fact that Mochi uses a seed phrase for login and handles everything through Lightning is a huge step for privacy and ownership.
I’m not a big creator yet, but knowing there’s a place where I can keep 100% of what I earn without a bank's permission makes me want to start. I'll definitely be checking out the site. Good luck with the first 100 founders!
The prepaid balance approach is pragmatic given the limitations of Lightning regarding recurring payments. It sidesteps the friction that monthly manual invoices create and avoids the failures that come with credit card expirations or chargebacks. This kind of design choice makes the system more robust and creator friendly.
The real challenge will be onboarding users who are unfamiliar with Lightning and seed phrases without losing the simplicity that existing platforms offer. Education and frictionless UX could become your strongest leverage points. If you can merge the ideological benefits of Bitcoin with the usability of mainstream services you will have something that could genuinely shift how creators get paid.