In the long run, are darknet cashu mints more viable than legal ones?
1775 sats \ 14 comments \ @denationalized 2 Mar conspiracy
Why would a more private, more scalable, more empowering technology such as cashu walets and mints be treated less severely by the state than crypto mixers? Why would they be allowed to exist at all? Alternatively, if allowed to exist, how might the entry points to custodian cashu solutions be policed in the future? Whitelisting, blacklisting?
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126 sats \ 2 replies \ @endothermicdev 2 Mar
I think there's a good argument that such a mint would be more open, permissive, and available. On the other hand, if a mint is unable to collect data on its users, and especially if each signer is only part of a quorum (jurisdictionally distributed perhaps), it could be argued that they're powerless to do much anyhow. Of course if a majority of the traffic appears to support North Korea's Lazarus group, that argument could quickly fall apart. The jurisdictions could decide that the collateral damage in completely shutting down the mint may be worth it.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @denationalized OP 2 Mar
On the other hand, if a mint is unable to collect data on its users, and especially if each signer is only part of a quorum (jurisdictionally distributed perhaps), it could be argued that they're powerless to do much anyhow.
What do you mean by quorum and signers? I meant cashu mints and not fedimint mints. The former are not federated, don't they have just one signer?.
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5 sats \ 0 replies \ @endothermicdev 2 Mar
When you said "such as cashu wallets and mints" I thought you were including fedimint in the discussion as well. Yes, a cashu mint could be quite vulnerable if it's a known entity - much easier to shut down if there's a single point of failure and that point is known.
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52 sats \ 0 replies \ @IanMalcolmPhd 2 Mar
Someday we'll have cashu or some other type of better ecash and Dollar General will have mint.dollargeneral.com. Most transactions will take place off chain as @darthcoin has stated on Nostr.
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5 sats \ 5 replies \ @joda 2 Mar
Correct me if I'm wrong. I haven't had my coffee yet.
From the outside, a mint looks like a lightning wallet. The issuance from the mint (ecash) is not public. All you see is Bitcoin in and Bitcoin out.
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0 sats \ 4 replies \ @denationalized OP 2 Mar
You are right - they provide very good privacy. But as of today the providers of those wallets advertise on the clearnet that they are cashu wallets and what mints they use - not carrying about their own privacy at all - run ping legend.lnbits.com to know what the IP of one of them is. My guess is if any custodial lightning wallets be allowed in the US it would be those that KYC their clients and do not use ecash mints.
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5 sats \ 3 replies \ @joda 2 Mar
Onion sites have been taken down too. They're still on a server somewhere. Also, the darknet is not "illegal".
Honestly I think Lightning itself is enough of a "mixer" that government could try to ban it on AML grounds, or force KYC compliance as you say. But that's only for custodial.
The way I think about it, the privacy gains, like with mixers, are statistical. It's like plausible deniability. If regulators force KYC whitelisting, they have to do it to some percentage. It would be like trying to ban all physical dollars that have ever been used for something illegal. You can say some serial numbers are tainted, but only temporarily; once they are diffused, they must again be valid for payment.
Also, a mint isn't "locked" to an IP address or particular lightning wallet. They have an independent, verifiable identity anywhere they "go".
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @denationalized OP 2 Mar
Onion sites have been taken down too. They're still on a server somewhere.
An onion service does not have to leak the IP of its host.
Honestly I think Lightning itself is enough of a "mixer" that government could try to ban it on AML grounds, or force KYC compliance as you say. But that's only for custodial.
I am not saying that they are not going to try to ban noncustodial Lightning - let that be outside of the scope of this discussion. Solution for now: You can run you own lightning node and connect with peers using Tor.
Also, a mint isn't "locked" to an IP address or particular lightning wallet. They have an independent, verifiable identity anywhere they "go".
True. But the ones listed on https://mintindex.gandlaf.com/ are accessed through a DNS record that leaks their IP. Are there any mints that are offered as onion-only services?
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5 sats \ 1 reply \ @joda 2 Mar
Oh yeah for sure. But we're still in the "fuck around" phase.
I'll dig around because I'm curious too.
Maybe hit up calle on nostr?
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @denationalized OP 2 Mar
Maybe hit up calle on nostr?
I'm still a noob there and may change my private key due to a problem that I have my client.. As of now my pubkey is: npub1krp2svs6w64y42w3aczwg292v3j905zag7yslzvq8z40uwsknr6sayrv57
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @stack_harder 20 Sep
it's so early in the day for them that the state hasn't gotten around to thinking about them yet i think. if they become popular enough, then for sure they could be in the crosshairs
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Cowboy 3 Mar
What is cashu mint?
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1 sat \ 0 replies \ @denationalized OP 3 Mar
A custodian of ecash integrated with Lightning.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @OT 2 Mar
I remember Obi talking about this on a podcast a while back.
It's hard to know what all the various states will do. It looks pretty clear that there will be a division of black/white listed bitcoin.
It's still very early with ecash. Let's see what people can do with it these next few years.
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