The "fee credits" you describe, reminds me of the Hosted Channels. I really liked that method, was perfect to onboard new users, starting from 0 sats.
And OBW was a powerful wallet, really sad that Fiatjaf didn't continue it. OBW had some very interesting tools, that I tested with many newbies and they were smoothly onboarded:
  • user can receive straight away from 1 to 1M sats, directly into a HC, and can choose from 2-3-4 HC providers, with just a click.
  • then if the user want more inbound liquidity, could buy a channel straight from 2-3 providers, listed directly into the app, a really simple the process
  • then if the user want to have also regular LN channels could just open LN channels with whatever other node and even move his sats from a HC into a regular channel.
  • HC could provide also good obfuscation.
Really sad that such a nice project wasn't continued.
They remind me of hosted channels as well. I suspect it's easy to use ecash mints as a drop in replacement for hosted channels. They too provide decent obfuscation and it would be easy to list 2-4 providers directly in a wallet app. When the user has enough sats to buy a channel you could prompt them to do so and remind them that mints can and sometimes do steal, so it's advisable to avoid trusting them with meaningful amounts of money.
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