How is your non-custodial setup doing?
618 sats \ 22 comments \ @thebullishbitcoiner 11 Nov meta
I fully committed to my setup on Nov. 5th only to find out later that the switch had been postponed.
The November 5th non-custodial switch is postponed. We knew it would rain in October, but it ended up pouring and we missed the deadline. The switch will still happen, guaranteed. We'll give a two week warning once the changes are done this time around. Those of you that got ready in advance are set, but everyone else will have a bit more time.1
It reminded me of the school days where I’d study for a test, come to class prepared, and then hear that it was postponed. It’s a good feeling amirite.
Anyways, my Alby Hub with Cashu backend setup is going well despite the common “no route found” issues. Not sure what the cause is, but I figured I’d put it out there in case anyone knows. The withdraws eventually succeed so it’s not a big deal.
There’s still also the preimage-related issue that doesn’t allow my receives to appear in transaction history (even though the sats make it).
Other than that, I like how the SN-related transactions are marked in the Alby Hub dashboard.
And here’s how it looks in Alby Go.
Maybe I’ll consider a Lightning backend when my balance gets larger but this setup is working pretty well for me rn.
How’s it going for you?

Footnotes

  1. #753592 ↩
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30 sats \ 1 reply \ @gnilma 11 Nov
I simply switched from 1 custodian to another. Since SN don't want to hold my sats anymore, I switched over to Coinos to hold my sats. Overall personal experience had been mostly the same as back when SN was custodial, except for the occasional "zap on comment fail". But even those tend to work if I try again later.
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27 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 11 Nov
except for the occasional "zap on comment fail".
We fixed a bug regarding this in the latest release. It was a subtle race condition when zapping too fast. Hopefully we'll find all edge cases eventually until there's nothing more we can do to increase reliability except tell you what you have to do.
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50 sats \ 2 replies \ @DarthCoin 11 Nov
and I will warn you guys again and again: this all unnecessary "self-custodial" wallet for SN it will create more problems than you can imagine. For you and for SN also.
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38 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 11 Nov
Here a more detailed warning from April: #523570
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 11 Nov
Yes, this is why I think many people will still use Cowboy Credits, and there's nothing wrong with that.
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21 sats \ 1 reply \ @TheWildHustle 12 Nov
My start9 went down last week... lightning was running smooth with albyhub.
Nowadays I'm using cashu.me and npubs.cash. I'll need to find a mobile zapping solution, which is my biggest issue on that front.
Once start9 is back up and running, I'm torn between lightning and e-cash, will need to see what combo works best for me.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @thebullishbitcoiner OP 12 Nov
My start9 went down last week... lightning was running smooth with albyhub.
I was really excited about running Alby Hub with LND but my Start9 had some issues soon after I opened a channel to OLYMPUS. 😅
Haven’t had time to troubleshoot yet.
Nowadays I'm using cashu.me and npubs.cash. I'll need to find a mobile zapping solution, which is my biggest issue on that front.
Have you tried Coinos? They have a relay (similar to Alby) so you don’t have to keep the app open to zap.
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bee_Aye 11 Nov
running a lightning node on start9 with a few private channels, using self hosted albyhub with NWC, works perfectly.
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21 sats \ 1 reply \ @OT 11 Nov
I have the same set up and issues. Not seeing the received zaps is kinda annoying but I do see my balance go up so it must be working.
I was going to use phoenixd but I think it will cost too much. Each comment or poll normally costs 1 sat, but with phoenixd its 5 (4 sat fee, 1 sat post). Commenting a lot like I do adds up over time.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @thebullishbitcoiner OP 12 Nov
I have the same set up and issues. Not seeing the received zaps is kinda annoying but I do see my balance go up so it must be working.
Yup. I checked a few times to make sure. This’ll do for now until I decide to open a channel.
I was going to use phoenixd but I think it will cost too much. Each comment or poll normally costs 1 sat, but with phoenixd its 5 (4 sat fee, 1 sat post). Commenting a lot like I do adds up over time.
I actually tried setting up phoenixd and received some sats. I didn’t like that the sats that go towards the fee credit are unspendable until a channel is opened.
Now that I think about it, I guess it is a step better than LND where you can’t receive at all unless you have a channel.
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @SwapMarket 11 Nov
Motivated me to research and configure own lightning address. Had to buy a domain name for $1 lol.
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21 sats \ 8 replies \ @ek 11 Nov
Anyways, my Alby Hub with Cashu backend setup is going well despite the common “no route found” issues
What are your fee settings for autowithdrawals? Setting max fee total to 1 is important if you don't have a direct channel (which your cashu backend probably does not):
Checking your wallet logs might also help, I am pretty sure it's a fee issue, especially for such small payments. I used to have the same issue before we added max fee total because 1% of small payments aren't enough for any base fee.
You can get a feel for the network fees that might apply to your wallet by manually withdrawing to your wallet and see how much fees were used.
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152 sats \ 7 replies \ @thebullishbitcoiner OP 11 Nov
What are your fee settings for autowithdrawals? Setting max fee total to 1 is important if you don't have a direct channel (which your cashu backend probably does not)
Thanks! I just set it to 1. 🫡
Checking your wallet logs might also help, I am pretty sure it's a fee issue, especially for such small payments. I used to have the same issue before we added max fee total because 1% of small payments aren't enough for any base fee.
I do see some warnings and errors that indicate this.
Hopefully the fee setting fixes it.
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24 sats \ 5 replies \ @ek 11 Nov
Wow, which wallet are you using? A CLTV delta of 547 means your wallet is very far away from SN in the lightning network. The fee setting is probably not going to fix that but a high CLTV also means that we need a lot of hops so more nodes will want some fees.
edit: Oh, you already mentioned you're using a Cashu backend. I would consider switching the mint you use or ask the operator to open more/better channels.
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0 sats \ 4 replies \ @thebullishbitcoiner OP 11 Nov
Oh wow I didn’t know that! I’ll look into it. I’m using Minibits rn. Not sure if I can change mints but it’s relatively easy to reinstall Alby Hub (perks of not having channels I suppose).
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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @ek 11 Nov
Mhh, minibits is a pretty popular ecash wallet. I'll try to get in contact with the operator (I think I know them). Maybe we are actually the ones with bad channels but we have over 150 channels and I don't know how many they have.
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27 sats \ 2 replies \ @ek 11 Nov
I asked the operator in https://t.me/MinibitsWallet if they can also see the high CLTV delta from their end. I would suggest to wait with switching mints since the next mint can be even worse if even minibits has this problem.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @thebullishbitcoiner OP 11 Nov
Thanks. Please keep me posted. I installed Alby Hub several times with different mints so I’m actually not sure if I’m running Minibits or not. 😄
If Minibits doesn’t see the high delta, I might do a fresh install just to be sure.
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 11 Nov
will do
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @thebullishbitcoiner OP 12 Nov
It’s been hours and I haven’t seen the CLTV delta error in the logs btw. 👍
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @jddska 12 Nov
Eventually with price going up, less and less sats will be needed for tx and channels are getting to big.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Longtermwizard 11 Nov
I have none
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