Travel with family and self-custody - use case scenario \ stacker news ~bitcoin

Tip of the day - manage a "travel wallet"

A simple use case scenario for when you travel with your family or friends, using Bitcoin.

Recently I had a discussion with a friend going to El Salvador for the "Adopting Bitcoin" conference. He's a good bitcoiner, but quite noob in all this. And he asked me an interesting question:

"How to manage from my own self-custody stash (cold wallets, node etc) a sum of bitcoin that I want to use when I am travelling?"

Background of this question, previously discussed with him:

accessing a LN node through Tor in a LATAM country, sometimes is a pain in the ass, even for a private node.
walking around with a direct access to a larger stash on a node is not so "secure" in a place that you don't know it very well. Shit could happen all the time and better prevent than sorry.
sometimes you do not want to reveal the original source of your funds, so using a decoy is smart
your family members or friends do not have a node or a specific BTC LN wallet, will be interesting to have a way to manage accounts for them, be their "uncle Jim".
having an easy, "just in time" solution that can just scan and pay, no complicated steps.

Yes, we all have our own self-custody of funds in cold wallets, nodes, HW etc, that is the "stashing" part. Nobody will deny it. But sometimes we want simple, fast, easy, working solutions when we are travelling and don't worry about "hey is my home node well synced", "is it safe to use it for this payment", do I have to worry for somebody watching my mobile device at the airport or hotel WiFi? And other pertinent questions like that.

My simple proposal - Use a DECOY Alby Hub.

You can adapt it as you like, there are many other ways out there: LNbits, Minibits, eNuts, ShockWallet, Walletano, LifPay, CoinOS etc.

But today I will propose a very simple solution that takes no more than 5 min to setup and also have a certain level of control and custody.

Use an ad-hoc Alby Hub with a cashu mint backend. A perfect DECOY, safe and easy.

Steps to do

You can run an Alby Hub on any simple PC, or if you do not have a spare one at home, you can use a temporary hosted one (Nodana, Alby Cloud, any other cheap VPS). A simple Linux Mint OS or even a Windows is enough. Just run the AlbyHub executable, no need to install absolutely anything. Read here a simple guide about Alby Hub.
Select "Advanced" - self hosted option and then as funding source, select cashu mint.

you could use default minibits.cash mint or select any other from this list: https://bitcoinmints.com/
keep in mind also this amazing tool by @calle: https://audit.8333.space/ where you could see the status of each mint.
you can even create your own mint if you like, self-hosted. Read more here: https://docs.cashu.space/

Connect your Alby Go app on your mobile device, using your newly Alby Hub. Is just a matter of seconds scanning a QR code and done. Alby Go is the simplest app ever existed for payments over LN. Even a kid can use it.
Go to your Alby Hub and create accounts for your family and friends. Then they can connect also with Alby Go on their mobile devices.
Now deposit the amount of sats you have in your budget for that travel. In this way you can limit your expenses and spend your sats wisely. Spending your sats is good, but also having a defined budget is even better. Remember: sats are scarce. When you spend those sats must be for something you really need and want in that moment.

Setting up a budget for each family member is good and prevent you from unexpected issues. Also could be a first level of protection against "$5 wrench attack". I know there are many other ways to protect against this attack, why not use them all?

This scenario using an ecash cashu method, is good as a decoy, and as a temporary solution. Once you are back home, you can empty the remaining balances and forget about it. Is gone, wiped, no traces anymore. You can literally pay any Bitcoin LN invoice and also receive into your LN address from any other LN wallet.

I hope this scenario will give you some more ideas about how you manage properly your funds.

Other guides related to this scenario that will be good for you to read:

HAPPY LIGHTNING AND ENJOY YOUR TRAVELS !

22 sats \ 1 reply \ @0xbitcoiner 15 Nov

Good tutorial! Looks like you've become a fan of Alby HUB, nice!

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin OP 15 Nov

nope, I am not fan of anything. I just present various solutions that other padawans are asking me to find for them. For this particular scenario I used Alby Hub, but in others I would use LNbits for example.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Msd0457890 16h

I find your post and the guides you are publishing very complete, but why don't you name any lighting wallet? Lighting allows you to make payments easily and safely and you don't have to be touching your node or anything like that. Lighting is one of the layers of Bitcoin and will allow you to use it on your trips and at any event that you would need to use your Sats or Bitcoin itself.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin OP 16h

Are you a bot?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Msd0457890 15h

no why do you say that?

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @stack_harder 21h

i thought you hated liquid and ecash etc? or is this an acceptable temporary use case?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin OP 21h

I hate people that think liquid and ecash are a "replacement" of LN. They are totally idiots. Pay attention to what I said in the mini-guide.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @sangekrypto 15 Nov

Very complete, you have posted a lot of guides here, and are very helpful, it seems to make it easier for us to travel anywhere, payment uses Bitcoin, thank you for sharing it, you are amazing.