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Tutorial: Custodial Nostr Zapping with Coinos.io, NWC and Amethyst
2600 sats \ 22 comments \ @nout 13 Dec tutorials

Background

The free Alby account is going away by Jan 3rd 2025. With this users have options to switch to either self hosted Alby Hub or hosted Alby Hub for 21k sats per month (see https://albyhub.com/).
Unfortunatelly neither of these options work for me.
  • I'm currently traveling a lot without a single base home, so I can't just run some server "at home" and I want to be able to use it even when I'm in the midst of moving between locations.
  • 21k sats/month for Alby Hub is too steep just for using it for Nostr zaps. I'd pay more for the service than what I ever get in zaps. I'm happy to support projects, but the math just doesn't work out.
  • Running lightning node, etc in VPS is also prohibitively expensive for this usecase, but I may end up eventually doing this for other reasons. Getting VPS strong enough for self hosted node is around $80/month, but there are also options like https://nodana.io/ for $10/month. (Shill me better options if you have)
If there is a way to run a selft-custodial solution with these requirements (i.e. no "home" node, cheap for small amount zapping), let me know, otherwise this will do and we'll have to wait for BOLT12 in lnd.

Tutorial

So here's the plan
  • Get coinos.io account
  • Connect it with Amethyst via NWC
  • Install Alby Go to make it easier to use the account on the go
Here are the steps to do on your Android phone. iOS will be similar
  • Get Amethyst nostr app installed
  • Go to https://coinos.io/ , register new account and sign in.
  • On the main screen click on the settings gear icon and get the connection code
  • Reveal and copy the connection strings (tap on Copy)
  • Open Amethyst and hold the lightning icon under any post
  • Tap the "paste" button (see the screenshot)
  • Now click on Save and that's it
  • Zapping should now work natively in Amethyst and it will use the hosted wallet
Optional
  • One extra thing you can do here is to install Alby Go (https://albygo.com/) and use the same "connection string" to connect it to your coinos.io account. This way you will have a mobile native wallet that's connected to this account (which makes it easier to pay with it, etc)
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77 sats \ 0 replies \ @DesertDave 14 Dec
Thank you for this. This may be what I end up doing at some point. I have a node with Alby hub but continuously have issues with it resetting and disconnecting from the apps I use it with. I am sure it is user error but I may end up trying something different until I figure it out. And this would fit the bill because I use coinos.io and amethyst already. Thank you
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77 sats \ 0 replies \ @TheWildHustle 14 Dec
That's my setup too
And you can send SN rewards and nostr zaps to CoinOs with auto withdraw to cold storage. CoinOs keeps good track of earned vs spent.
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77 sats \ 0 replies \ @cleaningup12 13 Dec
My set-up is zeus native node in phone
Coinos for zaps and connect nwc amethyst
I steered away from phoenix and alby
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77 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satosora 13 Dec
That sucks.... I just signed up for an alby account, I was waiting for the CCs to roll out see how everything went.
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77 sats \ 0 replies \ @029756652f 17 Dec freebie
lifpay.me has a login with npub and nwc
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @anon 14 Dec
I have phoenixd + alby hub running on my old laptop and it works great. Also I am testing lightning.pub also works good. No need for an expensive vps.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nout OP 14 Dec
Unfortunately not possible for me (as I explained in the background)
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @rizful_com 13 Dec
Alby Hub is highly recommended. You could also try our new service Rizful, which is designed to do exactly this: https://rizful.com/
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55 sats \ 0 replies \ @nout OP 13 Dec
That seems interesting. Although the main homepage is driving me crazy. A wall of super detailed information hard to chew through, fullscreen videos on autoplay, with fullpage width text... I'm sorry to say that to me (and likely others) this can be quite discouraging first experience. I'll take a second pass and look through the documentation. I bet the second pass will be better, but I'm just sharing this as hopefully useful feedback.
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0 sats \ 12 replies \ @OgFOMK 13 Dec
I'm glad you put this out. Share it on NOSTR. Circle back on your experience, too.
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10 sats \ 11 replies \ @nout OP 13 Dec
I crossposted this to nostr using the native crossposting feature in SN.
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0 sats \ 10 replies \ @OgFOMK 13 Dec
Nice. I have not gotten the cross posting to work yet.
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10 sats \ 9 replies \ @ek 14 Dec
You need a signer extension like nos2x for now. Do you have one?
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40 sats \ 8 replies \ @OgFOMK 14 Dec
Is this the same as Alby?
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10 sats \ 7 replies \ @ek 14 Dec
Yes, Alby can also sign events so it should work if you gave it your secret key.
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10 sats \ 3 replies \ @nout OP 14 Dec
Yes, I used alby extension to crosspost this. Is there any way to crosspost from SN to nostr on a phone?
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10 sats \ 2 replies \ @ek 14 Dec
Not yet but we will soon have remote signing for login and then we can expand that to crossposting. Afaik, remote signing is the only way to sign events on mobile next to pasting your nsec into the app (which we don't want to support).
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @OgFOMK 14 Dec
I'm learning that the browser extensions are individual instances and that setting it up one place and not exactly the same in another may confuse the situation.
Stacker NWC is an example as well.
I'll try again to connect NOSTR and stacker.
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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 14 Dec
Stacker NWC is an example as well.
You can enable device sync in your settings:
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