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What happens to the sats in my SN wallet on Jan. 3rd?
Nothing. The sats in your SN wallet will remain available to withdraw.
So, what happens to the sats in my wallet on Jan. 3rd?
Nothing. The sats in your SN wallet will remain available to withdraw.
So I don't need to panic because sats in my wallet after Jan. 3rd will remain available to withdraw just like they were on Jan. 2nd?
Yes, that's right.
If my sats remain available to withdraw, then what changes on Jan. 3rd?
To zap with real bitcoin and be zapped with real bitcoin, you'll need to attach an external lightning wallet for sending and receiving respectively:
  1. If you want to send real bitcoin to other stackers when you zap them on SN, you'll need to attach an external sending wallet.
  2. If you want to receive bitcoin when you're zapped on SN, you'll need to attach an external receiving wallet.
If I don't have or want to attach external wallets, what happens to the zaps I send and the zaps I receive after Jan. 3rd?
  1. When you zap someone else, you'll send Cowboy Credits and they'll receive Cowboy Credits.
  2. When someone zaps you, you'll receive Cowboy Credits.
What are "Cowboy Credits"?
SN will accept Cowboy Credits as payment for everything it accepts sats for (e.g. posting fees, territory fees, even donations). You can also send them to other stackers as zaps.
So the only difference between Cowboy Credits and sats is that I can't withdraw Cowboy Credits?
That's right. That's the only difference.
What happens to rewards and territory revenue after Jan. 3rd?
Nothing. Rewards and territory revenue will work the same as they do now.
Even if I don't attach an external wallet?
Yes, you'll receive "Reward Sats" which (like all custodial wallet balances) are not to be mistaken as truly yours until you withdraw them. You can also buy Cowboy Credits with Reward Sats if you choose. The only real changes to rewards after Jan. 3rd are:
  1. Reward Sats can't be zapped to other stackers
  2. Reward Sats are subject to the following magic words, aka terms and conditions:
    • From time to time, Company may, at its sole discretion, offer and provide prizes or awards of BTC ("Reward Sats") to individuals or entities based on Company initiatives, promotions, or for other reasons determined by Company. Company reserves the right to issue (or not issue) such Reward Sats to any person or entity, at any time, and without prior notice. If you are selected to receive Reward Sats, Company will notify you and will transmit the Reward Sats to your account. In order to claim the Reward Sats, you will be required to set up an account, and may be required to provide certain personal information, including but not limited to, a valid Lightning wallet invoice. Failure to provide accurate and complete information may result in the forfeiture of the Reward Sats. You acknowledge and agree that you do not own, and shall have no right, title, or interest in any Reward Sats until such time as the Reward Sats are successfully transferred to your designated Lightning wallet. Until the transfer is completed, all rights to the Reward Sats remain solely with Company. Company makes no guarantee regarding the timing or availability of any such Reward Sats.
Can I zap other stackers my Reward Sats?
No, without an external sending wallet, you can only zap other stackers Cowboy Credits.
Do Reward Sats, or any of these changes, involve KYC or so-called "soft" KYC?
No, they do not.
What if I receive sats to my SN lightning address after Jan. 3rd?
If you've attached an external receiving wallet, those sats will be non-custodially proxied to your receiving wallet by default. Should you choose, you can disable proxying in your settings and receive sats directly, exposing your receiving node's pubkey.
If you haven't attached an external receiving wallet, or disabled both proxying and direct receives, you'll receive Cowboy Credits.
I have more questions about Jan. 3rd. Where can I ask them?
In this thread. Ask me anything.
I'm a territory founder and this change makes me regret paying for or purchasing a territory.
Please email me.
I'm having a bad day, week, month, year, or life. Where's the best place for me to make you miserable too while pretending that this post is the cause?
In this thread.
I'm miserable but also sanctimonious so I'd like to write a eulogy for SN that you'll read. Where's the best place to do that?
In this thread, but it might be more fitting to write it on nostr or X and tag me.
Will SN ever offer a custodial lightning wallet again?
We may eventually partner with Zebedee and/or Strike and/or whoever to offer a 100% OPTIONAL integrated and regulated custodial wallet, but that will happen well after Jan. 3rd.
What happens to the sats in my SN wallet on Jan. 3rd?
Nothing. The sats in your SN wallet will remain available to withdraw.

This is a repost of an earlier announcement. See #731188 and #722833 for previous discussions.
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @anon 16m
ZBD is very nice, but also costly. Look at the pricing schedule before committing to them.
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How many hours will site be down on January 3? Approximately?
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25 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 3h
Zero hours
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Wait, but @k00b, what happens to the sats in my SN wallet on Jan. 3rd?
Sorry. I had to.
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I am angry and this is stupid and I am very upset and this confuses me and you suck
Cheers
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21 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 21 Dec
I bet that felt good
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I love your cheeky reminders and your sarcastic style, but I didn't see anyone being a douche in the comments
Someone's gotta step up
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Jan 3, 2009 was the genesis block
Samson Mow started a project called Jan3
New Congress starts on Jan 3
Partnership with ZBD will be easier than Strike because Strike has a large compliance team
I always see openings for lawyers at Strike
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To do zapping with real bitcoins and zapping with real bitcoins, you need to install an external lightning wallet to send and receive respectively:
If someone hasn't installed Lightning Wallet, will the sats on SN disappear? Or are there any impacts if it is not installed?
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If someone hasn't installed Lightning Wallet, will the sats on SN disappear?
This answers that:
What happens to the sats in my SN wallet on Jan. 3rd?
Nothing. The sats in your SN wallet will remain available to withdraw.

Or are there any impacts if it is not installed?
This answers that:
If I don't have or want to attach external wallets, what happens to the zaps I send and the zaps I receive after Jan. 3rd?
  1. When you zap someone else, you'll send Cowboy Credits and they'll receive Cowboy Credits.
  2. When someone zaps you, you'll receive Cowboy Credits.
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If others are getting a horse and a pistol for using p2p zaps, do I get also a special icon for using only CCs ?
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You get the privilege of only needing a hat. You are a special kind of cowboy like that.
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So the only difference between Cowboy Credits and sats is that I can't withdraw Cowboy Credits?
That's right. That's the only difference.
And thus, you have caught yourself in a blatant lie. Cowboy Credits also cannot be used to obtain a gun
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19 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 20 Dec
I wonder what a lasso could mean
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Will bounties for posts like the Monday meme contest be paid in CC or Sats?
I assume it's CC if you don't have a wallet attached and sats if you do, yeah?
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For the bot’s bounties they will be CCs to start. For everyone else’s bounties, it works like zap - if both parties have attached wallets, it’s sats.
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We can probably force sats for bounties, but on Jan 3, it'll work like a zap (under the hood a bounty payment is the same thing as a zap).
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The invitation links will pull the sats from an external wallet?
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21 sats \ 4 replies \ @ek 20 Dec
No, they will use only CCs.
I think at some point we should allow to pre-fund (and withdraw from) them so you don't need to keep CCs in your wallet just to honor invite redemptions.
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pre-funding invitations make sense and easy solution 👍
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 20 Dec
Did you ask because someone had issues with your invite links?
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no, not issues yet. yes last days I had some invites joining but they didn't said anything about not receiving the sats.
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100 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 20 Dec
cool, created a ticket
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Why have you decided to do this?
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Because the alternative is paying millions of dollars in licensing fees and waiting several years for the privilege of kycing and surveilling you all so I can transmit nickels on your behalf.
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14 sats \ 1 reply \ @satcat 20 Dec
Damn
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Yeah pretty wild
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Seems legit. Simplifying infrastructure and making changes to stay sane makes it more manageable.
If it’s a chore and it’s painful you will question why the fuck are you doing this?
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btw is Jan 3rd a special date?
Bc it's the same day when Alby shuts down their custodial service.
Is there anything happening on Jan 3rd 2025? Or is it an accident/random?
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The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks
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I made my move last month. Non-custodial is the way to go
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Thank you for the clarity
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Does it work it LNC to receive sats or only to send?
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12 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 19 Dec
For now only send because making LNC receive work on a backend with multiple servers is a mess
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Only to send right now. @rblb made it receive in a PR, but it's not meant to be used this way, ie multiple multitenant servers, so it required more hacks than I could live with and probably still won't work very well despite all our efforts. Even for sending it's pretty bad because it can't be used in multiple tabs/devices simultaneously.
I'll revisit it though and see if we can make something that works well enough.
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Thanks for the info, will it work better once LND has bolt12 working?
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bolt12 won't fix LNC, but we'll allow you to receive via bolt12 soon. We have some code for this already. It just needs to be reviewed.
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to receive via bolt12 on stacker news wallet you mean?
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Yep, you'll input a bolt12 like you would a lightning address or any of the other attachments.
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ah ok, but LND does not support bolt12 yet, probably after 0.19.0
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @BeeAye 15h
what about a backup receive option? in case the first option is unreachable at that moment for whatever reason.
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You can currently do that. It’s already supported and will continue to be
Hi @k00b I'm using "Coinos" with NWC since last time when they announced that we needed an attached wallet.
Am I ok with that???
On the other hand, I'm a little confused where you talk about disabling or enabling a proxy to receive. Can you help me with that confusion?? Or am I already doing fine, with my attached wallet of Coinos?
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Your existing attached wallets will continue to work.
Can you help me with that confusion??
What exactly are you confused about? How to enable/disable?
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If you've attached an external receiving wallet, those sats will be non-custodially proxied to your receiving wallet by default. Should you choose, you can disable proxying in your settings and receive sats directly, exposing your receiving node's pubkey. If you haven't attached an external receiving wallet, or disabled both proxying and direct receives, you'll receive Cowboy Credits.
This is the part that left me confused... I don't know if you're talking about some more advanced option for something else, or if it's something I need to do in my attached wallet. Thanks for your help! 👍
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Oh it's an advanced thing. Proxying is for privacy.
If you don't need the privacy, check the direct receive box in your settings and you'll be good to go.
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15 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 19 Dec
I think the confusing part is that we didn't mention that proxying is only for receiving via the lightning address, not receiving in general
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We recommend using Rizful or Alby Hub with a NWC connection for Stacker News!
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This is really good. I just try it and worked really nice. I must add it to my guides. Thank you!
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18 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 19 Dec
wow, thank you for this dedicated guide!
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Will cowboys credits ever go away?
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50 sats \ 2 replies \ @ek 19 Dec
If everybody sends and receive sats, yes.
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How? If everyone uses a self custodial ln wallet?
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62 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 19 Dec
doesn't have to be self custodial, just everybody needs to attach some wallet that can send and receive
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My wallet connection fails often. What happens when your wallet isn’t working and you get zapped by real Sats and not CCs
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you'll get cc's
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @ek 19 Dec
this guy cc's
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😕 i don't get it. english mistake?
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11 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 19 Dec
I was just trying to be funny :/
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Sadness
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 19 Dec
sadness credits
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Taft 19 Dec
That's why you need to make sure that your wallets are always plugged in.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 19 Dec
or at least one of your receiver wallets is working
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I'm testing an alternative to alby, in NWC you have two connection strings, one for sending and one for receiving. For now I've only tested sending and it worked. My question is whether it's the same string for receiving or a different one. Coinos only offers one string. I followed @realBitcoinDog's tutorial and he doesn't mention this, he uses LN address to receive. cc/ @ek
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This is the one of the must confusing things about NWC with Stacker News currently. We've discussed with @koob and it's likely this behavior will be re-worked in the future, but for now, you need TWO DIFFERENT NWC STRINGS.... Our guide is here for Rizful but it should also work for other NWC back-ends like Alby Hub and others..... https://rizful.com/docs/use-rizful-with-services#use-rizful-with-stacker-news
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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @ek 19 Dec
it's likely this behavior will be re-worked in the future
Do you have suggestions? I think this is a limitation of how NWC is generally used since we don't want to store spending permissions on our server.1 So afaict, we need two separate connections since one needs to be on your device or encrypted on the server and one needs to be in plaintext on the server.
I think all we can do is to explain this better but wallets will continue to have to provide two different strings unless the spec is updated in some way. 🤔

Footnotes

  1. and nobody should if they want to claim they are non-custodial
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I think the solution is to separate send/receive into independent steps as we've discussed.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 19 Dec
ah yes, independent steps can explain it better but we will still need two different NWC strings so I was replying to the "for now" in
but for now, you need TWO DIFFERENT NWC STRINGS.
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I guess we can add an explainer in the short term.
Why do we need two separate stings? XYZ app lets me use just one.
We don't ever store spending permissions on the server. To enable receiving, we need a string without spending permissions for the server. To enable spending, we need one string for that never leaves your browser.
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cool! when i have a bit more time i'll try it out.
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I’ll be curious for the answer!
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22 sats \ 2 replies \ @ek 19 Dec
But if Coinos gives you a lightning address, you can use that. It doesn’t matter which receive method you use; we handle them all the same.
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This is how I have it set up at the moment (LN Address to receive) and it works. I'm asking more out of curiosity. Maybe it doesn't matter if it works with SN, but maybe it does with other platforms. Let's wait for adam's reply. Thanks!
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33 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 19 Dec
Cool, thanks for letting us know it works for you!
I also recently mentioned the UX issues with NWC here, maybe something will come out of it.
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44 sats \ 3 replies \ @ek 19 Dec
For receiving, you need a different string because we need to store it in plaintext on the server to coordinate payments.
@adam_coinos_io, does Coinos provide separate NWC strings to send and receive?
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No we don't currently but I can look into adding it
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that was the icing on the cake. Let us know when you have something ready. thanks!
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Correct.
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So this means when someone zaps my post or comment, some of it may be CCs and some of it may be sats?
When I zap others and I have a non-zero CC balance, will SN spend my CCs before it takes zaps from my funding wallet?
And is there a way to remove CCs from the system or will their number only grow, meaning that an ever-increasing percentage of zaps I receive will be CCs?
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When I zap others and I have a non-zero CC balance, will SN spend my CCs before it takes zaps from my funding wallet?
It will prioritize real sats when zapping and the receiver has a wallet attached. When posting, commenting, boosting, donating, paying for territories, or zapping someone without a receiving wallet, we prioritize CCs.
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So as long as you have a wallet attached, you will still earn the sats. If you do not have a wallet attached, you will earn CC. Correct? I have my strike wallet attached and has been working great. As long as I keep this in tact, nothing will change, correct? Thank you.
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Yes, your strike lightning address will continue to allow you to receive real sats when people zap you.
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20 sats \ 8 replies \ @ek 19 Dec
So this means when someone zaps my post or comment, some of it may be CCs and some of it may be sats?
Yes
When I zap others and I have a non-zero CC balance, will SN spend my CCs before it takes zaps from my funding wallet?
I believe the default is to zap real sats. We had a lot of internal discussion about which order should be the default but it will be easy to provide a setting so you can tell us what your preference is.
And is there a way to remove CCs from the system or will their number only grow, meaning that an ever-increasing percentage of zaps I receive will be CCs?
Every zap has a 30% sybil fee on it (doesn’t matter if CCs or sats) so the half life of a CC is almost exactly two zaps: 100*0.7*0.7=49
This means after two zaps, 51% of a CC went into rewards and territory revenue and rewards and revenue are always paid out in sats.
So this also means if everybody starts sending and receiving real sats, CCs will quickly cease to exist. At least that’s my hypothesis.
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I'm assuming it'll also be possible to select what to use at the time of zapping if you go into the custom amount menu?
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 19 Dec
Do you want to choose it per zap or do you just want to express your general preference via settings?
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The general preference would work, but I had been thinking about scenarios where it would be helpful to have the option to pick in this menu as well.
It might not be something people would use, it was just something I thought of.
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Thanks!
So this also means if everybody starts sending and receiving real sats, CCs will quickly cease to exist.
I think this could be shortened to: So this also means if everybody starts sending and receiving real sats, CCs will quickly cease to exist. because for a CC to be sent it needs to be received first (in fact, >1.42 CCs need to be received).
And users are incentivized to receive sats, so CCs should die out indeed.
BTW it would be simpler not to introduce CCs at all and if someone doesn't have a receiving wallet attached, they'd receive nothing and the sats would go to SN as a 100% fee.
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216 sats \ 3 replies \ @ek 19 Dec
So this also means if everybody starts sending and receiving real sats, CCs will quickly cease to exist.
As a receiver, you can't control what you will receive. If the sender only has CCs, you will receive CCs. But yes, to have CCs, you need to have received them in some way first 🤔 Nice observation!
edit: mhhh, anybody can buy CCs though. So you can have CCs even without someone else sending you some.
BTW it would be simpler not to introduce CCs at all and if someone doesn't have a receiving wallet attached, they'd receive nothing
Simpler for who? Certainly not for new users who just want to try out SN.
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As a receiver, you can't control what you will receive. If the sender only has CCs, you will receive CCs.
Sorry for the lack of clarity. I meant: So this also means if everybody starts receiving real sats attaches an external wallet (so they receive real sats when they're zapped real sats)
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edit: mhhh, anybody can buy CCs though. So you can have CCs even without someone else sending you some.
Buy from SN or on a secondary market? There is no incentive to buy from SN at 1:1, and when you buy a CC on a secondary market at a discount it doesn't bring a new CC into existence, the CC still must have been created by someone receiving a zap and not having a receiving wallet attached.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 19 Dec
you can buy from us at 1:1 or ask someone to send you CCs with a 30% fee
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I read the whole post again! I’m having a great week.
Merry Christmas!
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I thought you already had the same post only to find out that you postponed some switch. Too much ask for me but will try. Thanks
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If I have lightning address set up with desired balance set to 1, will I receive zaps or is this a solution that only works because of the current custodial wallet?
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That will work fine
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My lightning address requires a minimum payment of 1000 sats (because it uses swaps). Can I use this as my attached wallet?
It's BancoLibre.com (self custodial) and attaching the lightning address produced an error since it failed the 1sat test invoice check.
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I recommend you try a NWC back end that is a fully featured Lightning Node. Rizful & Alby Hub will both work.
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The overwhelming majority of zaps are less than 1000 sats.
This switch will introduce a "dust limit" which you can specify at 1000 sats, so we can probably eventually support such an external situation.
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As a territory founder, if i chose to not link an external wallet, I could just keep cowboy credits earned from zaps and stacker rewards, on the site to send to others and use for fees, zaps, etc. And I could also still receive some real sats from territory rewards that could be withdrawn to a wallet. So territory awards could still be custodial real bitcoin available to withdrawal on lightning? Is that correct? And if that is correct I guess I would have a cowboy credit balance and a Satoshi balance?
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All correct.
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Awesome. I think I am finally wrapping my head around what probably isn't that complicated.
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People are definitely overthinking it
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Unrelated, when are you planning on talking about reducing territory prices?
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Probably the next thing I do once I put out the handful of fires that've started.
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If I have an attached wallet, but the lightning node goes offline, what happens when someone tries to zap me or I try to zap someone?
I'd like to be able to configure cowboy credits as a fallback option when wallet is down:
if wallet status is ok: zap using wallet else: if CC balance is sufficient: zap using CC else: show payment QR code
I believe the current behavior is more akin to:
if CC balance is sufficient: zap using CC else: if wallet status is ok: zap using wallet else: show payment QR code
Of course, by "zap using CC" in the current behavior I'm referring to zap using my SN custodial wallet
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After Jan 3, it will work exactly how you describe wanting it to work. There might be some tuning required on our end to determine when a node is really down, but our intent is what you describe.
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111 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 18 Dec
If your wallet is down, you will receive CCs and send CCs or be shown a QR code if you don't have enough. Does that answer your question?
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I believe I'm ready!
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For reals this time?
I’m glad I setup Coinos last time. It has been working great!
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Thanks for the faq, I've already set coinos as my receiver wallet and sending wallet via nwc, I think.
Incidentally was just looking at the logs and there are a fair few 'WARN' wallet does not support mSATS
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26 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 18 Dec
If you’re okay with donating fractions of a sat to us, you can safely ignore.
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You definitely deserve it koob, you work hard enough
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14 sats \ 1 reply \ @cascdr 18 Dec
Sats should rebrand to Cowboy Credits
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Bitcoin should rebrand to Stacker News.
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Dumb question which may have been answered previously. What if someone tries to game the system by only connecting a receive wallet? Will they zap cc's and receive real bitcoin?
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43 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 18 Dec
They can’t zap CCs if they don’t receive or buy any
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Yes, but we plan to give more rewards to zappers of real sats.
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38 sats \ 1 reply \ @siggy47 18 Dec
No way to affirmatively punish this slimy activity?
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It might not be slimy is the problem. Maybe they only have WoS or something.
Besides, most stackers will end up spending their CCs fast on posts/comments/boost/territories/donations
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Is there a reason this post is pinned twice (#2 and bottom of screenshot)? https://i.imgur.com/AUwoFHI.png
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regression! Thanks
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Will SN ever offer a custodial lightning wallet again?
Ever thought on integrating a cashu.me wallet?
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What's cashu? Cash University? (I'm kidding. Yes, we plan to add ecash wallets. :))
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iris.to is simply iframing it ;)
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167 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 18 Dec
I think we can do better
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Partner with ZBD would be awesome!
@StackerSports will you accept cowboy credit like Calgary stampede?
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Yee haw. Wonder if we will need a sats pool and a cowboy credit pool.
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We hope to do it assuming we can segregate the data collection, surveillance, payment limits, geofencing, etc from the rest of the app.
We just want to be non-custodial-first.
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What happens to the sats in my SN wallet on Jan. 3rd?
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Nothing. The sats in your SN wallet will remain available to withdraw.
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When looking at a post, will the zaps and cowboy credits given to it be combined into one number in the top line (so "200 sats \ 1 reply \ @ username")? Or will they be separated?
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They will be combined into one number. You can get the breakdown on hover or by clicking on ... > details. Your zap notifications will, without hover or clicking, say "your item stacked 1,000 sats and 400 CCs".
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Can you please explain the technical solution?
I understand currently the wallets are generated and kept by SN, this comes at a risk and responsibilities, so I believe it's changing so that the only sats SN receives are for payment of its services, everything else will be automatically routed between user's wallets.
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Sounds like you understand it.
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12 sats \ 1 reply \ @anon 18 Dec
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omg you have no idea
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Maybe you've already answered this, what is the maximum balance allowed in the sats wallet?
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63 sats \ 2 replies \ @ek 18 Dec
there will be no limits for reward sats since you can only withdraw them
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we can also buy CCs, right?
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11 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 18 Dec
yes
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I think l need to email you about the whine and cheese you will be receiving from this changeover lol
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