SN release: not custodians \ stacker news ~meta

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12.3k sats \ 10k boost \ 94 comments \ @k00b 3 Jan meta

The update we've been forecasting (#722833, #814839, #814839) has been released.

Most of the conceptual changes are in the posts linked above. There are a few details that are not discussed there:

there's a new page /credits where you can buy credits and withdrawal your reward sats
- this is the page you go to when you click on your balance
- it's also available by clicking on credits in the dropdown/sidepanel
/wallets/settings has been moved to /wallets
- it's available by clicking on wallets in the dropdown/sidepanel
there are new settings for "dust limits"
- basically you can say "when someone zaps me less than X sats, give me cowboy credits"
- also "when I zap someone less than X sats, use cowboy credits"

When are sats and when are credits used for zaps?

If the sender and receiver both have wallets attached, the zap exceeds both of their dust limits, and we can predict a successful route with a reasonable fee, the zap prioritizes using the attached wallets and real sats.

If either the sender or receiver don't have wallets attached, the zap is below either of their dust limits, or the route to the receiver is too expensive, the zap prioritizes using credits.

Reward sats vs cowboy credits

For everything, SN prioritizes using cowboy credits. The one exception is when both the sender AND receiver of a zap have wallets attached.

Reward sats that haven't been withdrawn are only ever used when you spend more cowboy credits than you have. e.g. When you pay for 100 sat post, but only have 50 CCs, your reward sats will be used to pay for the post.

Thank you to anyone who wasn't a total shithead about this change. And an extra thank you to any of the stackers who were supportive and went the extra mile to help us test and troubleshoot and document all of this. There are too many of you to list but you know who you are.

I know noncustodial lightning is hard, so hard that micropayments seem like they aren't worth the trouble, but this is how it gets better - by trying, and suffering, and complaining. I don't mind suffering to nudge us into the branches of reality that I want. If you don't want to suffer, that's okay. And if someone has promised you something better, I wish you the best.

Last but not least, I'm especially thankful for all the hard work and commitment of @ek over the last year. It truly wouldn't have been possible without him. He leaned in when the weather turned and it means a lot to me.

Also, thanks to @rblb too for lots of clutch assistance over the last few months.

When SN first started, people asked what we'd do if we couldn't be custodial. I said we'd go noncustodial. They laughed. I couldn't tell what they were laughing at.

(I'll write a retrospective soon I hope.)

View all commits here: https://github.com/stackernews/stacker.news/commits/master/

We have some merged PRs that haven't been paid yet. I'll get those done when I can.

Since starting the Open Source Contributor Award Rules (OSCARs), we've paid a total of 13.9m sats to 39 contributors for 163 contributions! View an up to date list of contribution awards here: https://github.com/stackernews/stacker.news/blob/master/awards.csv

Previous release: #822636

We are hiring.

view all related items

377 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury 3 Jan

I'm grateful to have confronted an overwhelming force that made me get off my ass and finally dig into lightning enough to set everything up.

And for the perspective I've received about the state of the ecosystem, and what it can and can't deliver.

48 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 3 Jan

@k00b gave many of us a much needed kick in the rear. Thanks, @k00b!

286 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 3 Jan

I know this project was undertaken as a defensive move, and a move that many people wrongly criticized as cowardice rather than just addressing reality. Still, I really think this is also an experiment to test lightning's potential. As stackers learn, fewer of them will lean on easy custodial solutions like coinos and appreciate what real self custody is all about. Thanks for all the hard work, and for pushing through all the negativity and bullshit.

218 sats \ 1 reply \ @nichro 4 Jan

FYI, I had setup NWC with alby, and after the update my sending connection broke (but receiving worked fine)

Followed the instructions on alby Hub to create a new sending connection and it works

I only noticed thanks to the new (dope) payment failed notification with the (dope) retry button

got that notification, created a new sending connection, hit retry and it went thru smoothly

kudos on the update. true pioneer mindset.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 4 Jan

glad you were able to figure it out

the notification is not new though

242 sats \ 0 replies \ @BlokchainB 3 Jan

👏👏👏 I’m all in on SN. I’ll be here until the servers die or I die. Cowboy credits or sats its all good with me. Not like yall are ICO shitcoining and rugging people.

Congrats on the improvements and the overall support.

I’m excited what SN will bring in 2025

292 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 3 Jan

Last but not least, I'm especially thankful for all the hard work and commitment of @ek over the last year. It truly wouldn't have been possible without him. He leaned in when the weather turned and it means a lot to me.

159 sats \ 1 reply \ @OneOneSeven 3 Jan

Best devs in bitcoin, SN or bust.

Too many people fall into the "new things might not work!" section of that bell curve meme you shared earlier this week.

51 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 3 Jan

Best devs in bitcoin, SN or bust.

Yes!

41 sats \ 0 replies \ @BitcoinIsTheFuture 4 Jan

Great work team! Looking forward to learning the new normal. Forward!

205 sats \ 1 reply \ @StillStackinAfterAllTheseYears 3 Jan

Possibly new release-related -- I'm getting a lot of phantom notifications today, where I'll see the bell with a red mark, go to my notifications page, and see nothing new. Maybe it's getting triggered by posts getting sats/CCs (I've got those notifications turned off, but the bell might still be showing a red mark)?

42 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 3 Jan

That could be it. I'll take a look this evening. Thanks!

195 sats \ 0 replies \ @StillStackinAfterAllTheseYears 3 Jan

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @watchmancbiz 4 Jan

I'm confused. So we can't deposit SATS anymore?

12 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 4 Jan

you buy cowboy credits

edit: why do you want to deposit Sats?

214 sats \ 1 reply \ @WeAreAllSatoshi 3 Jan

“Pushed” makes it sounds like it was delayed lol but I know what you mean

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 3 Jan

Good catch.

173 sats \ 4 replies \ @SimpleStacker 3 Jan

Hmm, I just converted my remaining SN balance to CCs, then zapped this post, hoping that it would zap using my connected wallet, but it zapped with CCs instead. I thought zapping would prioritize your connected wallet and use CCs as a fallback?

51 sats \ 3 replies \ @k00b OP 3 Jan

You're right - we weren't telling the backend you could send sats.

This should be fixed now.

33 sats \ 2 replies \ @SimpleStacker 3 Jan

Ok, that worked :)

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @SimpleStacker 3 Jan

Sorry for yet another bug report. My home internet is down meaning my connected wallet is down too. I'm on my phone right now using my mobile network.

I tried zapping a post but got a zap failed. I thought if my wallet is down I should automatically use cowboy credits instead?

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 4 Jan

Mhh, weird, will look into this tmrw

28 sats \ 3 replies \ @030e0dca83 3 Jan

I tuned it once and now use stackerNews without any troubles. At first I criticized it too, but now I 100% supporter of this solution

"What don't kill you make you more strong..."

8 sats \ 2 replies \ @ek 3 Jan

what was your criticism and what changed your mind?

61 sats \ 1 reply \ @030e0dca83 4 Jan

Didn't want to get out of comfort zone, was afraid of something new. It's so convenient when you're in charge of everything: of lightning, routing channels, etc, while I have fun over here. But it's not about Bitcoin, and I really appreciate you decided to go this way.

I just followed this tutor #694593 and fear of "it's hard" had gone. I zap real sats, get real sats, stackerNews works for me flawlessly. Thanks

Have a good day

8 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 4 Jan

I see, human inertia. Makes sense, you have a good day too

61 sats \ 0 replies \ @hasherstacker 3 Jan

Thank you @k00b and team. This is great way to start a new year.

60 sats \ 0 replies \ @WeAreAllSatoshi 3 Jan

Really awesome work guys! You should be proud

59 sats \ 0 replies \ @Cje95 3 Jan

Whoop whoop congrats team HUGE move!

56 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 3 Jan

Appreciate all the hard work you guys put in. Expect there will be bumps along the road. I am sure it will all get sorted in due time and in a few days the change will be second nature to everyone.

14 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 4 Jan

congrats on a successful launch!

I love cowboy credits!

33 sats \ 8 replies \ @john_doe 4 Jan

Thank you for the hard work behind Stacker News!

Recently I noticed my NWC connection shows red on the left arrow. However the logs say sending enabled and receiving enabled. Is it something I have to worry about, like a wrong setting on my side or is it normal behavior (I would have expected both green)?

21 sats \ 7 replies \ @john_doe 4 Jan

Let me add also I had this kind of error in the logs: ERROR invalid invoice: Estimated fees are too high (1029 > 630)

The error happened with 14700 msats which should have been received on my wallet instead of Cowboy Credits.

I set up NWC as recommended in the docs on Rizful, that is, I quote: "For maximum success rate, we recommend setting both max fee rate and max fee total both to 5. You can adjust this however as you like." (src: https://rizful.com/docs/use-rizful-with-services#use-rizful-with-stacker-news).

Maybe it is a problem with the fee setup on my side?

42 sats \ 6 replies \ @k00b OP 4 Jan

For that zap, the lightning network fees to your wallet were too high.

12 sats \ 1 reply \ @Bell_curve 4 Jan

cowboy credits, dead or alive (Bon Jovi)

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 4 Jan

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @john_doe 20h

Ok I see, thanks. So the error message shows sats in msats I guess, should I read 1029 msats > 630 msats hence the transaction failed? What would be the maximum network fee? I thought it would be left to the user in the configuration (I set the max fee rate to 5 sats)

33 sats \ 2 replies \ @k00b OP 20h

We pay the outbound fee on zaps and will pay a max of 3% (which we take from the sybil fee on a zap). That fee for that zap would've cost 7%.

In the future we will allow you to pay the fee yourself if you want, but this is how it works currently.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @john_doe 15h

Let me ask an other related question. For the sending case I always had a log showing success on Stacker News, furthermore on my wallet I had 21 sats spent plus 1 sat for the fee so it looked ok to me. However is it possible that although the log shows success on my side, on the receiving side it gets converted to CC (so assuming logs show success on sending side and the receiving side has a wallet connection setup)? In this case, would you recommend to double or triple the amount to avoid a failing zap? (e.g.: like sending 42 sats instead of 21) Or use a node/custodial wallet which has a direct channel to Stacker News' node?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @john_doe 20h

Ok thanks

40 sats \ 2 replies \ @WeAreAllSatoshi 4 Jan

It seems like maybe there was a regression with the "hide my wallet balance" setting? My balance now always shows up in the header even though I've had this setting enabled for a while.

121 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 4 Jan

Oh yeah I might've knee-jerk removed that.

32 sats \ 0 replies \ @WeAreAllSatoshi 4 Jan

👌

20 sats \ 1 reply \ @StillStackinAfterAllTheseYears 3 Jan

When (or if, since I've been pretty offline today) I get reward sats tonight, will those be combined with the sats I've still got in my SN wallet that I haven't bothered withdrawing, or will there effectively be two sat balances on the wallet page?

(This is neither urgent or important to me, just something I'm idly curious about.)

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 3 Jan

Rewards will just be added to your other sats like usual.

17 sats \ 0 replies \ @nym 3 Jan

Congrats on getting to this point! I know you all have been working hard on this.

17 sats \ 0 replies \ @Aardvark 3 Jan

Seems like it's pretty seamless. I didn't even notice when it switched over.

Also I see you're hiring.... Any need for a mascot? I do children's parties...

11 sats \ 2 replies \ @Fabs 3 Jan

@k00b you're an awesome general, @ek you're an awesome lieutenant and the others mentioned are an awesome shadow-army, I don't have any experience in coding, but I can imagine the pain of trying to figure and incorporate such notable changes - Chapeau!

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 3 Jan

I think you meant @ek.

17 sats \ 0 replies \ @Fabs 3 Jan

Damn sure I do, fuck. 🥲

146 sats \ 5 replies \ @supertestnet 3 Jan

Alternative headline:

Stacker News launches its token!

Tokenomics:

For now, Cowboy Credits are pegged to bitcoin at a rate of 100000000:1
Cowboy Credits can be printed at any time by k00b if he decides to modify the peg ratio -- and he can also raise or lower their "official" price at will
k00b retains the right to freeze, drain, or burn any community member's Cowboy Credits whenever he wants, for whatever reason he wants (or for no reason)
There is no official place to "sell" Cowboy Credits, but if you do things k00b likes he might give you bitcoin
You can send Cowboy Credits to any community member on stacker.news, so anyone can set up an exchange if they want to
We'll see if the community creates exchanges so you can trade Cowboy Credits for other tokens

The launch is LIVE so you can buy Cowboy Credits right now at stacker.news/credits

75 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 3 Jan

Have a blessed year super.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @jakoyoh629 4 Jan

I've been reading up on eCash. Maybe it could be used for CCs, huh?

71 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 4 Jan

no: CC = no custody of sats, eCash = custody of sats

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @jakoyoh629 4 Jan

I see, this is all about legal matters.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 3 Jan

There is no official place to "sell" Cowboy Credits,

sir I am way ahead... even from 14th Oct '24 #723069 I have no problem using CCs inside SN. For me are just like WoW "gold" coins.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @thebullishbitcoiner 4 Jan

Thanks for posting this! Answers a lot of questions I had about CCs vs real sats.

Shoutout to you @ek and the rest of the @sn team. This seemed like a massive undertaking and y’all are killing it. Here’s to a successful 2025 and beyond. 🤠🍻

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @jakoyoh629 8h

Given the recent changes to SN wallets, will I still be able to receive sats at jakoyoh629 @stacker.news?

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @john_doe 4 Jan

Small typing mistake but in the menu of SN it is written "satistics" instead of statistics.

60 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 4 Jan

read it again, it's not a bug

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Bell_curve 4 Jan

instead of Sadistic

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @john_doe 4 Jan

Hahaha, good one.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @PictureRoom 4 Jan

Thank u for the update!

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @Shugard 3 Jan

I thought I was ready for today, yesterday it smoked my brain. #833450

Today is a hell of a roller coaster ride. I get zaps, I get CC. I can zap, some zaps do not go through.

I do not understand when it fails and when it does not.

I do not know how to spend the CC first before I spend the sats to zap.

I want to get rid of my CCs and want sats instead.

16 sats \ 2 replies \ @Shugard 3 Jan

I get this error message, what can I change about the setting to avoid that?

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 3 Jan

If it's a node you control, open a direct channel with SN.

On a node you don't control? Nothing.

I assume you're using coinos. I'll try to rebalance our liquidity soon.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 4 Jan

We should have good liquidity to coinos now.

0 sats \ 11 replies \ @Aardvark 3 Jan

@koob I'm stacking sats but they aren't going to the connected wallet anymore. Any idea on what's going on?

0 sats \ 10 replies \ @k00b OP 3 Jan

Read your wallet logs.

0 sats \ 9 replies \ @Aardvark 3 Jan

1h [lnAddr] ERROR invalid invoice: Estimated fees are too high (21243 > 510) + 1h [lnAddr] WARN wallet does not support msats 1h [lnAddr] INFO created invoice for 11 sats + 1h [lnAddr] INFO ↙ incoming payment: 11 sats

Don't know what any of that means.

0 sats \ 8 replies \ @k00b OP 3 Jan

invalid invoice: Estimated fees are too high (21243 > 510)

The route to your wallet is too expensive. Which lightning address provider are you using?

0 sats \ 7 replies \ @Aardvark 3 Jan

I'm just using whatever coinos uses. I may be too uninformed about LN in general, im not exactly sure what you're asking

21 sats \ 6 replies \ @k00b OP 3 Jan

Coinos is the answer. I'll try to do what I can to make this less likely to happen.

159 sats \ 2 replies \ @Aardvark 3 Jan

Ok. Should I start working on getting a LN node going? It's on my short list anyway

36 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 4 Jan

I think it's a good idea, but I'm biased.

I spent some time making sure there's more liquidity to coinos so it should work now.

view replies

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Bell_curve 4 Jan

@adam_coinos_io

edit: Coinos has support via email and a telegram group

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 4 Jan

It was just a liquidity issue that’s easiest for me to solve on my end.

view replies

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @NovaRift 3 Jan

Congrats to you and your dedicated team. I am loving these cowboy credits; to be honest, for me, it's no change at all because I've just joined a few days ago. It's something very new you guys have done. Sure, some bugs will be there, but I am very hopeful you all will solve all this. Thank you.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @denlillaapan 4 Jan

Impressive work and I'm glad you guys have made progress.

As a small pushback from someone who has been a small shithead, I'm not laughing: I'm projecting a severe restriction to the growth of your otherwise promising platform. All in service of shifting the custody risk elsewhere and not really improving the state of affairs by much (using Coinos etc instead of SN wallet does nothing in terms of overall sovereignty)

We will see who's right and what the future brings.

Best of luck, fren!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 4 Jan

I don't mind cowboy credits

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @mo 3 Jan

Sometimes I wonder if wouldn't be easier to integrate cashu ecash?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 3 Jan

CC = ecash

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 3 Jan

#821347

I must've missed all the podcasts that made people believe that's a solution.

0 sats \ 8 replies \ @mo 3 Jan

But... today, for example, everyone had zero CCs. Where all these CCs are coming from if no one bought credits?

0 sats \ 7 replies \ @k00b OP 3 Jan

When you zap and you or the receiver don't have wallet attached, you're sending CCs you already have, or buying CCs and sending those.

0 sats \ 6 replies \ @mo 3 Jan

you're sending CCs you already have

How? Where? My wallet had zero CCs to start with, like any other stacker I guess. And I haven't bought any (yet).

0 sats \ 5 replies \ @k00b OP 3 Jan

you stopped reading in the middle of the sentence?

... or buying CCs [with reward sats or your sending wallet] and sending those [CCs].

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @mo 3 Jan

Now I got it(maybe). So if someone zap sats to me from an attached wallet, but I haven't attached a wallet, SN keep the sats and send CCs to my wallet. Correct?

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @k00b OP 3 Jan

Close enough

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @mo 3 Jan

Where I can find that comparison table with sats/cc/attaches-nonattached wallets you shared some time ago?

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @mo 3 Jan

@supertestnet was kind of right then #835611 🤣 No judgment, actually a nice business model

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 4 Jan

Okay thanks

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