Are SN users using CoinOS and other apps helping or hurting these app devs \ stacker news ~bitcoin

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Are SN users using CoinOS and other apps helping or hurting these app devs

1211 sats \ 54 comments \ @kepford 31 Jan bitcoin

Since the addition of cowboy credits on SN some have talked about how this is a mistake. CoinOS just announced an attack that exposed users accounts to compromise. I think the argument is to use cowboy credits on SN instead of these custodial wallets like Minibits or CoinOS because of the frequency of small transactions. That indeed is no doubt putting stress on these services. But, is this a reason to not use them.

I would actually like to hear from the devs on this one. I am using both of these services mostly to give them feedback, help they work out issues, and use the tools. I also use sovereign wallets and my own nodes. Is my use of these hosted NWC providers hurting these apps and their devs. My gut says no. My gut and experience tells me that there are certain issues an app/service is not aware of until actual real usage pressure is applied. Now, if too much pressure is applied to soon that can be very disruptive to the devs and their project.

Would love to hear from devs both working on Minibits and CoinOS on this but also any devs that do relevant work. I've worked in the field of hosted apps and web sites from over twenty years now. Scaling is not easy or cheap. IMO the Lightning network and eCash need to be stress tested. Not saying this as a slight but if the users of SN can take down a service it has a long way to go before bitcoin adoption even approaches 5%.

What am I missing? I'm sure I'm missing some things.

cc: @adam_coinos_io

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1286 sats \ 21 replies \ @adam_coinos_io 31 Jan

We're on the same page @kepford -- the more users we get, the more of a target we become but it also forces us to improve and scale. I'm glad to provide a service that makes it easy for people to transact. I'm hoping that with enough time and battle scars it may grow into a stable enough platform that others can fork it and run their own instances with confidence so that not all the responsibility is on my shoulders.

I'm content to continue building it and growing it organically on my own for now. I have enough funds to personally back-stop and insure against losses for the time being but if a lot more people start coming on board and storing too much money in their accounts then I'll need to take some action like putting limits on, making it invite only or charging custody fees.

86 sats \ 2 replies \ @IamSINGLE 31 Jan

Thanks for the efforts. I'm using coinos and I never had issues.

9 sats \ 1 reply \ @kepford OP 31 Jan

CoinOS is great. It has many uses beyond NWC and SN. Great service

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 31 Jan

but SN did wrong by pushing its users onto coinos... Coinos is a great platform but not for taking over SN users. As I said multiple times here.

141 sats \ 2 replies \ @Bell_curve 31 Jan

of course I'm not helping by promoting and evangelizing CoinOS lol

115 sats \ 1 reply \ @adam_coinos_io 31 Jan

Haha no, to be clear I am looking to get more users and grow the platform and I do appreciate everyone who tries it out, finds problems, and gives feedback. I'm not to the point yet of feeling over-burdened or at capacity, I was just saying that there may come a day when that happens.

55 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 31 Jan

I apologize for the spoiled brats and armchair developers in SN community.

Lots of opinions, very little action.

Words are louder than actions, otherwise we wouldn't be using SN

61 sats \ 0 replies \ @DEADBEEF 31 Jan

Thank you for building CoinOS. It is a fantastic service!

58 sats \ 3 replies \ @freetx 31 Jan

Not related to current discussion, but I've used your software in various forms for a long time.

Many years ago (4?) you used to have Liquid support. I had a project using for a time for customer that wanted redeemable tokens like for an arcade. He wanted users to buy in with sats and get X number of tokens and then could play video games with tokens.....

That project is no more, but checking out your latest it seems Liquid support is gone? Or am I just missing it?

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @Bell_curve 31 Jan

I tested a liquid transaction using aqua and coinos recently, i.e. 30 days ago or less

Update: January 11

94 sats \ 1 reply \ @adam_coinos_io 31 Jan

We no longer support Liquid assets other than L-BTC but we'd like to add them back in at some point. There are a few other features on the priority last though so I can't give an ETA on it.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 31 Jan

my mistake, I meant L-BTC not tokens

9 sats \ 7 replies \ @Aardvark 31 Jan

What amount would you prefer users to stay below?

61 sats \ 0 replies \ @adam_coinos_io 31 Jan

I don't have any specific number in mind at this point

10 sats \ 5 replies \ @DarthCoin 31 Jan

Run your fucking node and don't abuse these kind of nice platform with shity zaps.

58 sats \ 0 replies \ @Aardvark 31 Jan

I have alby, but I still have a coinos wallet so I want to make sure to not leave on to much if it's a burden to coinos.

30 sats \ 3 replies \ @kepford OP 31 Jan

Darth, question for you. How are we supposed to know what is abuse and what is use. If the usage is abuse but not intended to be abuse then the platform needs to put things in place for actual malicious activity. Right?

If SN using these services brings them to their knees what happens when we have massive adoption?

245 sats \ 2 replies \ @DarthCoin 31 Jan

what happens when we have massive adoption?

What I always said: if you are an experienced node runner, start building a LN bank for your local community.

Like CoinOS. Do you know their history, how did they start? As an uncle Jim for local shops in Vancouver.

But people nowadays I see that are just fucking waiting for things to happen, they do nothing, not even study properly how to use Bitcoin for themselves.... They only care how to assmilk SN btw...

And this is because people nowadays do not want to be responsible for anything, but always want to blame others to be responsible for them and for their own mistakes. Like this idiot...

Prepare from now, learn, test, create solutions, slowly, small steps and then grow (but not too much). Provide for your closed people only.

THIS is the real decentralization: small LN banks everywhere that cannot be stopped or cannot attract easily attackers because the bounty is too small or unknown so the effort is not worth it.

19 sats \ 0 replies \ @Aardvark 31 Jan

There's a lot of information to digest. Slow and steady is really good advice, at least it has been for me.

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9 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford OP 31 Jan

Right on Darth. This is what we that can run nodes and lightning nodes should do.

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9 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford OP 31 Jan

Thanks Adam. CoinOS is great. It has many uses beyond NWC and SN. Its a great service.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @NovaRift 31 Jan

I'll reduce 0.0001% burden from my end by adding another wallet on my Stacker account. your wallet is really good and easy to use. excellent service. Thanks.

66 sats \ 7 replies \ @PictureRoom 31 Jan

I'm mainly using Coinos for Nostr / zaps. I never have more than 10k sats on there at a given time.

I've got my SN linked to my alby which I also run with my own Start9 node.

Am I doing okay?

9 sats \ 6 replies \ @kepford OP 31 Jan

Am I doing okay?

Beats me. I don't like this whole moralizing of using the tech. Seems foolish to me. But punching ourselves in the face isn't good.

94 sats \ 2 replies \ @Bell_curve 31 Jan

as long as you don't practice Brazilian jiu jitsu, you are doing ok

82 sats \ 0 replies \ @PictureRoom 31 Jan

Right on

9 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford OP 31 Jan

Ha!

55 sats \ 2 replies \ @PictureRoom 31 Jan

hey man, just trying to learn what I can and implement.

30 sats \ 1 reply \ @kepford OP 31 Jan

Sounds fine to me. The question is, is it working for you? Running your own node and NWC is pretty great.

139 sats \ 0 replies \ @PictureRoom 31 Jan

So far so good yeah. It's been a challenge to learn all of this stuff. Very much a firehose of information into my face but I understand the importance of at least trying to keep up. I appreciate all the information here

200 sats \ 1 reply \ @ama 31 Jan

Perhaps /cc @adam_coinos_io could let us know?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford OP 31 Jan

Thanks

77 sats \ 1 reply \ @stack_harder 31 Jan

99% of peope wont want to run a note, they just want a quick way to zap and be zapped so i think by more people joining coinos, if anything, it will help them up their game and be battle tested.

plus, who is really keeping a ton on there, it's a hot wallet for zapping

9 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford OP 31 Jan

Right, good points and kinda why I'm using these apps.

1062 sats \ 3 replies \ @DarthCoin 31 Jan

Remember my fucking warnings? #841050 and #841257

CoinOS is a nice platform designed to onboard new merchants, helping them get onboard in an easy way... But what people do? ABUSE IT! And mass influx of users will get more attention from bad actors, that will be attracted for more prey. And what they gonna do? Abuse it more until will break it.

Of course Coinos will get out from this issue, no doubt, but now as I said many times, the nice little platform is not what was before.

Are SN users using CoinOS and other apps helping or hurting these app devs ?

Yes. SN users should stop using any custodial account linked to SN. Run your fucking own LN node or just use CCs. It is nothing wrong with using CCs, damn it.

FFS as I screamed from the beginning of all this shit: SN should just stay as it was before. All this mess with "p2p zaps" and CCs is only a storm kicking the nest. And for what? for absolutely nothing to achieve.

9 sats \ 1 reply \ @kepford OP 31 Jan

Thanks for sharing your perspective Darth. I totally get what you are saying. That's why I asked for the actual dev's perspective.

I think its gonna be ok though...

9 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 31 Jan

The custodial services are always nice and useful when are not abused, keeping a low level profile. Once they get too many users and bring more attention it is always somebody that will fuck it up, be it a hacker, being an enemy or even users themselves abusing the service and collapsing it.

I raise this warning and advice to all new users: when you find a new custodial service, try not to abuse it. Custodial are useful as decoy, temporary liquidity, testing stuff, getting onboard, but that's it. Don't stick forever with a custodial service, find your own way out to self-custody meanwhile the custodian is helping you.

Don't rely 100% only on custodians. Yes, you can use them, I am not against them. CoinOS is the perfect example of a nice custodian that its main focus is onboarding new small merchants. But that doesn't mean you are not starting to build your own self-custody stack.

But people are... retarded.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 22h

Not bothered by your hysterics- Im using Coinos because its easy and this level of ease is required if Bitcoin is to be used widely.

Using Coinos does not prevent me from storing most of my sats in secure cold storage- its just a ot easier to use Coinos to custody sats from home mining and SN asnd for general LN spending...the few places its available.

You can go live in a forest like a Libertarian monk far from any benefits of civilisation and the governments you hate - but you won't because you would not last a day without the comforts and ease that government and organised society provide you.

As far as I can see CC are not ideal but forced upon SN by the absurd custodial rules of the government and bankers fiat cartel - if SN did not introduce CC they appear to have been exposed to action from the regulators...maybe that pressure is now less under the new President but who knows?

76 sats \ 6 replies \ @fishious 31 Jan

Not a dev, but IMHO stress testing custodial wallets just leads to their demise more quickly and shows how custodial is not meant for mass usage. And from a user's perspective, jumping from one custodial app to another gets really annoying. Devs should just focus on building self-custodial solutions like AlbyHub or at least build apps that gradually upgrade a user from custodial to self-custodial.

Custodial solutions has its place for specific use cases like initial onboarding of merchants, which Coinos was perfect for, but it should have stayed small and local. It would be a shame if non-merchant users degrade the service to the point where it becomes unusable to actual merchants.

26 sats \ 5 replies \ @kepford OP 31 Jan

from a user's perspective, jumping from one custodial app to another gets really annoying

For sure. Normies won't do that. They will just quit. We aren't ready for normies to use bitcoin like the currently use fiat layer twos.

66 sats \ 4 replies \ @0xIlmari 31 Jan

We aren't ready for normies to use bitcoin like the currently use fiat layer twos.

That's what I keep saying on and on. The UX of LN is still terrible. It's good for hackers and maybe acceptable to technically-inclined people but it takes a very determined normie to get into it, presently.

One thing you can't deny fiat is how easy it is to use.

16 sats \ 2 replies \ @kepford OP 31 Jan

Its on the right path though. Custodial lightning wallets are pretty easy to use but the ecosystem needs more stress testing and scale testing. We'll get there but only if people use it and if we keep growing that user base. The Internet was harder to use in the past than it is today. Everyone uses it now. I have no doubt we will get there.

156 sats \ 1 reply \ @0xIlmari 31 Jan

But custodial anything is ultimately antithetical to Bitcoin. What I mean by "UX of LN is terrible" is in the self-sovereign context:

It's hard (and somewhat expensive) to run your own node.
Want to be an Uncle Jim? If it weren't for Darth's tutorials, you'd be outta luck.
"Why can't I be zapped when my phone is offline?"/"Why can't I zap when they're offline?" (Fiat is, of course, fully asynchronous.)
"How many more keys and passwords do you want me to manage?" (They end up writing them on paper and screwing up.)
"LNURL, BOLT11, BOLT12, NWC, can you invent more tech, please? My head is not hurting enough." (Only shows that this is still hacker-space.)

I agree, 90% of the technical garbage needs to be hidden away. Like understanding SSL, TLS v1, v2, etc. vs "Is there a green padlock?"

16 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford OP 31 Jan

Good points. Don't disagree. Also most people don't care about self-sovereignty at all. That's not gonna change. I just want those that do care to be able to do it. All that said making the sovereign tools easier to use has a way to go for sure.

Sovereign bitcoin isn't for everyone but it should be accessible to everyone. Its not currently. It is for on-chain IMO but not L2.

Darth's guides are great but I was able to get up and going without the guides, but again I'm the uncle Jim type. Darth's guides did help me level up quicker. Wish I had found them sooner.

The future is bright. We need to keep using the tools and promoting others do the same. Just know your audience. Few people in my life are ever gonna do what I have done. Getting them to download and use Zeus wallet is my goal for the most part.

Edit: I'm optimistic because its come so far in the last 5 years. Still have a long way to go but we are moving in the right direction. Gonna take time.

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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 31 Jan

Coinos has made LN considerably easier to use...but agree its not ready yet to fully replace the fiat payment channels.

With Coinos you do not need to be technically inclined and it still reliably works.

Yes fiat is easy to use but it is already established and accepted in peoples everyday lives and thinking whereas LN is a new alternative which takes time to understand let alone accept.

76 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xIlmari 31 Jan

I opined on at least two occasions (#523941, #723980), hinting that this transition will cause problems. That was BEFORE it actually happened.

Zapping real sats has more friction now, both for the sender and receiver, but moreso for the receiver. Not everyone can run a node. Of those that run a node, not everyone wants to "doxx" their node - for example, I use a separate identity just for SN and don't want to associate it with my node.

So of course, it pushed people into custodial solutions. I myself use CoinOS so that I can receive zaps 24/7 without a link to my node. Because I'm cynical and want sats, not CCs.

48 sats \ 7 replies \ @Satosora 31 Jan

Its funny how you say that. I feel only darthcoin and I were the only ones who wanted to test out how to use CCs. Everyone else was jumping the gun and using another app, just kicking the can further down the line. Who of us have actually set up their own node to run all these transactions?

47 sats \ 3 replies \ @Bell_curve 31 Jan

I had no objection to cowboy credits

83 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satosora 31 Jan

I feel like we were in the minority.

9 sats \ 1 reply \ @kepford OP 31 Jan

Me either. It is more complex than before the change but I understand the change.

81 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satosora 31 Jan

I understand why the change had to happen.

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @kepford OP 31 Jan

just kicking the can further down the line.

Huh? Not following you. Maybe I'm missing your meaning but it doesn't seem like you are answering my question.

84 sats \ 1 reply \ @Satosora 31 Jan

What l mean is that we dropped the problem onto someone elses doorstep.

9 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford OP 31 Jan

Ok, but please read this reply to my question. The apps/service can solve a flood of users by limiting new account creation. I know a flood of new traffic is stressful but also a better problem than no users.