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 not knowing if its real until you send it has lots of psycological implications that would lead to a negative perspective on bitcoin... is it worth it? I don't know if tons of unreliable mints that go defunct is a good idea. look at what happened with relays, now half the ecash in your wallet no longer work after awhile? I dunno man. 
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 What if the mints hold <$500 and there’s no massive benefit to rugging people and the ecosystem is like 95-99% good mints?

If it’s added as another option to zap people and competes with lightning I think it would win.  Most zaps are a few cents. 
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 Great point. 
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 the recipient is EXPLICITLY saying "zap me on these mints" -- so this point is kinda moot

right now the vast majority of nostr users are on either alby, WoS or primal (myself included)

with this, instead of having a couple of huge custodians you can disintermediate that market and have and use, at the same time, 5, 10 custodians

you can and should sweep the balances from the WoS of the world into whatever you have.

There are many people running small LN nodes that are not being used as their zapper because running a zap-capable LN nodes is much more involved than running just an LN node.

With this you could literally just use the custodians while you are offline and the moment you come online sweep everything to your own LN node. 
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 nostr:nevent1qqspldf2chwgppua0ex70t248u6wvktmf845mleczxa4kghxdffmafqpg3mhxw309ahhsarjv3jhvctkxc685d35093rw7pkwf4xwdrww3a8z6ngv4jx6dtzx4ax5ut4d36kw6mwdpa8ydpkdeunyutzv9jzummwd9hkutczyrafsj7hmweg9ur7zmn6apajdg48hxuskujx53rhrux0ttjcqx84yqcyqqqqqqguxhrl7 
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 it wasn't clear from the demo, so it assumes that the people sending the ecash "zaps" are using the same set of mints? I'm not familiar enough with how cashu mints work for how this would work.

i think it would be fine in that case. as long as the client isn't accepting random ecash from random mints I can see this being useful.

having ecash stored in nostr is a bit sketch considering how people treat their nsec security, but its definitely cypherpunk af to have cash data that you can send around that lives in nostr itself. 
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 How is coordinating the same set of mints achieved? 
 >  because running a zap-capable LN nodes is much more involved than running just an LN node.

Why is this still a case 2 years later?  
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 it entirely depends on your expertise level. I made it as easy as possible by providing https://sendsats.lol and by writing a zapper script that you can run next to your CLN node, but people don't even run a lightning node to begin with. 
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 Test 
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 Just consolidate them into mints you trust. Problem solved 
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 The main issue I was thinking of is using these in other protocols. You couldn’t really use these to unlock content or accept a DM, etc.

It seems like you would have to take extra steps to get a receipt of *real* payment. You would have to initiate a swap with a trusted mint. With a lightning zap i know my node sent it so it’s real right when I receive it. 
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 I do see what you are saying here.  
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 point, but wouldn't the swap be pretty fast and cheap though?  
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 I think the easiest solution here is to just not combine them with zaps in the UI… then it’s up to the user to discount or trust the tips coming through as e-cash.

Could also have a secondary process that converts an ecash tip a zap if the user withdraws by providing an event with the lightning receipt 
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 nostr:nevent1qqspldf2chwgppua0ex70t248u6wvktmf845mleczxa4kghxdffmafqpg3mhxw309ahhsarjv3jhvctkxc685d35093rw7pkwf4xwdrww3a8z6ngv4jx6dtzx4ax5ut4d36kw6mwdpa8ydpkdeunyutzv9jzummwd9hkutczyrafsj7hmweg9ur7zmn6apajdg48hxuskujx53rhrux0ttjcqx84yqcyqqqqqqguxhrl7