Oddbean new post about login | logout Cashu does not put satoshis INTO bearer ecash tokens. It issues an independent token which on its own is incompatible with every other cashu mint doing the same. A mint itself takes possession of the sats, and offers a service to - give you tokens for sats - swap tokens for fresh tokens - accept requests to pay bolt11 lightning invoices denominated in satoshis and provides an offer exchange rate - may fullfill payment of aforementioned invoices through bridging to lightning network. When you send satoshis to a cashu mint, you are effectively selling your sats for tokens under the hope that you can later get some of that value back. nostr:nevent1qqsvfq9wv8ttncn2cewxw0yc8ee60hfpdw6kwcr8p26lrk86s0n6y6cpz9mhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejj7q3q2rv5lskctqxxs2c8rf2zlzc7xx3qpvzs3w4etgemauy9thegr43sxpqqqqqqzx2nnyk
Aka a shit coin
It adds a trust component. If you use an unreliable or malicious mint, sayonara sats. Ecash is a tool, not meant for savings.
Theres been a lot of good work done on Cashu and I applaud the efforts of it to help with some privacy aspects, but there's more to be done. It may work for some people's use cases but we need to be honest about what its actually doing when value and privacy is at stake.
There are always trade-offs. More privacy for less security, etc. You don’t HODL Cashu tokens.
https://image.nostr.build/5d576bb340a9bcf3cac329f620ae1c75147752523b9f9f5e6bb82be5dcc41121.gif nostr:nevent1qqsd6f3x0mtnd6udwvkycpqeyhwqcj0jtg6g5l9j9xn4a2s2n5wcfqqppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qgszrdqezqk63lqt4yzgftkfxjl4tdatea67akeezf8g6a0yj86p5hsrqsqqqqqp0l7735
@calle 👁️⚡👁️ would you agree that is an accurate explanation of what cashu is/how it works?
It issues an IOU for sats similar to the state banks in the US in the 1800s. You deposit some gold (sats) in the Bank of Kentucky (cashu mint) and you have a promise to redeem that IOU for the same amount of gold at a later time. The bank assumes the risk of storage. If the bank (cashu mint) remains solvent and in business (two different things: think of the guy in the front of the line in a bank run and the guy at the end of the line) then the “bank note” (cashu token) you received held its value. Then instead of just keeping the IOUs they started to use them as currency, where other businesses would accept notes instead of just gold. This is the step that makes cashu win. It’s not a savings tool, that’s Bitcoin. It’s a bearer asset with several use cases. Privacy and fungibility among the strong points. And regarding your last paragraph, you don’t hope to get “some” of your value back, you hope to get all your value back. Proof of liabilities and proof of reserves are in work and there will be risk, but I think the future would be better if professionals ran lightning nodes (I hate to use the term “banks” here, but call them Cashu mint operators) and we all zapped around Cashu tokens with no ( or very small ) fees.
