Oddbean new post about login | logout Regular reminder that ecash is not going to fix all of our problems. Part of the reason I'm working on Cashu is because I think every custodian in this world should be an Ecash mint. And every credit card on this planet should be replaced by an ecash wallet. That's already enough to fix.
What about my 3% cash back rewards and travel points?... 😂
Nut dust
I don't know if you're joking or not but i took the bait and searched documentation for 'nut dust' and came up empty
Do you have opinions on non-custodial scaling?
Yes, very strong ones: we need it dearly. Yesterday.
What about the stupid people who can’t use a cell phone to access banking. I wish there was a nicer way to say it but really about half the world has no access to technology and/or a credit card, Let alone an ecash wallet. You are designing something aimed at bankers.
Half the world is 4 billion people. If you can build something that improves life for half the world, that's extremely worthwhile. If benefiting half the world isn't a high enough bar for you, should we stop making bras and tampons and beard trimmers? I don't have much patience for naysayers. If you don't think something is worth building, fine, no one is forcing you to build it. What are you building? Or are you too busy whining online about people who are building things to do anything productive yourself?
Nowhere here did I say it is not worth building. It takes ten years to source an oil well, And 100 years to empty it. Cars are about 150 years old. I am simply looking at the advance of technology from both sides, The haves and the people who benefit most from technology, The have nots. It is easier to convince rich people to live poorer than it is to convince poor people to continue living poor. There is just a few elements missing from connecting the unbanked with the modern world, And I feel like we should be designing these products with this in mind.
Disagree with your premise on convincing poor people to continue living poor. Don't see how e-cash isn't a big step forward in connecting the unbanked to Bitcoin. It's accessible to anyone with a smartphone, which is a huge and rapidly growing population. Besides that, e-cash seems like the solution to physical cash on the Bitcoin network, for those without Internet access. I'm not technical enough to design it, but the fact that e-cash can transfer offline with a QR code means the QR code could be printed on a physical note and transferred person to person. I'm imagining some system of printing the QR code in a way that couldn't be scanned without permanently destroying the note. That way it could be used peer to peer without an internet connection and as long as the note is intact the e-cash is valid. But anyone with an internet connection who wished to could destroy the note, scan the QR, receive the e-cash, and redeem it for self custodial Bitcoin at any time. Something else for @calle 👁️⚡👁️ to create in all his spare time 🤣
I suggest you spend some time in a place without internet or smartphones to get an idea of the challenges around introducing these concepts to people without these modern solutions.
What concepts? I'm talking about physical cash, paper banknotes, Benjamins. You're saying people without Internet don't understand the concept of cash? I don't have a patronizing attitude toward people just because they aren't able to access or afford modern technology. People all over the world know how to take advantage of USD cash. If they had access to BTC cash that held value against their local fiat scrip as well as or better than the USD, and was also universally accepted by local money changers like USD cash, I'm sure most people would be capable of grasping that concept.
There are places in the world where people still use natural resources more than fiat currencies to transact. In Sub-Saharan Africa a grandmother will grow a crop of tomatoes to trade for two chickens and 40kg of rice. She will earn 1.50$ per day otherwise. It would be great for her to use e-cash to make those transactions, But a 100$ smartphone is a serious investment for an elderly woman who relies on her 8 grandchildren to help her along in life. I am just stating it is worth doing some market research to find real world use cases.
note1hjgygm7qywfq984sp3jhpc33l3v6m97lhqfnrkrqp6cg4sntjdcsfvhpw4 If people are still using barter, that's fine, they don't need money. If they do need money, I'm suggesting e-cash could be converted into PHYSICAL CASH. I don't know how to be more clear, you don't seem to be reading my words. PHYSICAL CASH. PAPER BILLS. I'm not suggesting an African grandmother needs to buy a smartphone. You're the one implying that e-cash isn't worth developing because you need a smartphone to use it. I'm the one arguing you might not need a smartphone to use it.
No. I am arguing that ecash fits a niche group of people technologically adept enough to use ecash effectively. Not that it is not worth developing, That it has an extremely small market fit.
I can't tell if this is satire or not
No really, People with money are too consumed by convenience to use anything not built for them, And people without money have a lot of catching up to do just to make it to consumerism. Cashu and enuts are great financial technologies, But even rich people are too dumb to use them.
If a cashu mint is a *debit card*, that’s one thing. But with credit comes fractional reserve banking. If the “fraction” is 1/1, maybe. Otherwise it’s just fiat.
I agree with this on cash deposits but I don't understand how you would run a real credit system with anonymous transactions and accounts. How would you measure credit risk? How are charge-backs supposed to work? There are reasons that credit card holders would prefer transparency and buyer protection over privacy. nostr:note1pyg0kgmp0zk6mng7snqvua5khjrr4lm0td0ya6racc5yk0lqxzcs5th3ex
Agree! I used debit card and credit card interchangeably (wrongfully so) but if you're interested in the credit part, there's a nice writeup by moon settler: https://gist.github.com/moonsettler/42b588fa97a1da3ac0adea0dd16dadf2 Credit would require either collateral or an account so the credit issuer can make sure that you pay off your debt.
what makes ecash better than a regular custodian or even better, something like galoy? fwiu they don't know the balances of each user, so privacy is great. regarding rugpullability,,, can they steal from the user(s)? can user verify the mint has the funds? galoy has proof of reserve issuance which is a bit of a guarentee, does ecash have something like this?
Ruggability is the same, but censorship resistance and privacy is a big plus. There's also proof of liabilities for ecash.
what i dont understand so far: i go to the mints website, get a token. the mint can log my ip and which token string i get then i pay with the token, the receiver goes to the mint, enters it into a textarea to redeem it for lightning. The mint can also log the receivers ip and the token string. so it knows who transacted with whom. What do i get wrong here?
when you say credit card do you mean debit card? Also would you say that an ecash wallet is superior to bolt cards other than the fact that you can use ecash offline? Comparing to fiat world, most merchants try to avoid offline credit card transactions because there is no guarantee that the funds will be available once the transactions are attempted at the end of the day when back online. In a similar way, ecash would allow for falsifying a double-spend while offline
