How can c= generate such a return with just routing? Lightning liquidity is the most underestimated part of the network. It’s part of what we solve at moneydevkit, but here’s a bit about how we did it at Block 1. Real transactions. Cash is one of the biggest lightning services on the network. It connects millions to lightning, and as Miles pointed out, more and more people are using it everyday. By nature of cash being custodial, we had insights into what people were using lightning for. This was part of the original thesis of c=. There are some big players out there that node runners have no idea about 🤷🏻‍♂️. Lightning privacy works very well. Apologies monero trolls. 2. Liquidity in our favor Most people buy bitcoin on cashapp and withdraw (based) That transaction flow is ideal for lightning, and in the right hands, you can flex it to pay for and make a handsome return on your own payments and operations. For the plebnet inclined— c= is an inbound generator. For its capacity it’s typically had 1-3X+ more inbound than outbound. This is a very unique position on the network. 3. Strategy The management the team did not only improved the experience for Cash users, it compounded payments and fees going through our channels. We expected to get some return, but we were pretty blown away by the volumes and takes. The ROI we collected was not from Cash. This was just step 0.5. The next steps were to flex our position and liquidity to bolster bigger and higher value things. One of those was Square. In the end, the real value comes from real people making real payments. It’s why I’ve always harped on this: We don’t need X protocol or Y L2. The technology is there. We need to do the hard part of bringing it to real people now. For you nostr folks consider— on-chain fees were never even a thought in our minds. Our margins were fat.

Huge shout out to the c= team, I wish I could be there celebrating with you. 10% ROI on Block's bitcoin and building the first Square lightning integration are huge accomplishments and hard won. Both unprecedented, I am so proud of all of you. We put together an amazing team and did exactly what we set out to do. I am so happy some of this work finally gets to see the light of day. Teams that start from nothing and put out the results you did are rare and extremely valuable. Most startups only dream of hitting $1M ARR. This is the work that makes the dream happen. Considering what it took, you guys are miracle workers. It's my sincere hope that work like this can shine through more often at Block unimpeded.

Congrats to the team that built this. A huge accomplishment. This is how it starts. View quoted note →

People do not want to “be on chain” they just want to do normal things. There is no UX path that starts with “well first they will learn crypto with stablecoins and then…” The first part of that statement is already garbage.

Hi Nostr, Launching soon—

moneydevkit — Global Payments at the Speed of Light

moneydevkit makes it easy to start accepting payments anywhere in the world. Just 5 minutes and a few lines of code.

Stripe is the de facto payment solution for developers but theres entire swaths of the globe that aren’t served by it. Similarly, everyday people with legitimate businesses get their payments turned off by stripe because the traditional financial system doesn’t want to serve them. Money Dev Kit is the easiest way to get started taking payments online. Easier than stripe. No onboarding or approvals. 170 countries. Your payments are yours. Under the hood, it’s self-custody and lightning. None of the headache, nodes channels etc. The interface will be truly stripe level and better. After working in lightning for the past few years, the hidden alpha on the network is there are plenty of people sending and able to send payments, but there’s a shortage of people receiving them. Underserved devs are using AI to make the future of the internet, and this will be by far the easiest way for them to receive those payments. Sign up for the mailing list for early access when we launch

If someone asked who I was voting for I made it a point to tell them that the Biden administration was specifically putting people in jail in my industry because they didn’t like it. It was a vote either for people who were actively putting people like me in jail, or the ones that actually were throwing us a bone. View quoted note →

I was sad to see Nick Szabo sign off in 2021. It’s good to see him back in the fray somewhere. Don’t take the old heads for granted. Many have come and gone 🫡