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I've implemented a BitStream proof of concept by Robin Linus in Cashu for atomic swaps between files and Lightning payments. Atomicity is achieved via a "Nutbond" Ecash contract which can be challenged if the downloaded file doesn't decrypt right. An explainer and demo video is linked below. How it works: - Clients requests download - Server sends encrypted file, Lightning invoice & Nutbond - Client verifies bond and pays LN invoice - Client decrypts file with LN preimage - If decrypt fails, client challenges Nutbond & gets refund Some notable differences to the original proposal: - Nutbonds are issued for each user, not per file - Bond doesn't burn but acts as a refund to user - No Merkle trees yet. Next logical step. Vibes well with BitTorrent. - Bond is Ecash. Payment is on LN, could also be Ecash. This took me a few hours to implement showing how easy it is to experiment with new contracting primitives in Cashu. Bitcoiners are coming up with beautiful solutions for practical problems. Special thanks to Robin for sharing his cool ideas with us. Love the energy! πŸŽ₯πŸ‘‡ Demo (10 min):
82.07 MB file on MEGA
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яobin linus (@robin_linus) on X
BitStream: Decentralized File Hosting Incentiviced via Bitcoin Payments https://t.co/cdVIqcC5Ec
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Replies (18)

Hi Calle! I’m Colby, the guy mentioned at the bottom of the BitStream paper. Robin and I worked on it all year! It’s great to see traction like this. If you want to use Merkle Trees capable of file storage, check out these Merkle DAG Trees. These new trees have smaller branches than IPFS Merkle DAGs and support folders. We released the paper a few days ago. BitStream + Merkle DAG Trees = a revolution. :-)
GitHub
GitHub - HORNET-Storage/Scionic-Merkle-Tree: Scionic Merkle Trees contain small branches like Classic Merkle Trees, the folder storage support of Merkle DAGs, and numbered Merkle leaves so anyone can sync by requesting a range of missing leaf numbers that correspond to missing file chunks.
Scionic Merkle Trees contain small branches like Classic Merkle Trees, the folder storage support of Merkle DAGs, and numbered Merkle leaves so any...
 https://www.hornetstorage.com/whitepaper image
This is really cool. So with something like this, do we start to identify files by their decrypted hashes? I know torrents do this, but we can always get a hash of a virus paired with the name of a file you want. At the end of the day, Torrents never really solved the issue of getting what you want. Torrents were free, but now with payments involved, I want to be sure that I don't ask for mastering bitcoin, and receive the bitcoin standard. I guess the next thing to solve is a trust/reputation system for hash -> expected content mapping?
What if the file isn't necessarily what the client was looking for? (i.e. I upload a file called Terminator Movie, but it's actually Star Wars or just the first 30 minutes of the movie or even some kind of malware). Would that punishment just be reputation since the file could still be decrypted properly?