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Cashu is not an alternative to non-custodial Bitcoin. Nothing beats holding your own keys. Cashu Ecash is for custodial systems that respect user privacy, have better censorship resistance, and allow half-offline peer-to-peer payments that are instant. The days of corporate blockchains are over. They make no sense at all, they're centralized, and they are peak inefficient. Ecash beats all of that. It's fast, lightweight, and cheap. If you're running a service, you should consider integrating Ecash for your users. There are already dozens (!!!) of mints out there, run by organizations, companies, or communities. Among these companies are custodians, wallet providers, LSPs, and online shops. When will we see the first ecash in-game currency? Cashu now has native mobile wallet apps, headless server wallets, web wallets that work in the browser, and wallets for social media clients. We have mint implementations in Rust, Python, Golang, and like 5 other languages. We have tiny invisible wallets that live in web pages. We're working on an authentication scheme that balances operator control and user privacy as best as possible. You can decide who can use your mint. We have a dozen different open-source libraries and wallets that are improving every day. It's all yours. We're just getting started and the new year is going to be massive. After two years of crazy work on an entirely new protocol, things are starting to take shape. We have a vision which is to bring Bitcoin to every corner of the internet. Ecash will bring us there. Thank you everyone who believed in us, especially those who contribute to this project. Cashu has become a place where you can improve your coding skills, learn to collaborate, work on open-source, and do literal magic ✨ (cryptography). Next year is going to be massive 🫑πŸ₯œ image

Replies (58)

↩ replying to daniele
Interesting question. For me onboarding pre-nostra people is key also for ecash adoption. I've made the prototype I was talking about last month.. Feedback most welcome. Nothing about ecash YET.
GitHub
GitHub - ildella/noa: NOA - Nostr Onboarding App (multi-platform)
NOA - Nostr Onboarding App (multi-platform). Contribute to ildella/noa development by creating an account on GitHub.
 zapstore://tools.frankie.nostr.noa
↩ replying to goatmeal
That doesn't improve privacy, it is quite the contrary when you force to report on the activities. Might as well go full KYC. These mints are small business that facilitate the usage of anonymous payment coupons. For that goal they do their purpose just great. Wouldn't use them for my off-grid purposes where internet is only optional but these kind of systems have been used for millennia, we are just watching its digitized version takes place.
↩ replying to npub1hfg3...7yfm
it's not a report. it's a zero knowledge proof. the whole point of this method is you do whatever you need to do offchain, then you produce a ZK proof for what you did, then the chain validates the ZK proof. if the proof is invalid, the chain yoinks the money back. you need a way to physically stop a "mint" or some other L2 payment appliance from stealing anyone's money. it's not enough to set up an attestation system and "catch" the naughty people after they already rugged. it has to be impossible for the mint to rug people. the people who are trying to convince you that we need to sacrifice trustlessness are wrong and you need to stop listening to them.
↩ replying to goatmeal
Cashu works as intended: give anonymous coupons to someone else. It isn't for big sums of money. For that we already have proper anonymous crypto. It isn't to pay coffees and grocery, for that we already have zaps. This fills a niche in the real world which isn't answered by other options. Even when the mint stops working, you won't see many people upset over it. In fact, the person running the mint is likely someone close to the customers and won't like to keep them unsatisfied for 90% of cases. It isn't perfect, but this is the real world. There are advantages to this loosen method that I think you are under-appreciating but that have a tremendous value to others.
Cashu is amazing. I don't see lightning be used for very small payments in a bit so distant future. This things is the closest thing to actual cash in an actual wallet. Analogies. Cashu is everyday wallet + prepaid card. Lighting is your bank account, for salary and larger expenses and recharge cashu. Onchain bitcoin obviously is the store of wealth.
Congratulations @calle . In 2024, you have led a growing team of builders to incredible progress. I share and support your view that Cashu will play an essential part in linking more people to Bitcoin. I hear the critiques that remind everyone that Cashu is not Bitcoin and bears counterparty risk. In my view, this is an issue that wallets can solve. Wallets that will use heuristics (e.g., a beefed up version of
Mint Auditor
) to transparently migrate tokens to more reliable mints, wallets that will push unreasonably large holdings out to permanent and non-custodial solutions. I am looking forward to seeing the developments unfold in 2025. πŸ™ πŸ‘
β€œWhen will we see the first ecash in-game currency? β€œ something I’ve been contemplating for a while. Thought a perfect game would be an open source non Microsoft Minecraft Clone. Adding a real economic element to the game would open up some interesting possibilities.
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