There’s no real line between work and life when you’re doing something that actually matters to you.
A life spent building an open-source electronic cash system isn’t a life wasted.
erik
erik@primal.net
npub1zqsu...cqrs
Bitcoin Product Designer @ Hoseki. Human Rights Foundation grantee working on ecash.
Been thinking about how ecash wallets handle mint selection.
Option 1: Automatic mint connection.
You connect users to a default mint automatically during onboarding.
✅ No friction
✅ Noob friendly
✅ Start making transactions right away
Comes with risks: Passive users, mint centralization, and custodian choice lands on the wallet.
Option 2: Manual mint selection
More common approach. Show users a list of mints (usually via bitcoinmints.com) and ask them to pick one before proceeding.
There’s a third approach I keep circling back to: Just-in-time mint selection.
The wallet doesn’t ask you to choose anything upfront. You’re asked to trust a mint only when you first try to do something, like claim ecash or top up your wallet.
Every approach appeals to different types of users. Depends on what wallet devs want to prioritize too. How and when you throw the decision to the user shapes how they relate to ecash.
Option 1: Automatic mint connection.
You connect users to a default mint automatically during onboarding.
✅ No friction
✅ Noob friendly
✅ Start making transactions right away
Comes with risks: Passive users, mint centralization, and custodian choice lands on the wallet.
Option 2: Manual mint selection
More common approach. Show users a list of mints (usually via bitcoinmints.com) and ask them to pick one before proceeding.
There’s a third approach I keep circling back to: Just-in-time mint selection.
The wallet doesn’t ask you to choose anything upfront. You’re asked to trust a mint only when you first try to do something, like claim ecash or top up your wallet.
Every approach appeals to different types of users. Depends on what wallet devs want to prioritize too. How and when you throw the decision to the user shapes how they relate to ecash.
omeone told me today they think I’m a great designer. That’s always nice to hear. It’s tough to really know where you stand. Funny cause in Cashu I kind of win by default. I’m probably the only designer heads down in this so…I guess that makes me the best by default.
Money as an open-source collaborative project is wild. Bitcoin is truly something.
On the weekends I can sit and work on Cashu all day. No meetings. I am happy.
I miss CoinJoining on Wasabi. It just felt good.
gm
A quick summary of some stuff I've been working on over the last few months. 
#8 What I’ve Been Building Lately
A quick roundup of recent projects, designs, and experiments.
gm
Art by Mac Baconai
While one is alive, one must design the best peer to peer electronic cash system possible.
The OpenCash website is live: https://opencash.dev. I designed and developed it myself. Really happy with the results. Check it out, and support the development of open-source digital cash.
Huge thanks to @Vladimir Krstić for the logo. His work is great.
GM.