Discussing FATF isn’t as popular as CBDCs since your favorite onramps already all comply. But this interview of a nym who works on the rules is definitely worth a listen. It’s chilling and inspiring at the same time. View quoted note →

It’s so important to be able to disagree respectfully i.e. distinguish between an idea (on which we can disagree) and a person holding an idea (which we can respect despite a disagreement). Perhaps this could be a podcast format, where the moderator invites two people with opposing views and starts with the question of what each respects about the other person. After mutual respect has been established, the discussion is moved towards dissecting the opposing ideas. Other ground rules could be to encourage nonviolent communication practices from Marshall Rosenberg’s book. In his book Rosenberg describes how he has defused decades long conflicts using these practices. I try (and often fail) at using his techniques in various relationships. Perhaps the moderator could call out mistakes and encourage each guest to reword something they’ve said to reestablish mutual respect. At the end of the podcast the moderator could ask the two where they agree with the other person’s perspective and whether they have found a mistake in their own thinking. This gives an opportunity for growth and normalizes the practice of admitting mistakes. This format would probably diffuse so many of the conflicts lingering in society and allow us to get closer to a truth based in first principles thinking.

Love this discussion around building ethical for-profit services using non-custodial open source. And great to see podcasts with bootstrapped founders 🔥 View quoted note →

Happy Jan 3rd! StashPay 0.1.7 is here for iOS & Android. Download here:

StashPay - A minimalist Bitcoin wallet for everyone

StashPay makes sending and receiving your first Bitcoin easy for newcomers and powerful for advanced users.

Release notes: * Add: Update NPM dependencies * Add: Switch RNG to a maintained module * Add: Reduce min on-chain amount to 25k sats * Add: Handle lightning: and bitcoin: URLs * Fix: Remove button margin in seed backup

Bullish on the UX becoming easier to get paid in bitcoin directly to your own wallet than buying and withdrawing. Sure, we can accept payment in fiat and buy into a lobster trap. But that’s on each of us to change. View quoted note →

Privacy must happen on the protocol level. This is why BOLT12 is important. This is why ECash is important. Any entity or service provider that becomes too big will become a pressure point. It doesn’t matter if it’s a major LSP, a large submarine swap server, a large custodian, or a large ECash mint. Regulatory pressure will act as a decentralization function and ultimately reduce pressure points to a local/community level. It is here on the local level where privacy has a chance. Services, protocols and products that plan ahead to give end users control to configure their own servers have a chance at staying resilient in the coming years.

Good read. I’d also recommend Luke Gromen’s analysis. He points out that a commodity based reserve asset would favor countries with a trade surplus. View quoted note →

StashPay 0.1.6 is here for iOS & Android. Download here:

StashPay - A minimalist Bitcoin wallet for everyone

StashPay makes sending and receiving your first Bitcoin easy for newcomers and powerful for advanced users.

Release notes: * Add: Redesign home, send & receive screens * Add: Set receive amount before displaying invoice QR code * Add: Use Breez Liquid Electrum server for instant P2P payment notifications * Add: „BTC“ or „LN“ to receive copy button * Fix: text input alignment on Android

A strategy that Nostr users could use to prevent spam through zapvertising is to use a lightning address that only accepts zaps that above a certain threshold e.g. 100 sats. Since StashPay only accepts lightning payments above 1000 sats (boltz swap minimum) this might actually be a selling point for StashPay lightning addresses (an upcoming feature). Is this something nostr users would find useful? What zap limit would users prefer? 100 sats or 1000 sats? View quoted note →

3rd day water fasting while everyone is posting 100k dinners. AMA.

Regarding definitions… A bitcoin layer 2 requires unilateral exit. And I agree Liquid does not meet that definition. However self-custody is a very nuanced topic in the context of mobile wallets. Mobile Lightning wallets today rely on trusted third parties in the form of watchtowers to not lose money. In many cases no watchtower is used and wallets rely on the trust and incentives of a single LSP. Relying on the trust and incentives of 11/15 Liquid functionaries that watch over each other is similar in some ways and arguable superior in others. Not the least of which is that there are more parties required to collude to steal user funds in a fully auditable blockchain. Another advantage that is underestimated is the lower complexity of Liquid wallets, which results in a smaller attack surface for users. There are many protocol level threats to consider in Lightning due to the protocol’s vast complexity. Liquid wallets are not exposed to these threats while the funds are being held offline. Furthermore these wallets can be held in cold storage and secured via geographically redundant multi-sig, something researchers are still attempting for Lightning in the context of the VLS project. That would however require consensus logic for channel-state among cosigners, further increasing client complexity. As such I believe it is absolutely valid to label a Liquid wallet non-custodial in the context of the Liquid trust model. Just as a Lightning wallet can be considered non-custodial in the context of the LSP/watchtower trust model (nevermind that there are fully custodial elements for smaller amounts in Lightning wallets today to improve UX). What does that mean for users? FWIW I personally feel more comfortable holding spending sats in a Liquid wallet than an ECash mint or even a self-custody Lightning wallet, especially for larger business transactions. Some users, especially those in areas with human rights violations might prefer ECash due its superior privacy. But every user should make that decision for themselves based on their needs. Security is about economics and there is no one size fits all. I suspect the underlaying issue that people are trying to point out is that Liquid is a single federation and as such a potential point of centralization for bitcoin. A totally valid argument. While this is true today, I believe we will see multiple sidechains and other federations such as Fedimints, Cashu mints and Ark based wallets all competing with each other as fees go up and as demand for bitcoin as a medium of exchange increases. I suspect all these solutions will find their own market niches. I am also hopeful for further decentralization of Boltz servers as multiple companies can now host the open source code and provide interoperable submarine swap apis for client apps using the various layers of bitcoin. All these experiments are good for bitcoin and the cross pollination of ideas will further strengthen the network. Some of these experiments will fail, and I appreciate critical discussion. They keep us honest. And some people even have vested interests to see certain experiments fail. That’s fine. But we should be careful to not adopt cancel culture if we don’t like an experiment. Especially if that experiment does not require an action or a soft-fork from our part. If you down that path, you start acting like a little tyrant, making demands of others. If you were really in favor of freedom, you’d allow others to take responsibility based on their own needs, not yours. Just my 2 sats worth. Thanks for reading ⚡️

< 10 sats per cent is such a UX boost

⚡️BOLT12 & Open Source StashPay 0.1.5 is here for iOS & Android. Download here:

StashPay - A minimalist Bitcoin wallet for everyone

StashPay makes sending and receiving your first Bitcoin easy for newcomers and powerful for advanced users.

Release notes: * Add: Upgrade to Liquid SDK 0.5.1 * Add: Send to BOLT12 offer * Fix: App is now open source (GPLv3)

Just flashed LineageOS on my old Pixel 3a and installed StashPay via Zapstore. I'm amazed how fast the device is now and not a single Google App in sight 😌

Now also on @Zapstore 💜 StashPay 0.1.4 is here for iOS & Android. Download here:

StashPay - A minimalist Bitcoin wallet for everyone

StashPay makes sending and receiving your first Bitcoin easy for newcomers and powerful for advanced users.

Release notes: * Fix: Font color in dark mode

How do you want to download StashPay for Android?

X (formerly Twitter)

Tankred Hase (@tankredhase) on X

Finally got my Google Play account verified. How should I release @StashPayApp for Android?

"There's a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path" — Morpheus

People have no idea how badly we need @Zapstore I spent the last 7 days in a never ending loop with Apple developer support. Can’t wait to finally invite the first batch to the StashPay TestFlight.