Is the future of online businesses anonymous? How can we build trust? \ stacker news ~AskSN

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Is the future of online businesses anonymous? How can we build trust?

308 sats \ 11 comments \ @klk 11 Jun AskSN

There are tons of purely online services—LLMs, VPS, VPN, email, media, storage, messaging—that can be provided anonymously without needing to register as legal entities.

And honestly, when they do register legally, it often only harms them or leads to enshittification. We've seen this countless times with providers that start with good intentions but end up being forced to disclose whatever data they have about customers (even if it's just IP addresses and login times) to "authorities." Telegram, Proton, Signal, maybe Infomaniak soon... the list goes on.

Even cock.li (#1003596) had to deal with intelligence agencies just to provide a noble service.

So why bother registering a company or doing things "legally" on the internet? Why not just handle the business anonymously and get paid in Bitcoin? It's cheaper to operate, more sustainable long-term, and immune to whatever dumb law comes up in whatever country.

The trust problem

From the operator's side, it's pretty clear. But what about users? The fact that there's a registered company gives potential customers some sense of trust. There's a door to knock on in the worst case, or at least an opportunity to complain through the legal system of whatever country the company is registered in.

So maybe the missing piece is a way of offering trust to existing and potential customers—something that signals the owner is there to stay and has something to lose if the service is discontinued or not provided properly.

A potential solution: Decentralized bonds

In JoinMarket, to signal that coinjoin offer makers are serious and reduce sybil attack risk, they use fidelity bonds—just locked coins for some time.

But maybe for online service companies we need something more. Some kind of network of mediators and arbitrators to resolve conflicts, similar to Bisq. The mediators would have locked coins in a DAO and get a commission per case they handle. The DAO funds come from transaction fees. Mediators risk their coins if they act in bad faith, and the DAO operates as some kind of democratic system.

Or maybe there's a better way.

What do you think?

Before diving into the technical details, what's your opinion about the future of online services? What do you think about anonymous-owner services? Is this a direction we should be moving toward?

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159 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 11 Jun

There was an interesting thing yesterday on Early Days (#1002816) around 31 minutes in, where Boltz said that they needed a legal entity to be part of the Liquid Federation, but otherwise hadn't needed it and still don't have a bank account to date (because they inc'd in El Salvador)

Anonymous services are fine if they are powered by open protocols / trustless or replaceable. It takes proper engineering to make a service like that. I did like the idea of civkit for example (I think it's defunct now?), that tried to create tooling that could enable this.

65 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby 11 Jun

I've used a service to buy esims with lightning. Honestly never bothered to checknif they were a legal company or not.

If it seems like other people in the community trust them, I'm not worried about their legal status.

96 sats \ 2 replies \ @Aardvark 11 Jun

I just assume that my information will get out there. Someone somewhere has it, and they will eventually get hacked. Poor security or social engineering is going to happen. I trust people to give my data away.

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @klk OP 11 Jun

Well that's a separate topic. The risk of unintentional data leak is always there. But it just adds on top of the forced data disclosure. Bonds could actually be used for things like that as well. So that the admin has a big incentive to protect the data from hacks.

But even if you assume the data will be leaked anyway, you can benefit from a cheaper service due to savings in taxes and regulation compliance.

27 sats \ 0 replies \ @Aardvark 11 Jun

I'm just assuming one way or another, my data will get got. I certainly wouldn't mind more anonymity, but at the end of the day, somone will always have my data. It's a shame, George Orwell thought we would all be forced to put spy devices in our homes by the government. Instead, we do it willingly and pay for the privilege to do it.

73 sats \ 0 replies \ @purpurato 11 Jun

I never understood why SN didn't operate that way and kept the custodial wallet model. I think the UX was better that way.

Personally I don't mind to leave a few thousands sats on a custodial service, no need for bonds or other fancy trust methods. Most custodial services like Wallet of Satoshi rely simply on a typical trust model, their business depends on them not rugging their own clients, that's enough for me.

55 sats \ 0 replies \ @anon 11 Jun

nostr fixes this

101 sats \ 1 reply \ @klk OP 11 Jun

Something like this would help services that need some kind of trust like Predyx (@mega_dreamer).

At the end of the day, for anything like a prediction market or any of the mentioned online services, there is some trust involved. When paying a year upfront or when making a bet.

If at least there was a bond from the owner (anonymous or not) the amount of trust needed to use the service would be reduced. For example there wouldn't be an incentive for something like Predyx to perform a rug pull if the bond to be lost by the owner were greater than all current bet deposits.

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @mega_dreamer 11 Jun

Yeah - we plan something similar. As you know, we're incorporated in USA - so no anonymity here.

Once we get more stable, we'll be making our proof-of-fund publicly available - either via a LSP or self-hosted.

So far, LSPs are sacred to do business with us. We might have to roll our own MTS/LSP.

408 sats \ 0 replies \ @seashell 11 Jun

I think this is the direction we have to take. The legal system is a honeypot for user data, and even the most “privacy-respecting” services eventually bend or break once they’re plugged into it. Anon-run services backed by Bitcoin and economic skin in the game feel like a natural evolution. Trust shifts from paper trails and KYC to game theory and commitment, which is way more aligned with cypherpunk values anyway. Decentralized bonds or staked mediators sound like a solid way to bootstrap trust without central points of failure. The hard part isn’t the legality, it’s designing the right incentives. Build for users who don’t need to trust you.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @AG 5h

Did you say business? bookmarked for next ~AGORA's TM7

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