213 sats \ 4 replies \ @0310ac90e2 20 Dec 2022 freebie \ on: I'm Calle, a Physicist and Programmer who fell in love with Lightning - AMA bitcoin
Cashu:
- Who runs the mint?
- How is eCash swapped with lightning?
- How do foresee smart contract applications emerging that utilize Cashu? How trusted would these applications be and can any sort of global state be maintained for them if it is all based on LN?
Mint is centralized as far as I know. It is similar to Hosted Channels though.
reply
Yes, and hosted channels are a very good use case for chaumian ecash. Everything you know about HC's stays the same with the difference that the host gives you ecash instead of tracking your balance in a database. You can then exchange this ecash with other HC users or just use them for making payments over the channel without the host knowing about you.
reply
"Host tracking" balance the same way LN node does with regular channel. However, is ecash token really stateless? I doubt host shouldnt ensure accountability.
reply
- Everyone can run a mint, there is not only one.
- Via the mint exchanges tokens for LN payments.
- You can program a token itself but the execution of the "contract" is done by the mint. The There is no blockchain or anything. You trust the mint. There is no global state. It is not "baked into" the Bitcoin or Lightning protocol.
I hope that makes things a bit clearer.
reply