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That wasn't what I was challenging though. But please be careful in what you make non-accidental. If the above means that you're no longer deferring who newbies should trust and the choice is "trust spark", then I'd like to find out why you and I have such different opinions regarding what trustworthiness looks like.
What about Spark makes it a better choice than any option you've seen so far, after 2 weeks of testing while everything else in the wallet list, including other custodial solutions, has been in use much longer? What is that magic that within 2 weeks makes it a recommendation over an option?
why you and I have such different opinions regarding what trustworthiness looks like.
If you ask me which service has more to lose by rugging users, I would say Spark does.
If you ask me which service is more likely to shotgun kyc users, I'd say Spark.
As you say, it's tradeoffs.
I think there is a lot of antipathy towards Spark because they look like "the man" and they may indeed be entirely under the thumb of the government, but I do not think that it is wise to assume something like CoinOS is not just because it is small.
But then why would anyone recommend this tradeoff over the CoinOs one? It's fine if it's only technical considerations (I really feel like it is, reading the release note), but I think that that should then just be said out loud instead of trying to find other narratives. The narratives are what make things bad in Bitcoin. That's exactly where the scammers operate. It's the thing we have no defense against.
Perhaps I am naive, but I think the likelihood of Spark introducing shotgun kyc is lower than the likelihood that CoinOS abruptly shuts down.
I have been advocating for something like a "one-click" wallet in SN for a while. My hope is that we get a dead-simple way for new people to start using SN. And I find CCs to be a confusing solution to this.
CoinOS seems to operate a good service and I don't want to insinuate anything about it. However, in my mind Spark has more to lose if they rug people, even if the rugging is "excused" by calling it compliance.
I don't want to introduce a narrative here where k00b kept it technical, and if that's what I'm doing it is entirely my own way of thinking about this problem (and possibly not even something he agrees with).
For me, at least, the problem has been that there was not an easy way for new users to get a wallet and i think Spark has a better set of tradeoffs in solving that problem than CoinOS.
Edit: it occurs to me that the problem here may be that I want an easy way for new users to get a water, rather than believing that education + UX can achieve "dead-simple"
So the way I read this, and this too is just my interpretation, so don't take what I am about to say as fact:
It is impossible to take custody of both the deposit and the withdraw side of sats without being a money transmitter / bank. This is why SN works the way it works today. It's a compliance issue and this is being taken seriously by SN, because it is a corporation, not someone's underground hobby project. The CC tradeoff is a feature of compliance requirements, and as shitty as it may be, it is there for a reason.
Spark offers a technical way to automate wallet creation similar to how you'd do it on L1 (offline receive to a key) and thus offers integration in an embedded manner without SN being on the hook for the custody. The only other thing that could enable that are bArk and npub.cash but these are even less mature and have similar issues. So bottom line there is a solution scarcity and this is a bid to potentially move away from some of the less optimal tradeoffs - from an SN and a newbie perspective - i.e. the ability to move past the CCs solution.
If we take SN not being the custodian as a non-negotiable, then there are other solutions and all of them are worse and IIRC would require partnership with a custodian. The other "fake L2" solutions are not going to change much; a user has similar risk on Liquid, and similar utxo-size economic exit prevention caveats on Ark. Thus there is no ideal solution. Spark is one of the not-ideal solutions.
So this isn't much going back to a situation where SN is a custodian; I don't think that that should be desirable anyway. I see this as the opposite direction: a forward one where SN holds less sats and credits that are 1:1 valued as sats, not more. I think that the thing that people fall over isn't so much the direction as the dependency on Spark in particular, and maybe the prominence of that in the onboarding process. I don't think that that is supposed to be a final state per se? It's just another experiment to see how this direction goes. Unfortunately, per k00b's words in the release post, the other ones aren't ready to get integrated, so it's this or there is no experiment. Since no one is forced to use it, it's fine with me. The disclaimers are good. I wish there were better alternatives.
I don't think that that is supposed to be a final state per se?
Indeed. CCs are not the final state and Spark is not the final state. They are placeholders until the solution scarcity is resolved.
If I weren't prioritizing SN's longevity, and my vision of bitcoin, I would bring back a capped custodial wallet. It would be easier and, if I ceded earlier, I would've saved myself two years of work (and all the other costs of doing something this hard while catching all the normal arrows of trying to do something nice for people).
Capping custody sounds like a road to more pain, as often, after one requirement comes the next, and then Bitcoin NgU really screws with limits because those are always expressed in fiat.
So pre-empting away custody was and still is imho the only sane move. The above isn't criticism - I think that ultimately many among us feel kind of helpless in this situation right here, right now, because there are no silver bullets.
if I ceded earlier
Not long ago you asked me, "Do you know what makes you want hard mode?". Now is the time to return that question:
Do you know what makes you want hard mode? <3
Doing hard things is a shortcut to being useful because most people don't want to do hard things. I want to be useful. I want to be proud of myself. I want other people to have an easier time being proud of themselves and being useful. I want to help The Human Project succeed and I'm too dumb to find easy ways to do that.
Or I'm a masochist and that's how I rationalize it.
I don't want to beat a dead horse, but coinos does not engage in the deceptive advertising that Spark does. Bitcoin doesn't need any more newbies getting rug pulled, particularly newbies who are told the wallet they are using is non custodial.
This whole conversation honestly feels to me like all of us shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.
With ETFs and Saylor and banks holding bitcoin, bitcoin has bigger problems.
We'll all be paid handsomely to pretend "this is what adoption looks like." All anyone really gives a shit about is NGU.
All anyone really gives a shit about is NGU.
Perhaps I am still in the last waning stages of the flower of optimistic youth, but I don't think all bitcoiners are quite so degraded yet.
Many people here seem genuinely interested in figuring out how to use Bitcoin for a number of purposes (including making social media better).
I posted some days ago about all the various groups around the world pushing Bitcoin development forward #1551573, I don't know all of them personally, but the ones I have met struck me as sincere in their desire to increase the strength and usefulness of Bitcoin as freedom money.
Don't let the stupid Saylor boys and ETF heads convince you that everyone has sold out.
Fair, yet many users have adjusted to SN's decision not to be a custodian by accepting trust in CoinOS or some other ecash mint not to rug them...with what seems likely relatively light assurances.
We (SN) were offloading the decision of who newbies should trust and mostly pretending not to notice that they are all just trusting a single custodial wallet. Indeed, the standard advice found on SN for which wallet to connect tended to be CoinOS. They operate a great service, I have used it in the past and have nothing bad to say about it -- however it felt a little like an "accidental" default for new users.