https://stakwork.ai https://sphinx.chat Happy to talk about all things lightning, food, hunting, whatever :)
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https://stakwork.ai https://sphinx.chat Happy to talk about all things lightning, food, hunting, whatever :)
Any generic advice for Bitcoin startups?
We do things a bit odd here: "MVB" minimum viable beta. Try to burn as little devel and support time while you try out ideas. These things take time to build on btc, so keep burn low and "days alive" long. We have zero W2 employees including me and no spending commitment greater than 30 days.
I think there is also a danger that you can think you have product market fit because the people in lightning are so supportive and you get an initial boost. The reality is that there are a few thousand of us and not nearly enough to build a solid company yet outside of exchanges. I think of Strike with remittances as the closest app to reaching a general audience.
Great reminder for all of us to realize the world is a big place outside of our bubble. With the macro situation growing shakier by the day, it’s a good time for founders to make sure they’re prepared and able to withstand a down turn
This hits home. The Strike remittances example is a good one. The advantages of Bitcoin for this use case + the intense focus on a more familiar Bitcoin UX are so compelling that non-bitcoiners are willing to switch.
It really seems to require building something that's
Integrating more tightly with Strike, e.g. getting them to support lnauth and adding an in/out option from the SN wallet to/from strike wallet the way it works with Alby but with Strike's API (on both PC and mobile) could be some first steps. Not that you want SN to be a 'strike-extension' but to ride their coat-tails could be beneficial to attract some less technical contributors who want to talk about bitcoin
Yo, you hire yourself as a contractor? Chad.
Which tasks were you surprised to see become popular on Stakwork?
Which types of tasks are most common?
Which types of tasks do you think Stakwork is especially well suited to that it isn't currently being used for?
We started with mainly image processing, but now we are getting much more difficult natural language processing tasks that we can barely do. We want to get into full process automation. We just onboarded a new customer workflow that ends in an online notarization of the document!
So cool!
Has any Bitcoin product used you guys for KYC id verification?
No, but it would an interesting use case. Our approach would be to fragment any private info into unidentifiable pieces, then assign those fragments to different people. That way no single person has the photo of your license.
I hadn't thought of privacy implications, but its so cool that a solution occurred to you so fast.
If I were Strike/Swan, it seems like it'd be a natural fit.
We would love to help out those companies. i think we could do end user support triage as well using these privacy preserving methods.
I feel like you saw the future of lightning so fast and early. Are there any products you expected to see by now/wish existed that don't?
I am shocked there isn't a version of OnlyFans or a lightning poker site.
Vida.live livestream, host earns sats per minute
Unfortunately, the video lags too much from what I was on my test. Maybe it'll improve.
I'm following vida.live on twitter but havent' checked it out yet. live streaming is a great fit for LN and for LSATs.
I think Starbackr is probably the closest OnlyFans swing. Their marketing just isn't very "targeted."
https://lightning-poker.com/ exists but might have a cold start problem.
Wow, I've never heard of either of these, so thanks I'll check them out.
Are there any books that have had a meaningful impact in shaping your view of the world?
I'm no longer religious, but I've read the bible 27 times before I left for college :) I read "The Goal" by Eliyahu Goldratt in high school and it's amazing for redesigning processes. Adam Smith's less famous book on life "How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life". Guns Germs/Steel was an eye opener. I read lightly, but high volume.
+1 for The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt!
The audiobook version is great too as it’s really well produced with different voice actors for each character.
I've rarely met anyone who's even heard of this book. It was at my house for some reason and I read it over and over. It seems so obvious to apply outsized resources to remove bottlenecks, but that isn't practiced. Stakwork could be the key unlock inefficiencies for all kinds of business processse by 'cloudsourcing' work.
Wow, did you find yourself learning new ideas after each of the 27 reads? Or did your understanding of the bible taper off after a few reads?
Thanks for the book recos!
We held a family bible study for 30-45 min in the morning and around an hour each night every day of the week. It had two benefits: I was trying to read stuff like "shadrach meshach and abednego" in preschool years and I was unknowingly learning a daily meditation practice sitting there every day.
You hunt?! What do you hunt? I've always wanted to hunt but haven't found a great on-ramp. What would you recommend for starting?
I am an adult onset hunter and have been mainly bird and bowhunting for +20 years. Start with shotgun for quail or pheasant. It's harder to start with a static rifle shot and learn to swing the gun, easier to go from swing to static. Get your hunters ed now since after covid some states are doing it online and temp not requiring the field day onsite. We're having a "Bitcoiners learn to hunt" weekend this fall.
Thanks for the questions and reach out if you're looking to work in lightning. We're looking for project managers, app developers, operations. If you have sphinx and want to earn sats coding, make a profile at: https://people.sphinx.chat/p Tap "people" and we'll start posting up more tasks.
You have a real chance to be an actual social media competitor. How do you think we can make that happen? I would love to see an app like yours achieve mass adoption. I think the biggest hurdle right now is getting people onboard with lighting so they can actually log in.
It's far too complex for the average numbskull, and I'm living proof of that. All my friends who are "would be" users have told me that I need to "show them how" to do wallet/lnurl/lightning/whatever before they get started. The average person is just way too intimidated at the moment to get started,
What are some real steps we can take to fix this massive problem?
We've had 30 years to explore the limits of packet data networks that can't require value (http/smtp). With lightning, we can now try models where context and value traverse the same network. Follow the discussions about free speech on twitter with this in mind and it becomes clear that decentralized + paid is the best answer.
For folks asking "is messaging an abuse of the lightning network", the premise of the question ignores the point of a fee based network. If you pay the requested routing fee, it's by definition a desired use of the network.
What are the plans for the app?, The development seems stuck this last months, instead of the frenzy of the first months. Example latest kotlin version was almost a month ago.
Most recently we are making improvements to the key exchange process during the setup process and other security improvements. We'll move to other front end soon. We're also seriously lacking in app devs, so spread the word!
Are the sats earned by Stak Workers their first sats and introduction to Bitcoin? Any cool stories you can share?
Delly! great to see you here on stacker news. From our support questions, I'd say that 99% of the people on stak have never owned bitcoin or even seen it as an option. The #1 question we get on support from new users is "what is a satoshi and what can I do with them?". "Freedom to Earn" is the most viral thing I've seen.
What are your thoughts on nostr? https://github.com/fiatjaf/nostr
Currently the two countries for task workers is Argentina and Philippines. Are there other countries in the works where task workers will be eligible?
We're offering free cell phones & service in PH and El Salvador (we need to fix that on the site). Task workers can live anywhere, but we have a long waiting list right now. We're always looking for more sources of tasks from corporations that need help.
What is the ratio between the number of people the tasks can hire versus the number of task workers interested in working those tasks?
Right now we have far more workers interested in earning than paid tasks. We have around 20k user accounts and a waiting list around 60K at last check.
Just want to say thanks for creating/co-founding Sphinx and Stakwork! 👊🏻
It's been a ton of fun for the whole team and we're just getting rolling. I feel like we've built the basic blocks, now it's time to grow.
I'm a Sphinx n00b.. what are the best steps/chats for people just getting started?
Could Sphinx be embedded or integrated into another app, to be used as an in-app messenger?
You can run a sphinx server on umbrel, raspiblitz or mynode. We also have a custodial 'lite node' we host for people to try it out. Sphinx is open source so you can embed it as an messenger in an app. I think there's a gaming company that already did this.
Why is there both stakwork.ai and stakwork.com?
We're migrating to the new site at the .ai address
There is a demo for an employer, but no demo for a task worker.
Might it help if a prospective task wattraorker were able to see an example/demo of each type of task (e.g., Image labeling)?
We have task specific tutorials once the user is logged in plus tool tips to help along the way.
What are the odds Microtask Programming will become a thing?
I hadn't seen that before, but will take a look, my net at this hotel is circa 1990 speed.
I posted a comment earlier about Sphinx here: #24242
But my main question is what is the current status of the project?
We do weekly updates to both apps, but apple has to be through testflight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/QoaCkJn6 We make lite nodes available pretty often, but we'd rather have people run home nodes.
The latest changes we've made are to add video support and substack medium. You can link tribes to Github now. We got rid of slack/skype and use sphinx internally for all of our work.
Once you consume your content outside of youtube and apple, you need a recommendation engine. We're now working on that piece: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B8OMZiewvQuB5hlBPliy1S1CSYOxAtVH/view
We're indexing almost 200 bitcoin podcast episodes a week. The goal will be to let you enter a topic like "BIP 119" and see every clip related to the topic without having to sort through the shows.
I was hoping I could just buy a node from you all. It’s asking a lot for new users to run a node before they’ve even seen what the app looks like, how well it functions, or what you can do with it.
Maybe you can figure out a way to let people try the app out without running their own node. Maybe you can just make some product video tours instead.
The best option here is to get a 'lite node' which is custodial, but easy to try out. The user gets some sats to start and can message immediately. The message content is always encrypted on the phone so meta data is on our server, but content can't be read.
the app said there were none available. it made me think the company was like a ghost town
is there a minimum withdraw amount right now? I am not able to withdraw right now? It keep saying "insufficient balance" even though I have over 1000 sats on there.
Hello. I would like to work on tasks at stakWork. I heard people doing tasks there and I want to be a part of it.
Please DM me . Thanks
Hey Paul. Which non-dev tasks are you currently hiring for at Stakwork?
its a good insight
so how's that going?
Hello ,I just want to ask why has no work on your stakwork today?
Hi, I'd like to know more about the lightning hardware signer the sphinx key.
What is it's status?
How were you able to assemble your team in the beggining? Any advice on how to bring on devs from outside of bitcoin?? ps love the app and I seriously need to check out the lite node and and sphinx server on umbrel!
"Any advice on how to bring on devs from outside of bitcoin??" The question here is bringing in the "right" devs. Eth and solana are a helpful filtering function for bitcoin. They spend big $$ doing developer outreach. The small percentage that smell bs are the one's we want. The one's that stay we get to avoid at zero cost. The goal of the ticket marketplace we're testing at the people.sphinx.chat page is to let devs try out earning sats for code before quitting their day job.
Love the app, it's my primary motivator to set up a lightning node so I can on-board my connections