What is fedimint to you? \ stacker news ~ecash

26.2k sats \ 92 comments \ @TonyGiorgio 10 Jan ecash

I'm writing a new article but want to know what other people think about fedimint.

What is it to you? What does it enable for you? How do you think other people will use it?

All answer types are valid, even if you just vaguely heard about it.

2074 sats \ 0 replies \ @thebullishbitcoiner 10 Jan

Fedimint does give bank vibes since “mint” is in the name. Ecash is not bitcoin but, after hearing you and Car talk about it on the Thriller podcast, I’m looking forward to studying it more and seeing what you do in Mutiny.

3172 sats \ 2 replies \ @orthwyrm 10 Jan

What is it to you?

With the L2s there seems to be this dilemma between trust and cost. Non-custodial Lightning sits at one extreme where it's basically trustless but incurs high cost (channel management, routing). Something like Fedi sits at another extreme where trust is higher (federated, hard to audit) but payments are cheap and frictionless. This trade-off is not a bad thing, it's just reality. The ultimate form of sovereignty in Bitcoin is UTXO ownership, but this is necessarily expensive and most people will not be able to afford it.

What does it enable for you?

I think that the non-custodial Lightning UX is skewed towards favoring the sender. All you really have to do is fund a wallet on Phoenix or whatever and hit send. Receivers on the other hand have a much harder time because they require in-bound liquidity, need to be online, etc., which of course is why custodial wallets are so popular on Nostr. To me Fedi looks like a strict upgrade from custodial Lightning because it has the same advantages and more (such as no routing required). Much easier to use on Nostr.

How do you think other people will use it?

I suspect a handful of banks will emerge for liquidity and trust reasons, similar to how there are only a couple of dominant stable coins and ETH LSDs. Not really sure why we'd end up with thousands of community banks, as a merchant would have to vet all of them to be confident that their e-cash is backed by BTC. Perhaps there's something I'm misunderstanding here though.

200 sats \ 1 reply \ @garyKrause_ 11 Jan

Fedi is a company. Fedimint is a protocol.

To me Fedi<mint> looks like a strict upgrade from custodial Lightning because it has the same advantages and more (such as no routing required). Much easier to use on Nostr.

Agreed. you can also transmit ecash offline as it's just data.

The fedimint model doesn't come built in with LN liquidity or even a node. A LN node runs Gateway software along side their node that enables them to join the federation and offer LN services to the members of the mint. This is done using swaps between ecash and LN sats. Similar to the ecash <> BTC swaps done when pegging some funds into the mint.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @orthwyrm 11 Jan

Fedi is a company. Fedimint is a protocol.

Ah, I always get these two mixed up! Thanks.

2758 sats \ 13 replies \ @rhombus 10 Jan

A company's parasitic attempt at middle-manning what should be trustless, permissionless, borderless, etc.

It's a glorified SQL database that requires you to lock away BTC with no promise you'll get it back if the federation chooses not to like you. It's a walled garden similar to AOL where you're only allowed to engage and co-mingle with pre-approved participants.

10 sats \ 12 replies \ @TonyGiorgio OP 10 Jan

if the federation chooses not to like you

Are you aware that ecash has some of the best privacy guarantees you can get such that no federation can be aware of who you are or what transactions you were apart of?

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @vindard 10 Jan

Oh boy, I hope you guys aren't planning to stand up your own federation for Mutiny, and are only planning to allow folks to plug in already deployed ones

130 sats \ 10 replies \ @supertestnet 10 Jan

no federation can be aware of who you are

That isn't true though because they can do shotgun KYC

We've been informed by a European court that they suspect a terrorist is using our fedimint service. Accordingly, all user funds have been confiscated by the government, and withdrawals on this website are henceforth permanenty disabled. If you are a legitimate user, you may visit amlcommittee.com.eu to request your funds. Requests must include identifying information and an explanation about why you were using a known money laundering tool. Requests will be reviewed by the court's appointed committee and further investigation may be performed on a case by case basis. Innocent users will have their funds restored pending the committee's approval. Investigations may take up to 90 days and will be very thorough, prepare your anus.

10 sats \ 3 replies \ @TonyGiorgio OP 10 Jan

That isn't true though because they can do shotgun KYC

And miners can request KYC information to be submitted alongside their transaction too, but you don't see that happening.

Hell, even on ethereum they can't even enforce all of the permissioned validators to comply with US sanctions law to block transactions. Why? Because it is a distributed network that requires majority consensus to process transactions. It is not a custodial system and neither is fedimint.

Your satire humor is funny and all but look at it from a technical perspective about how it operates compared to other networks.

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @supertestnet 11 Jan

And miners can request KYC information to be submitted alongside their transaction too, but you don't see that happening

Not yet

I imagined what that would be like, so if you like some speculative fiction here it is

It's 2026. The feds decree that bitcoin miners and fedimint operators are both money transmitters whose customers are "anyone sending bitcoin using that fedimint or in that miner's block." Therefore, they cannot lawfully mine bitcoin or run fedimints without obtaining kyc data from senders. When the law takes effect, alas, 10% of bitcoin users, including fedimint users, have not adopted wallets that submit kyc data to miners and fedimint operators alongside transactions.

Mining pool operators in the USA therefore begin excluding such transactions from their blocks, and fedimint operators transfer full control of all user funds to new multisigs where none of the keyholders are known/public residents of the USA (because very few operators are willing to get arrested, and the few who are, are ejected from the multisig by the other multisig keyholders on the grounds that it would be disruptive to their operations for a critical team member and keyholder to get arrested and not be able to sign transactions anymore). Mining pools in other jurisdictions show a marked increase in profitability since they are mining more transactions than those in the USA, and individual miners begin pointing their hashrate at the more profitable pools.

Fedimint usage also continues unabated, with the sole tradeoff being, multisig keyholders are only people who (1) don't plan to travel to the USA, where they are criminals, or (2) think they can keep their keyholder status secret from the USA government.

The percentage of hashrate owned by USA mining pools drops, and bitcoin continues operating as usual, with no KYC requirements. Basically, mining pools and fedimint operators all effectively left the USA or went underground, but regular users of both systems are unaffected.

Does that sound like a plausible scenario to you?

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @TonyGiorgio OP 11 Jan

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @freetx 17 Jan

Such speculation is reasonable, however it fails the litmus test: Regulators only agree to regulate they actually can affect.

Its similar to the old lawyer trope of: Never ask a question in court that you don't already know the answer to...

The point being, is that Regulators may in fact love to enact such rules, but they won't simply because the outcome of having vast amounts of non-compliance with no effective method to enforce the rules are of greater damage to the regulatory regime than finding another approach to extract their rents.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @mambru 10 Jan

How would that work if the mint is geographically distributed?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @supertestnet 10 Jan

that's a big "if"

Also...

This week in global cybercrime: twin takedowns by Interpol and FBI ...[The] takedown happened on Tuesday and arrested three individuals: two in Indonesia and one in Japan. ... source

A geographically distributed multisig can be taken down by geographically cooperative police operations

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Fabs 10 Jan

Oh boy, can't wait for the many fuck-up's these mints will produce...

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @supertestnet 10 Jan outlawed

stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.

1715 sats \ 14 replies \ @Scoresby 10 Jan

Bitcoin for non-bitcoiners.

I think it's going to be useful for onboarding huge amounts of people -- especially if things like fedimint can inhabit a legal gray zone of doing custody without being custodians.

160 sats \ 13 replies \ @vindard 10 Jan

especially if things like fedimint can inhabit a legal gray zone of doing custody without being custodians

I think this is the part that there's some been miscommunication around. There isn't any grey zone, the regs around custody are usually pretty clear. Fedimints are custodial setups where the custodians hold funds via a multisig and then extend services to folks whose funds they are custodying.

If you're going to make the custodians known for trust-building purposes, then those persons/entities become targets for the usual custody requirements, things like complying sanctions, demonstrating you're not banking US citizens etc. which require some form of KYC.

To get around this you can maybe have anonymous custodians, but then how do you build trust and convince users that the custodians won't rug-pull?

1025 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby 10 Jan

Fair point, and you are probably right. I don't know much about custody law.

Ignorant thought experiment: what is the difference between selling users "points" (for sats or dollars) and then later letting them buy sats or dollars with these points and just plain custody?

The former sounds a little like gift cards where users give merchants money in return for a balance of what are essentially meaningless points secured only by the merchant's good name and then spend those points in return for a good or a service.

Couldn't the product im buying with points be sats or the service of using points for a while in a very low fee way or in some other manner that benefits from ecash's properties (bearer instrument perhaps?) and then converting to some real money like dollars or sats?

30 sats \ 0 replies \ @vindard 10 Jan

That's not a bad idea tbh. There's lots of schemes that rely on changing the definition of what's being exchanged and how, to get around different regs. It's kind of like how Bull Bitcoin sticks vouchers between their trades for e.g.

Would be interesting to see if anyone tries that approach instead, and how they'd smooth over the UX of that.

40 sats \ 10 replies \ @TonyGiorgio OP 10 Jan

regs around custody are usually pretty clear

Define it then. What is custody, legally?

720 sats \ 9 replies \ @vindard 10 Jan

Finer points obviously differ by jurisdiction, but definition generally converges on that when someone is able to unilaterally moves someone else's funds but they haven't taken legal ownership of the funds, then that first person (entity etc.) can be considered a custodian of those funds.

Coincenter has some decent work on the definitions here: https://www.coincenter.org/education/policy-and-regulation/custody/

30 sats \ 8 replies \ @TonyGiorgio OP 10 Jan

someone is able to unilaterally moves someone else's funds

Thanks for that. Sounds like a fedimint isn't a custody solution then.

1178 sats \ 3 replies \ @vindard 10 Jan

Individual federation members cannot, but the federation (entity) as a whole can. Challenge would be to convince whichever regulator that there isn't such a thing as "a single federation" and the key holders are just a bunch of unco-ordinated randos? If you can pull that off, then sure you're probably all clear

Also even if it isn't "custody", there's probably some other classification they can try to slap you with: e-money issuers, Virtual Asset Service Provider etc.

I think the point here is the user loses control of the original funds, the federation takes control of funds, and it's unclear whether a federation made up of known members will be able to withstand a regulatory attack.

30 sats \ 0 replies \ @TonyGiorgio OP 10 Jan

I think the point here is the user loses control of the original funds

I don't think this is true at all. The user swapped bitcoin for ecash.

20 sats \ 1 reply \ @TonyGiorgio OP 10 Jan

Have you heard of Liquid, bitcoin miners, or other blockchains? Can't move your money in those networks unless a majority of consensus passes. Last I checked, all miners aren't considered the same entity.

How is fedimint different?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @vindard 10 Jan

If you feel confident that you can successfully defend the argument that bitcoin miners are the same as federation multisig keyholders then I wish you well

reply on another page

130 sats \ 2 replies \ @vindard 11 Jan

Oh interesting, this is the first point on fedimint's own "Trade Offs" page

Custody: The user must trust the Federation Guardians with custody of their funds which introduces custodial risk.

20 sats \ 1 reply \ @TonyGiorgio OP 11 Jan

I have my own opinions of that I'll come out with soon.

378 sats \ 0 replies \ @vindard 11 Jan

I'll definitely be interested in reading that. Looking forward to anyone who can credibly frame mints as not custodial.

reply on another page

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @vindard 10 Jan

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3588 sats \ 1 reply \ @lechiffre 10 Jan freebie

It expands the choices for onboarding people to Bitcoin.

There is no one true onboarding onto Bitcoin -- it should be a spectrum. This is common sense as we know that it is mathematically impossible for every human on earth to get a UTXO in less than 25-35 years.

More technically savvy friends will get one course of instruction from me (self-custody), while others might get a lightning wallet. Some are introduced to Phoenix or Zeus with on-phone node; others, a custodial LN wallet.

What does it enable for you?

FediMint to me represents another bit of optionality on the continuum. I'd use this strategy to Uncle Jim my most cautious, conservative, or least tech savvy family members and friends as well as children, some of whom may have mobile device while others not. It will enable me to slowly onboard my reluctant or cautious or young family members and friends in a high-fee environment.

How do you think other people will use it?

I expect many other friend groups and families have a "technical lead" who will set up a federation for similar purposes.

One question you didn't ask but that I'd take the chance to address in the context of Uncle Jim-ing as above, is the notion of single guardian "federation". The technology behind Chaumian eCash is very excited and shouldn't be limited to Federated models only. However, it could be very confusing to run both e.g. Cashu and FediMint. I anticipate in the beginning I would solely run the mint, but would like to rotate in additional guardians over time as people's knowledge (or my network) grows. It will be crucial in my mind to enable such a use case (initially 1 guardian with expanding M:N with time)

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @garyKrause_ 11 Jan

You can easily run a single Guardian mint when setting it up. The setup UI was even designed to accommodate this in some regards.

1040 sats \ 0 replies \ @btcschellingpnt 14 Jan

Fedimints are one potential scaling solution for Bitcoin, and I like that they are designed to be operated for existing groups who have existing affiliations/connections. For example, a community with a farmers' market, a group of local bitcoiners, a sports team etc etc.

The shared custodians as known members within their community therefore have social capital to protect, and presumably some sense of desire to see their community benefit from the Fedimint.

I like Carvalho's take on trust (WBD#758 with Zucco and Corrallo): Trust is a great way to scale - trust isn't inherently bad - the issue is who you trust (ironically (imo) John's not a fan of Fedimints).

IMO this is the crux of why Fedimints may blossom - at least in various bitcoin-related communities around the planet.

So downsides?

The provable 1:1 link between eCash and the underlying sats that the mint holds against which they've issued the eCash. Calle's and others been doing some work in this area - but just like exchanges, it's the issue not just of "show us how much bitcoin you've got in your reserves", but "show us that the amount of eCash you've issued is < reserves". Not a trivial problem.

There are no silver bullets.

By this I mean, there is no magic BIP (for covenants or whatever is being proposed) that will "fix" scaling. We will iterate and try multiple approaches - Lightning and Liquid are both good examples. We're a solid 5 years in to an operational Lightning network and there's clearly still many very rough edges.

Can Fedimints play a part - yep I believe they may be able to - keen to fuck around and find out %)

2031 sats \ 2 replies \ @denzel 11 Jan

What is it to you?

On Fedimint getting started page they have written: "If you are confident taking self custody of your bitcoin and running your own nodes, we highly recommend you do so." So it is hard for me to read beyond that point.

I believe self-custody is not that hard, people tell the otherwise to sell you something. Write down some words and keep it safe where you keep your other valuable stuff safe.

At least, Fedimint is very open about this and they have well documented the risks: https://fedimint.org/docs/TradeOffs/Trust-Trade-Offs and all the point they have documented in detail.

What does it enable for you? We all work with people we don't like, follow the law that we don't agree with. And there is use for everything. So for a short while Fedimint may be helpful for increasing privacy, and to minimize the fees.

It seems similar to Liquid Network, but probably more trustworthy.

How do you think other people will use it? People are stupid and greedy at different levels, they will just follow the trend. Smart people will find a way to benefit from Fedimint. Only a very rare few will be smart and have a motive to do something good for all as far as it does not hurt themselves.

So others (most) will see it as fast cheaper fees and will probably start using it and give away custody of their bitcoin.

All the companies in https://ten31.vc/home/#portfolio took investment and have obligations to provide good returns to their investors. The VCs take money from other investors and they have to do the best for their investors. So the question remains when it comes to privacy, opensource software, decentralization and freedom tech. How do people get good returns.

This would probably differentiate the likes of Wikipedia, Tor project, EFF who has to depend upon donations, vs the portfolio companies who may have given up equity or may have convertible notes.

However, we need to have hope in the world, good things does happen every once in a while. May be one of these projects will be a win-win for everyone.

6 sats \ 1 reply \ @garyKrause_ 11 Jan

All the companies in https://ten31.vc/home/#portfolio took investment and have obligations to provide good returns to their investors. The VCs take money from other investors and they have to do the best for their investors. So the question remains when it comes to privacy, opensource software, decentralization and freedom tech. How do people get good returns.

Ten31 did not invest in Fedimint, they invested in Fedi. Fedi is a company that is expected to make returns for its invested (assumedly). Fedimint is a protocol that anyone can use.

Good take on the trade offs part, but you can run a fedimint without the bitcoin wallet, lightning, or ecash features. In this way you can do other interesting federated things like have a password manager. Or a nostr account with federated keys/signing.

Fedimint seems to trade federate custody for low to no fees and privacy guarantees.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @denzel 11 Jan

All the companies in https://ten31.vc/home/#portfolio took investment and have obligations to provide good returns to their investors. The VCs take money from other investors and they have to do the best for their investors. So the question remains when it comes to privacy, opensource software, decentralization and freedom tech. How do people get good returns.

Ten31 did not invest in Fedimint, they invested in Fedi. Fedi is a company that is expected to make returns for its invested (assumedly). Fedimint is a protocol that anyone can use.

You are right, Fedimint is only receiving donations including donation from Human Rights Foundation. Fedi Inc. is a different company, which got $4.2 million of investment.

So that is good. I also checked the 12 active contributors of Fedimint github, none of them seems directly related to Fedi Inc. So seems like Fedi Inc's Obi just made monetary donations to Fedimint.

Good take on the trade offs part, but you can run a fedimint without the bitcoin wallet, lightning, or ecash features. In this way you can do other interesting federated things like have a password manager. Or a nostr account with federated keys/signing.

Any solution that need custody will be as good as the protocol and the custodians/guardians. Yes there could be some good alternative non-bitcoin related use cases, I haven't explored them. I understand m of n digital signatures, I am not sure if m of n decryption is also a thing, but it should be doable, and may be that what it uses.

Fedimint seems to trade federate custody for low to no fees and privacy guarantees. I think low/no fees and privacy is the key benefit as of now. I think it may be short term, because at present I feel privacy is possible and Fedimint will be an important tool in that space for a while. In future, it will be very hard to have privacy.

1825 sats \ 1 reply \ @rheedi0 10 Jan

From someone who only has a very high-level understanding of how fedimints work: I think of it as the Bitcoin version of community banks or credit unions — so basically a group of people with some kind of community or affiliation that want to pool their resources together for the benefit of the collective. In traditional banking, this would primarily mean granting loans and earning some interest on savings.

Fedimints, on the other hand, could be a way to remove the technical and financial burden of using bitcoin for a group of people who would rather trust (and possibly pay fees to) a guardian or group of guardians to do the work. It makes a lot of economic sense if you consider how much work and upfront capital it requires for an individual to self-custody on Lightning today. The value proposition here is a member gets more say and visibility into the custody of their funds in return for some trust and possibly fees. The multi-guardian model also distributes custodial risk, but doesn’t remove it entirely.

I think fedimints, if viable, could be useful for onboarding communities, both traditional and virtual, to bitcoin. I’ve even thought about how groups of musicians could set up mints so they don’t individually have to run nodes or use a handful of custodians just to try Lightning. I could see this model working for other groups of tradespeople and retailers, too.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @garyKrause_ 11 Jan

To clarify some things from a technical standpoint. The LN nodes are separate from the fedimint. The LN nodes offer swaps between ecash and LN sats. This is similar to how BTC on chain is swapped for ecash.

The protocol is intended for small communities so I think you're right in that regard.

1645 sats \ 0 replies \ @BountifulB 10 Jan

A Fedimint is a cross between a private chat, a Bitcoin citidel and decentralized “local credit union” - where participants can pool funds and make collaborative-yet-private payments to other federations and individuals. I think it will enable people to build trusted communities with circular economies that can connect and organize people in deeper ways than just payments - such as families, social circles, religious and political affinity groups.

I think it would bring a much needed element of personal trust, privacy and collaboration to Bitcoin - as it is currently too individualistic and radically self-reliant for many people to get into.

I don’t see how it will be tolerated by the surveillance capitalism complex, tho. It will be slandered as a terrorism and drug trafficking finance technology.

1635 sats \ 0 replies \ @0fje0 10 Jan

What I think about fediment has changed over time, from first hearing Obi describe it as an "operating system" (which made little sense to me at the time) to the "third pillar" of bitcoin scaling.

Both of these analogies failed to get me excited about fediment.

However, once I understood it to be a scaling option for custody / custodianship, it started making more sense. I can see myself using that in a family context.

1624 sats \ 0 replies \ @bitdern 10 Jan

when i think about fedimints from a high-level perspective, i think about them as a way to enable more people to use bitcoin (1) without knowing that they are using bitcoin because (2) the tradeoffs - as I understand them - are such that UX can be built that is much closer to what users expect from payment applications.

1614 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 10 Jan

For me, fedimint allows you to create "banks" within bitcoin. These banks will be managed by people who may or may not be trustworthy. I think it's a better solution than liquid or custodial wallets, but it's still not the perfect solution.

1517 sats \ 0 replies \ @anon 10 Jan

I think it's similar to Liquid but not a blockchain and with increased privacy benefits.

1517 sats \ 1 reply \ @endothermicdev 10 Jan

To me, fedimint is a set of tradeoffs. Notably, it's trusted in that the end user no longer directly holds bitcoin keys. It's also potentially a much more private way to transact with bitcoin.

Fedimint seems like the closest thing to a proper scaling solution we have within reach today. Ten or twenty years from now, the average person will not be interacting directly with the bitcoin blockchain - at least not with any frequency. Having hundreds of what are effectively side-chains that are all interoperable via lightning could offer orders of magnitude greater efficiency and access to the bitcoin network.

I think people will end up using it just like a regular wallet. The federations could be established by local bitcoin circular economies, enabling them to onboard and scale in an efficient manner. It could also be used similarly to liquid - more institutional and global in scope. Each federation will likely have a slightly different niche. Hopefully a "gmail" doesn't emerge and dominate all the traffic.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @TonyGiorgio OP 10 Jan

by "gmail" do you mean blockstream?

1517 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bitcoinisawesome 10 Jan

It's very exciting and I think it's inevitable for small communities around the globe to take commerce into their own hands. One thing that concerns me is the additional attack vector from the law. If a Fedimint group were to gain a lot of popularity I imagine that its growth would start compound. People would travel to a well established fedi to simply have a place to spend/buy/interact with bitcoiners. I know i would, it sounds like heaven.

However, now there is a head to cut off. We have seen in the past what governments will do to those who attempt to manage or create their own currency. With the Bitcoin network we know that there are many heads and if you really do start to chop at them your only result will be more heads (nodes) sprouting up all over the place. Perhaps it's due to my lack of understanding with Fediment but this is my worry. Not only could an entire micro economy be disrupted by attacking the source but the PR for Bitcoin afterwards would be bad as well.

1517 sats \ 0 replies \ @cleaningup12 10 Jan

Fedimint is a new word to me on the Bitcoin horizon

Haven't learnt about it yet, although I do have lots of videos and articles already bookmarked, just need to get round to it.

I'm assuming it's some type of layer 2 payment process like Ln Lq

1509 sats \ 0 replies \ @sathoarder 10 Jan

Seems alright but also more rug risk than something like liquid which also has some rug risk but I feel like not as much. It might be good for a small group of people who trust each other.

1926 sats \ 1 reply \ @Ge 10 Jan

Way I look at it it's an L3 utilizing both L1 & L2 I see both good and bad in this the good it will be a way for newbies to hold bitcoin and not be scammed if the mint is set up by trusted individuals such as meet up founders which I can see each meet up setting up one for members on the other hand this does not allow individuals to hold their own funds taking btc out of their hands... although I see it as a possible stepping stone to a person learning of self custody and taking those steps to secure their wealth. Looking forward to seeing further development of this project.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @garyKrause_ 11 Jan

Way I look at it it's an L3 utilizing both L1 & L2 I'm not certain it's a layer above. It's more of a nexus point for LN and BTC. Enabling swapping between the two via ecash.

1926 sats \ 0 replies \ @5centvalentine 10 Jan

Fedimint is a solution for people who aren't comfortable with the idea of "being your own bank". These people realize the stakes are too high if they mismanage their own keys. They understand that the current banking system enables rehypothication and financial fuckery (and they want out). They are ok with the idea of being able to hold their wealth with a 'bank' that is run by a group of 'CEOs' they either personally know/trust or they know hold similar values/beliefs as them. They simply would want a solution that allows them to transfer value, without knowing how the infrastructure works, but knowing their money will still be there when needed. These people may know what self sovereignty is, but it is lower on their hierarchy of needs compared to simply preserving their wealth/purchasing power. As time progresses, they may become interested in increasing their self sovereignty, so they will exit the Fedimint system and secure their sats on their own (in addition to spinning up their own node). Or, they may even become a federation themselves, to help those in their own, more condensed circle.

I see Fedimints to be akin to modern day credit unions. They are institutions correlated around a commonality, a membership. You must be referred by someone already a member. Certainly credit unions have slightly better benefits than banks when it comes to managing member's money. They are more personal and aren't beholden to shareholders. The members are the shareholders.

1507 sats \ 2 replies \ @erict875 10 Jan

Self-custody is an impossible ideal, because there won't be enough utxos for everyone, and even if there were, my mum would never be able to take advantage of it.

Fedimint is a good solution to this problem, but it's even more than that. It seems that the fact that it doesn't involve a Blockchain creates new interesting uses-cases, for exemple, I've seen people developing modules for it and this looks very promising, and exciting!

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @garyKrause_ 11 Jan

What modules excite you the most?

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @erict875 11 Jan

Prediction markets.

1507 sats \ 0 replies \ @teatwo 10 Jan

community bank, not bitcoin, but I don't know what it is beyond that. looking forward to reading the article.

1507 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury 10 Jan

Money is profoundly social, and rests on social institutions to work at scale. Bitcoin's affordances don't fit well with the existing institution types; Fedimint enables institutions that do fit with bitcoin's affordances and that allow for new kinds of social coordination and organization.

1000 sats \ 0 replies \ @theswissroadtocrypto 14 Jan

Don't know fedimint well. but my immediate reaction is it still a good thing to increase btc ownership. The reality of life is most people don't want to learn how to be fully non custodial, and self sovereign. most people will never make that effort. They just want to make a payment. they don't want to manage keys. Just like most people will never run their own email server, they will just use gmail. also making something with a good easy UI and making it decentralized and self custodial is mega hard, thus some form of centralisation

720 sats \ 0 replies \ @03479d0ee6 10 Jan

It's a service that will offer LN, ecash and custody of your bitcoin in a shared thrust. To me I will probably use it for lightning bc its a good trade off, harder to rug pull than WoS will also get a lnaddress probably and don't need to run a node on my phone, and free txs with echash for users in the same Fedi. Many people will also use it not to self custody and not leaving on exchanges, but I don't think those will be too many though.

441 sats \ 0 replies \ @isolabellart 10 Jan

Fedimint for me is Liquid with a federation of people you trust, the difference being that Bitcoins are not on a sidechain

31 sats \ 0 replies \ @Car 10 Jan

The biggest problem I see is the name it confuses people. Not sure how to fix that or else I would be more helpful. But hopefully they can clear it up. Mint makes more sense the more I hear it.

30 sats \ 0 replies \ @franzap 10 Jan

A cheap sat mixer

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @_b_o_n_e_s_ 11 Jan

I worry about auditability

I'm excited about the privacy and the extensions to lightning it offers

I love the idea of empowering small communities

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @TheWildHustle 10 Jan

A method for enabling federated systems

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @BitcoinIsTheFuture 11 Jan

Not for me YET. But with further adoption I can see using it with a small group of people and family I know in real life and can trust. If you are in my will you’ll be in my pool!

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @muteness11 10 Jan

Let me make it easier for you, I was recently in a Bitcoin event and reached out to the Fedimint booth and asked what is fediment?, their response is "community and an App" .... even employees dont understand it which tells you a lot about the challenge!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @garyKrause_ 11 Jan

I think you were at a Fedi booth. Fedi is a company with a community and app. Fedimint is a protocol they build on.

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @grayruby 10 Jan

Throwing raw meat to the wolves Tony?

I will just stand back and watch.

Fedimints another tool in the toolbox is my opinion.

60 sats \ 1 reply \ @TonyGiorgio OP 10 Jan

In what way? I'm curious what people think about it. Most are great discussion points. Some common misconceptions I hope to dispell too.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 10 Jan

I just think people have varying and strong opinions on bitcoin scaling solutions so it is like throwing raw meat to wolves and letting them have at it. Not saying it is a bad thing.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @OT 10 Jan

I'm not sold on it yet. Will have a play around with it in good time.

10 sats \ 5 replies \ @TNStacker 10 Jan

Centralization

10 sats \ 4 replies \ @garyKrause_ 11 Jan

How so?

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @TNStacker 11 Jan

A federation, by definition is more centralized.

30 sats \ 2 replies \ @garyKrause_ 12 Jan

what if they're all connected via lightning? what if you're really exchanging for ecash with bitcoin and vice versa? it's not an exchange, it's a privacy service. do you pay for coinjoins or other type of privacy tools? what if that tool had a module system so it could be adapted to many privacy techniques already established? you already have a running tab in your head with people you interact with regularly? I think fedimint can be a flexible bridge between things in your digital life for individuals, but also be a great service platform for the bitcoin age. Couple that with StartOS and we're about to get really fucking sovereign in this bitch.

300 sats \ 1 reply \ @TNStacker 12 Jan

All of that can be true, I think it is, and yet none of it negates my statements.

30 sats \ 0 replies \ @garyKrause_ 12 Jan

you're right.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Natalia 10 Jan

deleted by author

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @tomlaies 10 Jan

A very different perspective that I'll watch from the sidelines...

...and will only revisit or spend time thinking about if they'll change fundamentally with some kind of new idea or different cryptographic approach.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @TonyGiorgio OP 10 Jan

Sounds like you have an opinion that you aren't sharing. What is it that you don't like about it that you think they need to have some fundamental change with?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @moel 12 Jan

Currently there is a lot of friction on using both Lightning and Liquid. To scale bitcoin to levels of “state adoption” or “Twitter adoption” we will need an off-chain solution.

An eCash system where the sats never get back to the chain will help scale bitcoin to those levels.

Also, added privacy is needed in a more scary world.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @notgeld 11 Jan

Nothing. Hosted channels were first, and I don't need more complexity.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @03f39deae4 11 Jan freebie

What is it to you? Its the answer to all the issues we have crypto is facing onboarding new users. seed phrase will always be a barrier to a non-technical user.

What does it enable for you? Its a way to organise communities.

How do you think other people will use it? It will be everything needed by communities

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @nullcount 10 Jan outlawed

stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.

200 sats \ 3 replies \ @BitcoinErrorLog 10 Jan outlawed

stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.

110 sats \ 1 reply \ @anon 10 Jan outlawed

stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.