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2031 sats \ 2 replies \ @denzel 11 Jan \ on: What is fedimint to you? ecash

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.