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Ecash is fiat on steroids, change my mind
10 sats \ 1 comment \ @BlueSlime 11 Feb 2024 ecash
  • Zero custody. You give up your bitcoin for a non-binding digital IOU from the mint.
  • No ledger. The mint can print as many IOUs as they want and inflate the supply.
  • 100% centralized. Only the issuing mint can redeem your IOU, regardless of how many "members" it has.
  • Impossible to audit. The mint can spend your bitcoin in secret and debase your IOU, and you will never know.
I thought we built bitcoin to get away from all this fiat nonsense. What the heck is going on?
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1000 sats \ 0 replies \ @nquiz 11 Feb 2024
You could say exactly the same thing about gift cards, yet gift cards have obvious utility.
ecash tokens should be seen as a 'promise to redeem bitcoin', not a place to store wealth, but rather a way to perform:
  • Micropayments
  • Offline transactions
  • Private payments
If you receive enough ecash tokens, your first priority should be to redeem them for lightning or on-chain in a way that makes sense (for the amount you receive).
ecash does not replace lightning, nor self custody. It is a level 3 that trades security/trust for scalability/privacy.
You wouldn't keep $10m in your pocket. You wouldn't put $10 in a bank vault.
TLDR; You are right, ecash is fiat bitcoin (faith in the mint) and it is quite valid to position it as such. It's not a bad thing though.
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