155 sats \ 12 replies \ @DarthCoin 26 Mar \ on: Is custodial bitcoin really worth anything? bitcoin
Yes totally yes. Many good bitcoiners could run "uncle Jim" scenario for mini-LN banks, for their family and friends. It is nothing wrong with that and we already have many solutions for that. And many will come.
That's why is important to educate now as many users we can to be able to manage correctly those mini-LN banks.
I run myself such a mini-LN bank for some people in my community. And works perfectly fine.
And I wrote several guides about how to do it.
The uncle Jim use case is good and I neglected to mention it.
In the uncle Jim scenario, such people as the lucky friends of DarthCoin get to use LN sats without holding the keys to the utxo. They get most of the bitcoin properties.
Or maybe it is more accurate to say they get the advantages of bitcoin as long as they have a trustworthy uncle. This is good, and I can see it working with ecash, too. So that we transfer many of the advantages of bitcoin to people who aren't using bitcoin directly.
I wonder how it will play out though. With email hosting, it was too annoying or technical for most people to bother. And the uncle Jim's who could have run servers for friends and family didn't get enough benefit for the trouble. End result is you pretty much can't send email from your own host nowadays.
Why do we think bitcoin uncle jimming will turn out differently?
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Why do we think bitcoin uncle jimming will turn out differently?
Because those uncle jims will be forced to be "good guys" and do the things properly.
They also have incentives to do it. If they run properly those mini-banks, they can earn enough sats from routing payments, or even they can charge fees for the services. LNbits for example, have that option to put a %fee on each tx from its internal accounts.
LND Accounts also have that option.
Ecash also could have that option.
And this can be applied not only for families and friends, but also to small companies, running a mini-bank for its employees (for those without "uncle Jims").
Is just about education in the end. More strong educated bitcoiners could run future mini banks. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Here people could read those "uncle Jim" guides:
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I wasn't saying that uncle Jim's will do a bad or poor job.
Just that it takes effort and we all have limited time. I think my email hosting example has a lot of flaws, but it makes me wonder if the uncle Jim way will ever be a very large slice of the payments pie.
If you go on vacation and your server crashes, all of a sudden the people relying on you can't make payments.
Obviously they should pay for the service. At the moment, Wallet of Satoshi is better at providing a user experience than you.
On the other hand, I live in the States and cannot use WoS without a VPN, so maybe they don't provide such great user experience.
I think that uncle jimming is only scalable as a business and once it's a business it quickly ceases to be uncle jimming.
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Not really have to be a business.
You can host very easily your node on a VPS, if you are afraid about redundance.
Nowadays Voltage and NODL are doing great job for that.
You can run the core + LN node on a VPS and can have all other apps on your local servers too. Are possible many scenarios.
Even this one about running a nodeless LNBits for example.
Greenlight also is coming in force and could offer great options.
Mutiny Server also could be a good option. You run as uncle Jim a Mutiny Server on a VPS or at home (it doesn't really matter) and with few resources, you can have each user running his own mobile node.
So many options are out there... people just have to test, improve and utilize them.
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Your optimism does not disappoint.
It seems I have some work to do.
(Today I learned from @ek that I can use NWC with my own LN node to use my own wallet with SN. Then I fell down a rabbit hole full of docker thorns trying to use NWC with Phoenixd cause wouldn't that be a cool way to get to self-custodial LN on stacker news? I didn't manage to get it working, but if I keep banging my head at it, it will stay in my mind and then I'll notice when someone who actually knows what they are doing makes it work.)
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I am optimist about LN because I tested so many apps, nodes, solutions and create various scenarios with them, based on what people near me, IRL asked me how to use BTC in x scenario.
All my guides are real life scenarios, that I tested myself before I wrote those guides.
I do not like to talk about things I do not know or control. For example you will never see me into a discussion about writing code. That is my weak point, I know shit about coding.
But I know very well, economics, business, accounting, IT, networks, servers because all my life I was into these, I was the connection between end users and those building hardware and software.
Usually developers don't bother too much listening what end users want or do not understand all the processes into a business. But my experience of many years in this field helped me see very clearly where each application can fit.
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Phoenixd is very good. The only thing I do not like at it is that works only with ACINQ node, all channels are with the same LSP.
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Im interested in it for the easiest possible way to run self-custody LN. If it gets to the point where you run a command or two and click connect in a few apps and you have a self-custody LN wallet, that's something I can convince friends and merchants to use.
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Yes, for that is phoenixd.
What is "Phoenix drive"? Do you mean Phoenix Server?