What have ya'll learned since SN non-custodial transition? \ stacker news ~meta

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What have ya'll learned since SN non-custodial transition?

3284 sats \ 79 comments \ @elvismercury 5 Jan meta

It might be too soon to ask, because for plebs like me, I'm only at the very beginning of learning Lightning-related stuff. And for SN admins like @k00b and @ek, the consequences of things playing out have only started.

But with that disclaimer, I'm very interested about the practical learnings that have emerged from this -- it seems like there have already been a whole bunch. It can be anything, from the sociological to the nitty-gritty tech. And if it's too early to post here (or you have no appetite to talk about it any more for now) I hope you'll consider posting later.

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481 sats \ 1 reply \ @siggy47 5 Jan

I learned a hell of a lot during this process. I am the kind of guy who always shows up at the airport or at meetings early, so I was stressing about this months ago. I'm glad I did. Early on I played around with zapping from an experimental wallet created by @supertestnet, which, with his help, taught me a little about NWC, ecash, and the limitations of LN. Same with @justin_shocknet and his Shockwallet. I have run my own node for a few years now, but I was still no expert. I learned to really appreciate the value of your own node. I read about how important it was, but there's nothing like hands on experience. I was lucky in that I opened a few big channels (@DarthCoin's good advice) when bitcoin was cheap, so I did a submarine swap or two and opened a nice channel to SN. It really is the way to go, although I stumbled upon it by dumb luck. I was spared the difficulty of unexpected channel closures and other LN quirks that stackers had to live with, since I dealt with that a few years ago. What really sticks out is that I learned about the potential for NWC, which I think is just beginning.

Overall, I know more about bitcoin and the LN than I would have if SN hadn't challenged me.

One more thing. I have to disagree with Darth on this: @k00b has big balls

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 5 Jan

282 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 5 Jan

I was surprised (although I know I shouldn't have been) by how many people freaked out about a change that has been repeatedly announced for months.

Somehow, a bunch of people both noticed the change before I would have and missed all the announcements about it.

125 sats \ 0 replies \ @carlosfandango 5 Jan

Learned? It’s just confirmed my thoughts that everyone rushes to conclusions… a hasty judgement is often a blind one.

192 sats \ 1 reply \ @flat24 6 Jan

I think the following:

"People are too whiny, and obviously I'm not generalizing everyone on SN.

But many here without even understanding the fundamentals and reasons for the change from just using SATS, to the new modality of using (Cc) and receiving or sending SATS in a P2P. way immediately collapsed with criticism, and all kinds of negative things.

And that example seemed very similar to me to the Non-coiners who immediately and definitively reject

without even knowing or understanding its true foundations. They simply reject the idea outright, without understanding anything.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Msd0457890 6 Jan

You are quite right in what you say.

113 sats \ 0 replies \ @BlokchainB 5 Jan

People complaining about CCs haven’t put their big boy pants on and become self sovereign.

So far my max CC balance has been 400. Goes to show most of the stackers who zap me are using sats p2p

221 sats \ 0 replies \ @Aardvark 5 Jan

Since the original announcement months ago I learned how to attach a wallet to SN. After CC first started I was running into issues with CoinOS that @k00b fixed on his side, but it's been a good excuse to finally start learning more about private lighting nodes.

Ultimately, I feel like I should be responsible for managing my own channel and liquidity, so that's my current project.

Hopefully that eventually translates into me running my own public node, but time will tell on that one.

41 sats \ 2 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 5 Jan

I've learned about NWC. Actually, the transition isn't truly non-custodial for stackers since few have a personal node.

Regarding CCs, I'm not too concerned as long as p2p remains an option. If everyone has personal wallets, it's essentially the same as before.

16 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 5 Jan

SN transitioned to non-custodial, it was not about how stackers handle their own money.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 5 Jan

Exactly! That's what I meant.

144 sats \ 1 reply \ @Shugard 5 Jan

I learned that it was a big struggle in my mind to switch to a new LN wallet. In the end, thanks to George, it wasn't that hard to switch. #833450

But the stress was real.

And I learned that now that I have been running it for almost 2 days, I hate seeing CCs and I am not technical enough to figure out why I get them from time to time.

Yesterday I needed a break from SN, I was just mad. So far I do not like the change and it makes me interact less with SN.

I hope the effort comes back to me!

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 5 Jan

You get CCs from time to time when people without connected wallets zap you, or when people with wallets that are down zap you

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @plebpoet 6 Jan

I'm not really sure what exactly, exactly is going on but I'm keeping a brave face! Definitely making mistakes, but that is no one's fault but my own!

97 sats \ 2 replies \ @Car 5 Jan

I learned we have a lot of stackers who do not know how to use a lightning address.

43 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 5 Jan

FUCKING SHITCOINERS

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @tomlaies 6 Jan

Receiving via ln-address is easy. For privacy conscious folks that do everything via console through the Tor network (no browser extensions!) the sending part is what creates headaches

28 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satosora 5 Jan

I dont think it really changes anything. With a large enough timeline, all your ccs will become sats.

26 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bit_Alb 5 Jan

I have learned that I have the ability to survive the transition. I didn't think I could.

17 sats \ 0 replies \ @StillStackinAfterAllTheseYears 5 Jan

I've learned that there's not enough popcorn in my house to accompany reading all the threads about CCs.

And I've confirmed a tenet of Lightning (and btc) in general, which isn't to put all my eggs in one basket.

13 sats \ 0 replies \ @Jon_Hodl 5 Jan

I haven’t learned much so far but revenue is WAY down since launch.

I think CC will be good in the long run but for now there seems to be some pretty strong growing pains

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @poe7645 5 Jan

Honestly after messing around with so many wallets and NWC strings and weird integrations on Nostr, once I set up NWC for SN sending and an ecash lightning address for receiving, with a fallback to my node if that fails back in October... I haven't thought about it too much.

I've received one CC, which was spent relatively promptly on one of my daily music thread comments.

81 sats \ 2 replies \ @ama 6 Jan

I've learnt that I should've paid attention to NWC sooner. When I heard or read about it I found it interesting, but I was confortable/happy with how I was doing (having custodial wallet on SN and Alby for small amounts, paying lightning invoices, etc.) and I always had (or made) other priorities.

Therefore, I'm in the process of learning more about it and replacing some of my habits and ways of doing things with it.

One of the things I need to learn is how to manage with more than one external wallets connected to SN: Does it make sense? Do you keep more than one active at the same time or only keep one active and switch to another one when's convenient?

I'm eager to learn, but about so many things, that as I said at the beginning NWC was not near at the top of the list. :-)

108 sats \ 1 reply \ @ama 17h

What I haven't been able to learn yet is how to link new login methods to an existing account, or how to change one already added.

I'm using Phoenix on Android to login, but I've recently change phones and Phoenix in my new phone seems to have created a different LN node, so that I can't use it to login to SN. When I try un-linking the old one and linking the new one, I get a different SN account, instead of linking my new Phoenix to my current SN account. The same happens when I try to link Nostr with the nos2x browser extension.

I must be missing something and not getting the right way to add new access systems to my account, and for the moment I've given up trying anymore (I don't want to add more and more accounts with any new try), but I'm afraid my old phone is gonna die soon (it's a bit old already) and I'm going to lose my access to SN.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury OP 15h

I had a similar worry for a similar reason, so created a Protonmail account basically to associate w/ my SN account so I could login that way if needed. Protonmail requires nothing privacy-compromising, so that's something to consider.

82 sats \ 0 replies \ @nichro 6 Jan

That, even on a bitcoin-centric forum, the number of people who knew how to use non custodial LN and NWC is a lot lower than I expected.

Still early!

75 sats \ 0 replies \ @john_doe 5 Jan

NWC is far better than what I thought. With money related technology I am quite careful and saw bugs in the past so didn't play with it and forgot about it. It actually works well, and allows to do cool things, so I ended up being quite amazed. Like the idea of using a wallet without a seed phrase, and add a withdrawal limitation in case of a bug/issue, these are new ideas to me. I didn't knew also new platforms like Coinos, lifpay, Rizful etc.

Also I didn't expect micro payments like 21 sats to be a problem but discovered that with the fees I may have to adjust my default zap amount.

So positively surprised overall. On the negative side, I didn't realize sats -> CC was a one-way conversion only. I would be tempted to try to swap my remaining CC on Robosats just for fun.

54 sats \ 6 replies \ @ek 5 Jan

I have learned that SN will survive for at least a few more years

108 sats \ 4 replies \ @k00b 5 Jan

We have ~10 years of runway right now (and ~90% of our equity left to sell after that), but even if I wouldn't be able to employ people anymore, I run my projects as long as people are using them and in some cases out of pocket: gitern, grepmed ... so SN will survive as long as I do even if the company doesn't get its shit together.

187 sats \ 3 replies \ @elvismercury OP 5 Jan

Not counting the last couple weeks or so, on a scale of 1-10, how much are you enjoying working on SN?

319 sats \ 2 replies \ @k00b 5 Jan

A lot at points and a lot less at others. On average, it was a 6 when it'd ordinarily be an 8-9. Most of the enjoyment was type 2.

This wallet stuff was really hard/tricky to get to just this early waypoint. It also provides mostly negative value to customers (submitting to evidence all the Steven Seagal quality rage quits). So the payoff has been low from where I usually get it.

On the other hand, we've transmuted legal problems into technical ones which is fucking fuckity fucking awesome. There's a special relief/satisfaction in it; every other similar company has resorted to KYCing people ("just" giving them your email is the tip of the surveillance iceberg you're consigned into).

Regardless of the attrition this change causes, I expect a banner year.

210 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 6 Jan

You guys are doing great work. I don't understand the complainers. If you aren't willing to use a lightning wallet and just keep all your sats on SN, then who cares whether it's a sat or a CC anyway. It's like there's just some magical attachment to the word "sat".

I'm actually with Darthcoin (on CCs being fine, not on his views that this is a capitulation). It doesn't make that much sense to utilize lightning for sending zaps back and forth anyway. Credit accounts exist for a reason, like tabs at a bar. It's totally fine for small and rapidly turning over amounts. What always mattered was the option to go P2P, but it's far from necessary or optimal for every single micropayment.

169 sats \ 0 replies \ @Aardvark 5 Jan

Well, if it counts for anything, I'm sure I'm not the only person that appreciates the work the SN team is putting in. Angry people just tend to be louder.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 5 Jan

Watch Fallout https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12637874 And learn the "war games" ....

40 sats \ 2 replies \ @denlillaapan 5 Jan

Hot potato problem of CCs

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @TheBTCManual 5 Jan

Bring on the gamification

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 5 Jan

I love hot potatoes... with cream too

35 sats \ 0 replies \ @SatoshiNakanodo 5 Jan

It's not cowboy credits I don't like, it's the weight of the government's boot on my neck.

21 sats \ 3 replies \ @DarthCoin 5 Jan

If somebody will boost a post, will create more CCs... buahahahaha I am fucking love this mess.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Skipper 5 Jan

I'm confused with all of this CC thing, i confess i haven't paid much attention.

Where are CC coming from?
Can i swap them for sats?
Why do we need CC at all?
Can i stop receiving CC?
Can i make my zaps only send sats?

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 5 Jan

CCs = gaming tokens like WoW "gold": https://www.g2g.com/categories/wow-gold

CCs are used for everything you interact inside SN
if you send sats to your SN LN address will be converted into CCs, only that you cannot move them outside of SN.
you can send them to other stackers or use them to post or comment, or boost.
if you send a zap to a stacker that have attached a wallet to receive, they will receive CCs, not sats. This is the part where many assmilkers do not like...
you can't swap them for sats INSIDE SN, but you can do it outside of SN through a p2p trade. The problem is that SN didn't implemented a system of sending privately these CCs so you will have to do it through a zap. But that have an inconvenient right now: it will affect the leaderboard and rewards. That's why I advocate for REMOVING both of them.
you need CCs so you will not have to deal with real sats for meaningless zaps and posts. If you will run a LN node by yourself and use that node attached to SN account in 1 month you will see what am I talking about...

CCs are ok as long as you do not want to assmilk SN. That's all. I really do not understand why people are so freaked out about them. In the end is PAY TO POST (with CCs).

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Skipper 5 Jan

Hmmm, I'm not a fan of this, I may be wrong tho.

It's extra complexity, specially for the average user. CC feels like a pseudo-shitcoin to me.

I would rather remove the leaderboard/rewards, CCs, pay-per-post, and convert the whole site to Nostr protocol, because i do enjoy this Reddit-like interface/experience.

10 sats \ 6 replies \ @SimpleStacker 5 Jan

I haven't learned anything. Everything has gone according to how I would've predicted :)

30 sats \ 5 replies \ @Skipper 5 Jan

Everything has gone according to how I would've predicted

Can you explain to me? I'm trying to understand this whole thing

309 sats \ 4 replies \ @SimpleStacker 5 Jan

It was fairly predictable that half the users wouldn't be ready for the rollout. It was also predictable that there would be technical issues with people setting up wallets and getting confused between the role of sats and CCs.

This is not the fault of the SN team. They did everything they could to ensure a smooth transition. But it's just human nature. In any large group, you are going to get some people who did not pay attention, or did not prepare adequately for a change. It's not a judgment on them either, maybe SN is just not a big priority in their lives.

But whatever the reason, the rocky rollout was entirely predictable.

Hopefully, though, this can be the catalyst for onboarding many new people to the lightning network. And everyone should open a channel to SN. That will make zapping so much smoother.

I don't know if SN has a minimum channel capacity. If it does (I heard 1M?) they should definitely lower it so that more people can open a direct channel.

215 sats \ 3 replies \ @elvismercury OP 6 Jan

This is related to something I was wondering about -- if lots of people opened channels w/ SN, would there be interesting consequences that came from that, either good or bad? For instance, it ties up a lot of capital from SN; or, it turns SN into an important LN hub.

250 sats \ 2 replies \ @SimpleStacker 6 Jan

Not sure. I think if all the nodes just had the single channel to SN and are not routing to other nodes, there should be very minimal impact on the broader lightning network. Channel capacity will just go back and forth between Stackers zapping each other.

If most of these nodes are routing to other nodes, then it's harder to predict what might happen.

But one thing I will say, SN is a huge source (in contradistinction to sink) for routing demand. On my routing node, which is connected to SN, every time I increase my inbound capacity to SN, it gets routed back almost immediately, so I almost never have any inbound capacity on that channel.

The node I use for zapping is different from my routing node. My zapping node has only one channel and that's to SN.

84 sats \ 1 reply \ @nym 6 Jan

How do you counteract that?

73 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 6 Jan

I don't. My inbound capacity on my SN channel is sitting at some minimal number right now.

There are probably things I could do like loop more capacity through that channel, and thereby earn myself more routing fees, but my routing node was more of an experiment / personal learning project. I don't really intend to do any serious routing with it.

I would've loved to increase fees to use that channel, but I think you can only set the fee for outbound usage of your channels. Since the routing demand is inbound through SN, I can't deter that with fees unless I simply increase my fees on all the other outbound channels, which I don't want to do.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DSP0274 6 Jan

Hi, I'm new to S.N. I'm just getting used to this credit thing. I'm still sending sats. How do I send cowboy credits?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @anon 6 Jan

just wanted to try

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Msd0457890 6 Jan

For me it has been a process of adaptation. I have been here for a while and have learned how to use the wallets. That is what has allowed me to move forward, although I feel confused about some aspects of this S.N. update.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @EverythingSatsoshi 6 Jan

don't fancy the non-custodial move

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BitcoinIsTheFuture 5 Jan

I’m he learned how to embrace and transact in sats and the beauty of it and great people here helping each other!

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @oliverweiss 5 Jan

That it is too early to make jokes about it.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 5 Jan

Jokes should at least make sense in the context

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @oliverweiss 5 Jan

Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better, but the frog dies in the process.

0 sats \ 20 replies \ @DarthCoin 5 Jan

I enjoy the ride! is really fun.

0 sats \ 19 replies \ @Skipper 5 Jan

"SN is a Pay to Post platform"

If we remove the leaderboard/rewards(like you mentioned), who will receive the sats used for posting?

0 sats \ 18 replies \ @DarthCoin 5 Jan

those will be only the SN cut. They have to pay with something the costs of keeping this "chirringuito" alive. You could still be rewarded from p2p zaps from people that appreciate your posts. That's all.

0 sats \ 17 replies \ @Skipper 5 Jan

While i'm not against paying a few sats to help fund @k00b @ek development — the way you said it doesn't feel right Darth.

Paying for the costs of a single, centralized server, where i have no ownership of my user/posts/comments, doesn't feel right. This is not decentralized nor censorship-resistance. Nostr exists, and works.

I see no argument for not turning this whole site (which has an amazing Reddit-like interface by the way) into Nostr.

Pay-to-post only helps reduce spam/low quality garbage. There must be a way to achieve that via Nostr.

567 sats \ 2 replies \ @k00b 5 Jan

I see no argument for not turning this whole site (which has an amazing Reddit-like interface by the way) into Nostr.

I know you don't mean this as derisively as I hear it elsewhere, given you're saying it here, but the reason we aren't on nostr is that I'm more interested in exploring the things we can do with bitcoin because most app devs have given up on it.

I also see bitcoin as fundamental to making something like nostr decentralize, so I'm prioritizing figuring that out before we decentralize. There are lots (hundreds/thousands) of people already doing stuff on nostr, so the purported magic will continue to unfold there without us. Also, there's lots of top-down money/status/influence (tens/hundreds? of millions) flowing to nostr that's made the protocol more political than it should be in it's infancy which complicates life for anyone attempting to do something particularly novel.

I elaborate a little more on my nostr vs SN thoughts here if you're interested.

where i have no ownership of my user/posts/comments

Signing your shitposts doesn't mean that you own your shitposts, it means you own your identity and that's all that it means: #677316

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Skipper 5 Jan

I appreciate your work k00b, genuinely. But this CC thing is not for me. I wish you(and everyone involved with SN) the best of luck.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 5 Jan

Likewise cheerio

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 5 Jan

tl;dr: you cannot run SN on a "trust me bro" foundation.

0 sats \ 5 replies \ @ek 5 Jan

I see no argument for not turning this whole site (which has an amazing Reddit-like interface by the way) into Nostr.

Pay-to-post only helps reduce spam/low quality garbage. There must be a way to achieve that via Nostr.

Run a relay that only accepts pay-to-post.
Make everyone write to that relay so you know who paid to post. Let’s call it nostr.stacker.news
Run every zap through that relay that also runs a lightning node so you know who paid. The zaps on nostr you see are just relays and nodes claiming they have been paid. You cannot trust random nodes to tell you they paid you.

Now everybody has to write to that relay and zap through that relay to participate in the economy with rewards, territory revenue etc.

No point to use nostr then. Only downsides, no upsides.

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @DarthCoin 5 Jan

Yeah I don't know why many people consider SN a platform as nostr. Are different things used for different situations.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @Skipper 5 Jan

A centralized platform, where i have no ownership of anything, makes me pay real sats to Post – and forces everyone to zap/get zapped into a shitcoin(that can't be easily swapped) and that no one wants(hot potato)

This is not the bitcoin cypherpunk way. I was able to accept SN being centralized, but this whole CC drama is leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

I guess this is my goodbye, cheers.

421 sats \ 2 replies \ @e0ce06e368 5 Jan

deleted by author

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0 sats \ 6 replies \ @DarthCoin 5 Jan

You are paying for sustaining SN. From each zap is taking a cut of 30%.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 5 Jan

The fee is not our revenue, territories are …

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 5 Jan

maybe not entirely right now, but soon.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @Skipper 5 Jan

I'm not against zap taxes (Snort/Iris clients already had that).

You missed my point.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @DarthCoin 5 Jan

I don't think SN said that is a decentralized platform. Is just a platform where you pay to post. That's all. If you do not want to pay, you do not post. Just like that. Nobody is forcing anybody to post or to pay.

i have no ownership of my user/posts/comments,

on nostr... do you have ownership of a note once is received by a relay ? They can keep it forever.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Skipper 5 Jan

I'm paying to post something that i don't own or have control over. 🚩

Users are sending me a pseudo-shitcoin instead of real sats.

I can't easily swap that pseudo-shitcoin into real sats—I'm stuck with them.

Because I'm stuck with them, when i zap someone he will get the shitcoin.

Essentially I'm passing the hot potato to the next person...

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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Roll 5 Jan

Time will tell , it s too soon