The part 1 is all correct `A+`

> Second - do you foresee any further changes to territory ownership costs?

No immediate plans to change them further. We'll broadcast a plan to change it should we have one.

@k00b trying to answer all of our dumb questions:

![](https://m.stacker.news/72052)

_____
HAHA good meme anyway on a completely unrelated note, I have some dumb questions for ya @k00b:

First off, I come in peace! No problems at all with this, just a few questions that I'm sure you've answered 1,413 times in the last 4 minutes alone.  

_____
Part 1: 

Let me know if the following are correct:

- If I earn daily rewards they are sent to my profile balance as real sats that can be withdrawn whether or not I have an attached wallet. 
- ^ Same is true for territory revenue
- If everyone had a lightning wallet that could send and receive, the zap button would send real sats from wallet to wallet
- You can pay to post or comment with CC’s
- Stacker defaults to using your CC balance to pay for posts and comments
- Even if someone pays with CC’s to post in my territory, I get real sats for that, and those sats go to my profile balance

_____
Part 2 (less to do with cowboy credits):

First of all, thanks for an awesome app, I appreciate all the work that’s gone into making this a place where good posts and comments are the only things that are truly incentivized. You guys have done an awesome job with that. 

Second - do you foresee any further changes to territory ownership costs?

frostdragon

Correct. People think they're working here and they should be paid. But in fact, all the zaps are donations to you. 

Ask me; for all the donation I get in Sats, there's a straight tax of 30% in my country, I've been escaping them every year though. 

nah, they're redistributional paybacks for the 30% take off the donations I was given when someone zapped me for content. 

I hate to sound like a dick, but all the sats you get on SN are based on donations from SN or other users, so a lot of the complaing comes off as "I'm not getting free things the way I want to get them"

CC's shouldn't be causing this much backlash. 

Aardvark

I was waiting for this post, thank you very much for clearing up all my doubts and sorry for the bad.

bief57

Imho, most of them are confused. 

![](https://m.stacker.news/71931)

Yeah, those who didn't like to spend by zapping are the ones complaining. They see a real cut in their pays.  

> Most stackers weren't withdrawing their sats

I don't withdraw them because I want to convert them easily into CCs when is need it.

Additionally to what you said: Most stackers weren't withdrawing their sats when they still could for the sake of a circular economy anyway, so CCs behave just the same as custodial sats for most.

If half the effort spent complaining about them were instead used to understand them, they would see it's actually a pretty good solution for the situation we're in as you explained here.

oh, so the feds confess that sats = money now?

cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. 

They exist because SN cannot legally transmit custodial sats to other people on your behalf

end of discussion

edit:  you only gave us 12 months warning, plus an additional 60 days after Nov 5, the initial launch date


Bell_curve

Check your [wallet logs](/wallets/logs). It sounds like your sending wallet is failing.

Pardon my ignorance if it's mentioned somewhere in this post or the comments (I went through all of them, and I've read other similar posts on this too,) but since yesterday I've not been able to zap anyone (post or comment.) It says "zap on post/comment failed", then it gives me option to retry, but it still doesn't work. 

My default zap is set to 50  - I have enough CCs and more than enough sats. I've tried it on multiple posts and comments and I keep getting the same error.

Any thoughts on this? Has anyone else experienced this?

TresDMan

SN is awesome. By far my favorite place on the internet. 

Scoresby

we dont need cowshit credits

this whole shitcoin purpose is to help lazy people that dont bother setup a ln wallet

I actually don't get it. My CC balance hasn't gone up like some others have complained. 
Yes, at one point I've got to 350 CCs but they vanished ass soon as I zapped something. 

I really don't find any difference. It's all the same for me. 


Coinsreporter

Thank you for taking the time to help allay some folks' concerns.

You can disable your wallet temporarily and it will exclusively send CC. It's just a check box on the settings. You can send them directly back out into circulation. 

I think after a while, most people won't care if they get zapped CC's, there's enough ways to use them that it shouldn't matter. 

You're right. If you somehow end up spending fewer CCs than you receive, they will accumulate. For those of us with attached wallets, you could adjust your dust limits to discharge more of them in small zaps.

Personally, I have 7 CCs right now. I'd guess the folks that have so many that they're suffering a cowboy credit cognitive crisis aren't very big zappers/spenders. They're getting less assmilk per squeeze I'd guess and are parched.  

They’ll still get spent when you post and comment. 

"won't CCs just accumulate to infinity?"

If I receive CCs daily but never zap them because I have an attached wallet wouldn't this be the case? 

This is why I am donating them to rewards pool to turn them back into sats. 

grayruby

Thanks. Personally I think this CC credits is overblown. People hate change. I haven’t notice much overall difference with my SN experience. 

BlokchainB

jamalderrick

@k00b - when you guys catch your breath. It would be good to update the FAQ’s for new comers- 

What is Stacker News?

Stacker News is a forum (like Reddit or Hacker News) where you can earn sats for creating or curating content. Rather than collecting “upvotes” that are not redeemable or transferable on Reddit or Hacker News, on Stacker News you can earn sats.

BitcoinIsTheFuture

> Cowboy credits ARE created by stackers

This explain everything. That's genius! Thanks @k00b @ek

supratic

Is it an uncle jim type subaccount with its own balance? I didn't realize.

> run a custodial lightning account service for them and provide attachment mechanisms SN supports. LNBits might be the easiest way to do that. When Alby Hub has subaccounts, that will be a great solution too.

Good idea. I know Alby hub already offers sub accounts. Do these lack the necessary attachment methods right now? 

siggy47

Key points:
* Cowboy credit is necessary because SN has decided to go noncustodial.
* SN didn't create cowboy credit as some sort of fake bitcoin or "token".
* Cowboy credits are entirely derived from user actions. After several user actions, cowboy credits cease to exist and convert into sats.
* SN does not earn additional profit from cowboy credit. There is no conflict of interest.
* Please set up your wallet and contribute to building a brighter noncustodial future.


sasasuina

k00b, you are doing a good job. 
Dont let their frustration ruin your day. 
Everyone can still use SN, there is no big deal. 
People just need to put their big boy pants on and spend CCs if they get them when their attached wallet doesnt work. 
![](https://m.stacker.news/71926)

Satosora

Thanks this really helps . I appreciate all the loop hopes you guys are jumping through to keep us zapping real zaps 

The last few days have been kind of stressful, but that's just because I'm absolutely not tech savvy. It's definitely been a journey so far. 
Keep up the good work!

Shugard

Quick question: If an attached wallet is offline at the time daily rewards are issued, those sats will not become cc's, correct? They will become sats credits, that can be withdrawn once the wallet is functional again, correct? 

consider this: you have bitcoin on mainnet and bitcoin on testnet.
CCs are like bitcoin on testnet. Are worthless on mainnet (in fact you cannot use testnet bitcoin on mainnet) but are useful on testnet.

For some really strange reason, I don’t see any difference between CC and sats at this range. We will get the sats at the end of the day or whenever. Who cares one way or another?

Rothbardian_fanatic

I've never read Marx. Was he big on amazon gift cards or something?

I CANT READ

THIS IS PROBABLY MARXISM, NOT SURE THO

I LOVE COWBOY CREDITS.
I personally have nothing against them.

DarthCoin

Let me zap you some CCs for that -- THANKS!

denlillaapan

cowshit credits = shitcoin

implemented because some users are too lazy to attach a ln wallet

coinos takes 10 clicks to setup, THERES NO EXCUSE

alashazam

Thank you! I saw a lot of negative comments and posts against CC's. This post will definitely help everyone. I already mentioned that I don't see any difference because with CC's, I could do what I can do with Sats here.

NovaRift

> How Many CCs? 
What are CCs? 
Why are CCs?
I hate CCs. 
My balance CCs increasing and only increasing. 

### There's no difference
![](https://m.stacker.news/71923)

here they are some guides I've been writing to invite people to do so:

 - [Easily attach wallet to SEND & RECEIVE sats from SN with Coinos.io and HODL](https://stacker.news/items/694593/r/supratic)

- [Install, Run, Publish & Connect 𝚙𝚑𝚘𝚎𝚗𝚒𝚡𝚍 to SEND/RECEIVE sats to/from SN](https://stacker.news/items/695912/r/supratic)

- [How to Attach Your self-hosted LNbits wallet to SEND/RECEIVE sats to/from SN](https://stacker.news/items/697132/r/supratic)

- [How to attach your LND node to RECEIVE bitcoin from SN via ThunderHub](https://stacker.news/items/704693/r/supratic)

- [How to attach your Blink.sv wallet to SEND sats to SN with a Blink's API key](https://stacker.news/items/705629/r/supratic)

- [How to Connect your LN node to SEND/RECEIVE sats to/from SN via NWC with AlbyHub](https://stacker.news/items/698497/r/supratic)


Not enough? There are much more resources collected in this post https://stacker.news/items/835262/r/supratic


>write guides and help stackers out as they have issues with lightning and attaching stuff. 

@supratic and others wrote several guides but many stackers just ignore them or don't even bother testing.

I didn't see SN putting the links to those guides in the "connect your wallet" page.

Thank you for this summary, helpful to understand all cases when sending sats can fail


john_doe

 👍 

I like this post more than the other “Q&A tuned” post written in a way “what is going to happen? -> nothing” 

oliverweiss

This is k00b watching SN stackers how they use and understand CCs

https://video.nostr.build/eed50910e54e3ce591369d48d527af7b6e558ac67217348381480179224639e5.mp4

😂😂😂😂😂😂

Thanks for this, I was very confused about the CCs

emm14

It's an excellent way to clear up the madness that this Vaquero credits thing has brought, my only doubt so far is how do I send credits? I have received them, but I still don't know how to send them.

Msd0457890

Incredible, so much to learn from SN about cowboy existence. Keep it up. 

Sirkay

doesn't make ANY sense to me

i want to zap & get zapped in real sats, not with this Credits shit

if the user can't bother to have a LN wallet then he does not need to have a zap button next to his name OR make all zaps go straight to the rewards pool / devs donations. i do not want my real sats to convert to credits shitcoin, nor do i want to receive credits

anyone supporting credits :

![](https://m.stacker.news/72018)

Skipper

> That's why I love what you did and how you improve this society of soulmates

![](https://m.stacker.news/72024)

As evolution never stops the stackerNews devs never stop too and I like it. That's why I love what you did and how you improve this society of soulmates 

030e0dca83

suraz

Thanks for this entry. Ever since I recently joined SN, I’ve been wondering about what these cowboy credits are. I’ve only joined in Janz

Creating a lighting channel that is well balanced on Alby hub with SN is not possible right now as bad as I know. It only allows you to open channels with certain LSP‘s to receive liquidity. Consider signing up with them, SN.

charonnakamoto

zaps incentives users to create good content

with the current Cowboy Credit system, some users wont bother to create 'good content' because most of the zaps they will get will be in a worthless shitcoin instead of real sats

![](https://m.stacker.news/72020)

Natalia

meta

Cowboy credits ARE so that stackers with insufficient lightning setups can participate on SN
Cowboy credits ARE because real lightning payments, and especially lightning application connections, are not foolproof - far from it
Cowboy credits ARE created by stackers zapping or being zapped with insufficient lightning setups or by stackers buying them
Cowboy credits ARE rapidly decaying into reward sats and territory revenue every time they're spent - they have a half life of two zaps when zapped (only 70% of a CC survives each zap), and decay *immediately* into reward sats and territory revenue when spent on posts, comments, boosts, donations, or poll votes
Cowboy credits ARE NOT there because SN wants you to have CCs instead of sats
Cowboy credits ARE NOT created by SN as part of some supply schedule
Cowboy credits ARE there only to deal with the insufficiency of lightning, lightning services, and SN's and stackers' inability to leverage those lightning services
Cowboy credits ARE bridging the gap between where lightning and lightning literacy are today and where we believe it will be in the future
Cowboy credits ARE effectively SN gift credits that SN accepts as if they were sats, in the place of sats

### why do CCs exist

CCs exist to accommodate stackers when things outside of SN's control aren't present or fail. That is, CCs exist for situations where stackers:

- don't have an external lightning wallet
- haven't attached one or don't want to attach one
- where their external lightning wallet is unavailable
- where their external lightning wallet fails to make or receive a payment
- or SN has a bug, or inadequacy, that prevents an external lightning wallet from making or receiving a payment

In such situations, to still allow participation on SN, we allow stackers to spend and receive CCs which can be spent on activity that will earn them sats through daily rewards.

CCs do NOT exist because SN wants you to have CCs instead of sats. They exist because SN cannot legally transmit custodial sats to other people on your behalf, lightning is not foolproof, and most stackers won't be able to participate on SN consistently otherwise.

### where do CCs come from

CCs are created:

- spontaneously, when the sender or receiver of a zap cannot make a real lightning payment
	- that is:
		- the sender doesn't have a means of sending bitcoin via lightning with an attached wallet
		- the receiver doesn't have a means of receiving bitcoin via lightning with an attached wallet
		- either the sender's or receiver's attached wallet is unavailable
		- SN has a bug prevents it from reaching the sender's or receiver's attached wallet
		- or SN has a limitation where it can't use real lightning, like in the case of a post that splits zaps to multiple stackers
- or when a stacker buys them

CCs are NOT created by SN as part of some supply schedule. They are created by the actions of stackers - either by not having lightning setups or by buying CCs directly. If all stackers had reliable lightning setups for both sending and receiving, and connected them to SN, CCs would cease to exist.

### won't CCs just accumulate to infinity?

No. 

Every time a CC is zapped, 30% of it is put in the rewards pool and territory revenue which will be paid out as sats. 

Every time a CC is spent to post, comment, boost, donate, or vote in a poll, 100% of it is put immediately in the rewards pool and territory revenue which will be paid out as sats.  

Once a CC is created, which only happens as the result of actions by other stackers, it goes out of existence *fast*. e.g. If Alice has 100 CCs, then zaps Bob 100 CCs, Bob receives 70 CCs and the rewards and territory revenue pool increase by 30 sats. If Bob then zaps Carol his 70 CCs, Carol gets 49 CCs and the rewards and territory revenue pool increase by 21 sats, and so on. Alternatively, if Carol posts in a territory that cost 49 CCs to post in, the rewards and territory revenue pool will increase by 49 sats and the 100 CCs we started with are gone forever.

### i have attached wallets, why am I getting CCs as zaps

There are many reasons why this happens (which we will improve at communicating over time):
- you are receiving zaps as part of a zap forward/prism/split on a post
- the sender doesn't have a sending wallet attached
- the sender's attached wallet is unavailable
- your attached receiving wallet is unavailable
- we predict that paying your attached receiving wallet will fail, be too expensive, or take too long to settle
- the sender has a high sending dust limit (they've indicated in their settings that if a zap is less X sats, they want to send CCs)
- you have high receiving dust limit (you've indicated in your settings that if a zap is less X sats, you want to receive CCs)
- SN has a bug that makes it believe one of the above is true

### i have attached wallets, why am I sending CCs

There are many reasons why this happens (which we will improve at communicating over time):
- you are zapping a post that has a forward/prism/split
- your attached sending wallet is unavailable
- the receiver's attached wallet is unavailable
- we predict that paying the receiver's attached wallet will fail, be too expensive, or take too long to settle
- you have a high sending dust limit (you've indicated in your settings that if a zap is less X sats, you want to send CCs)
- they have high receiving dust limit (they've indicated in their settings that if a zap is less X sats, they want to receive CCs)
- SN has a bug that makes it believe one of the above is true

### i hate you, you're a scammer, how do i protest CCs

We aren't going to be custodial again anytime soon, so if that's what you're hoping to change, you should leave and let us cook *and* eat without you. 

Otherwise, the best solo protest is running a node, opening a well balanced/maintained direct channel to SN, and attaching it to avoid every CC that might possibly come your way or you might possibly send. 

The next best thing is using a third party custodian, but your protest will likely be less effective in the long run, because now neither you or SN control the availability of that third party custodian, the fees to and from it, and you might receive CCs as a result of actions of that third party custodian.

If you're so serious you want to help other stackers protest CCs too, here are some ideas:
- run a custodial lightning account service for them and provide attachment mechanisms SN supports. LNBits might be the easiest way to do that. When Alby Hub has subaccounts, that will be a great solution too.
- write guides and help stackers out as they have issues with lightning and attaching stuff. Help get them off CCs. That'll teach us a lesson so good.

### i don't hate you, i don't think you're a scammer, but i think attached wallets and CC communication/UX needs to improve

We agree with you. Did you think we are stopping here? Help us learn what to improve, avoid wailing ill-informed nonsense if you can (I know some of you are nontechnical but most of you write and think better than average so check your shit please), and we'll do our best to integrate your ideas into our plans.

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