Earn sats by controlling your keys 🔑
418 sats \ 8 comments \ @hussamfyi 24 Oct 2022 bitcoin freebie
TL;DR I'm a non-technical bitcoiner looking for a team to help me build a fun, non-custodial wallet for newbies as part of Bolt Fun's Legends of Lightning ⚡️Tournament.
Learn more: https://makers.bolt.fun/project/tangerine_wallet
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Problem:
Non-tech-savvy millennials who want to control their private keys find the process too complicated and intimidating. Instead, they leave their bitcoin on an exchange and fall victim to fraud, hacks and negligence. This discourages new buyers from using Bitcoin and they never get to experience its benefits firsthand.
Solution:
A non-custodial wallet that guides and educates newcomers to control their private keys with multi-sig, while rewarding them with sats each time they stack bitcoin.
Think Fold meets Casa meets BlueWallet
Why custody? 🔑
The Lightning Network has the potential to drive bitcoin adoption beyond speculation. However, there are still hurdles at the infrastructure, technical and educational level that deter people from using bitcoin for payments. The path towards a hyper-bitcoinized future starts with custody and we need more intuitive tools for people to control their private keys.
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Again, I'm not a developer, but I've worked at bitcoin exchanges as a product manager and business developer over 8 years. I'd love to partner with developers or designers that want to bring bitcoin-native products to the masses.
Also, I'm super open for feedback on idea/direction. I totally expect it to change so if you'd be interested in working with me for the tournament please reach out.
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6 sats \ 5 replies \ @south_korea_ln 25 Oct 2022
Where do the sats to reward the user come from? What incentive does your wallet have to do that other than an idealistic one?
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1 sat \ 4 replies \ @hussamfyi OP 25 Oct 2022
  1. The sats would be subsidized by the wallet, initially as part of a marketing budget, but eventually from revenue generated by a multi-sig service offering. How the rewards would be dispersed at a technical level, I'm not sure. That's why I'm looking for developers to explore the idea with :)
  2. Something like: users earning rewards when they self-custody drives wallet adoption which allows us to layer on more monetizable services over time.
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5 sats \ 3 replies \ @south_korea_ln 25 Oct 2022
What's a multi-sig service offering? How does it generate revenue?
(not being negative, just trying to ask the questions that can help flesh out your thoughts and figure out if this idea is viable or not)
As for the technical part, I can't help you atm, unfortunately.
But let's brainstorm. I am a user. I have 1 BTC on an exchange. I am willing to use your wallet as it offers me sats to self-custody. I am a malicious user, I decide to cash in the sats from this first wallet, create a new wallet, and transfer the 1 BTC to this new wallet to cash in some new sats, repeating the loop until I drain all your sats.
People always try to game the system when they can get free money, see Thndr and Viker Games and how they constantly have to fight bots trying to drain all the rewards.
Solutions:
  • Tie the wallet to a social media handle (or anything that is not easily duplicated). Pro: you increase the barrier for people gaming the system. Con: you defeat the purpose of self-custodial pseudonymous anonymity
  • Force users to keep their sats on your wallet for a long-enough time so that you decrease the incentive to game the system (or at least, you make it less profitable to them). Pro: they can't reuse the same funds to get rewards on another wallet. Con: you have to make the rewards sizeable enough and pro-rated to the funds they deposit on the wallet, otherwise they can easily cut the 1 BTC into single sats, thus claiming the rewards by sending each sat to different wallets.
  • Create a lottery system where each user who is self-custodying gets a number of "tickets" that enter them into the draw each day. Inspired by Thndr's solution so that they have final control of how many rewards they send out each day. Pro: users can't drain more sats than there are available for that day, and they can't claim all of them. Con: the adrelanine rush is less (i.e. i prefer earning sats with Viker solitaire than with Thndr Solitaire as I can earn more sats with the former).
What's your take on all this?
Good luck!
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5 sats \ 1 reply \ @south_korea_ln 25 Oct 2022
My impression is that @koob seems to have put in quite some personal funds at the beginning to kickstart SN. Just my impression, I don't actually know. How strong is your belief and financial ability to help this get off the rails? Don't need to know, just something you can think while preparing your strategy. You'll need something to get going before you can start knocking on bitcoin VC funds' doors~~
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @hussamfyi OP 25 Oct 2022
I'm in a comfortable position to bootstrap a rewards system liquidity in the beginning. If things get really out of hand then it's probably a good thing (and a potential sign that it's time to raise).
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @hussamfyi OP 25 Oct 2022
First of all, thanks for taking the time to share this feedback @south_korea_ln. It's super helpful.
An example of a multi-sig service offering would be Casa - they charge an annual fee for controlling 1 key out of a 2-of-3 setup (and they have more expensive tiers that offer a 3-of-5 setup with additional benefits).
There's absolutely a risk of gamification by malicious users. In my experience building these types of products, you want the system to be difficult to game but still have a some slack to encourage FOMO and participation.
Regarding your ideas:
  • I'd lean towards wanting to preserve the "self-custodial pseudonymous anonymity" aspect of the wallet. Plus, I don't know how tying the wallet to a social media handle would prevent gamification.
  • This is closer to what I was thinking e.g. an incoming portion of bitcoin has to be custodied in the wallet for x amount of time to qualify for the sats reward. The question is: how big is the reward, and when is it given to a user? This is where I might need to make some tradeoffs. Ideally the rewards system should be inclusive i.e. rewards don't scale depending on how much bitcoin you have in each incoming transaction. However, as you mentioned, this is easy to game.
  • It could also be a system similar to Fold where you're entitled to 'spin the wheel' in some way for a chance to win x, y or z bitcoin rewards.
Overall, some really interesting experiments in game design and incentives. I haven't thought through all of these edge cases but you've given me the inspiration to start shaping the idea and technical details.
I'll keep at it! Thanks again!
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5 sats \ 0 replies \ @BTC_LN 25 Oct 2022
Sounds intertesting!
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5 sats \ 0 replies \ @User21000000 24 Oct 2022
Sounds interesting good luck with this!
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