The case FOR CCs \ stacker news ~meta

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2486 sats \ 56 comments \ @optimism 16 Apr meta

Friendly heads up. This is probably going to trigger you. So be triggered; show me all your criticism. If you're prone to have heart attacks, please come back when you're not.

When I re-nym'd and joined SN as me, I decided to use the blank slate to test cashu. Not because I like custodial mints, but because I get a lot of questions from people f2f about how they should enter CrYpTo and this seemed to be a potential noob friendly way to get someone into lightning when they front you a 6k sats rum coke; after all, 6k sats is not worth it getting someone to buy Phoenix liquidity with Acinq for; let alone on-chain.

Since I'm not gonna be able to give advice while being new to something, I have to use what I talk about extensively. So I connected my cashu wallet to SN, and to nostr through SN's fwding. So basically I am now using a custodial wallet; something I honestly hate and SO SHOULD YOU.

I tried setting up NWC through cashu; there is support for it in the menus, but it doesn't work - at least not for me. SN just gives me errors. Thus I found myself in a situation where I can only send CCs, receive sats (thanks) and then send more sats (I'm a net spender, around 13:9) to be converted into CCs again and then zap more CCs.

At first I though this was bad. But then I figured that from an SN incentive p.o.v., CCs are awesome. I currently convert all my CCs to sats in about a week, through posting, commenting and zapping. Every 10 CC i zap will turn into 7 CCs that need to be used on SN to be converted. This means that for every 10 sats I deposit, 7 are reused on SN. In comments, posts, deposits to the reward pool... whatever.

Argument: Using CCs is really good for SN adoption. It makes a sort of circular economy.

There we go. Please give me your hate.

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339 sats \ 31 replies \ @k00b 16 Apr

I'm not sure they are good for SN adoption from an outsiders perspective. For the very reason you think they're good, outsiders think they're bad - they think their very purpose is to trap them and are immune to explanations about how they work. Even people I once considered friends rage quit over them.

People (at least some of them) want sats NOW, and even if they indirectly end up as sats through rewards, they won't be bothered doing long range thinking like that.

We're all dumb like that so I don't blame them. They don't care. We can't expect them to.

The product just needs to get better - better generally, but also making it easier to attach external funds and incentivizing doing so.

121 sats \ 9 replies \ @optimism OP 16 Apr

I'm sure there are net earners with the 50k being donated to rewards every day, AMA OPs or extremely high quality posters. But to be honest, I've never seen SN as a post-to-earn platform, but more of a pay-to-<post/upvote> thing.

The occasional LLM generated post/comment aside, the space is extremely clean here. That's awesome. Worth many sats and so is the content.

I'm probably a boomer.

138 sats \ 8 replies \ @k00b 16 Apr

We're all boomers probably. Or moomers as @Car calls them - millennials that act like boomers.

110 sats \ 6 replies \ @Car 17 Apr

Yes, post Bitcoin ETF everything changed. Bitcoiners are now divided into different camps, not entirely sure what camp I am in but I am not for ETFs, Bonds, Stablecoins, 💩coins, and people holding my Bitcoin.

1sat =1sat, 1cc =1cc.

On SN if you don’t like it hook up a wallet, take responsibility your a self sovereign Bitcoiner.

164 sats \ 4 replies \ @ek 17 Apr

1sat=1cc

29 sats \ 1 reply \ @Design_r 17 Apr

1cc=0.7sat

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14 sats \ 0 replies \ @BlokchainB 17 Apr

1sat =0.7cc

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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Car 17 Apr

not if you get 1cc

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121 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 17 Apr

1sat =1sat, 1cc =1cc.

Exactly that. Very few people understand this logic, that cc are only for SN. And not spending sats but ccs is in in fact stacking sats.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @denlillaapan 17 Apr

LOL, I'm stealing that phrasing. Thanks, Car!

110 sats \ 4 replies \ @SimpleStacker 16 Apr

why do you think people don't attach sending wallets?

the amount of trouble doesn't seem much more than attaching a receiving wallet--at least from what I've seen.

if it's because they'd rather use CC's first then use real sats, it's an easy enough toggle for which currency to prioritize when zapping

303 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 16 Apr

Mostly, they are primarily concerned with receiving sats. Giving sats to someone else doesn't cross their mind to the same degree afaict (which is why we've always incentivize zaps via rewards even when we were custodial).

Also, wallets that are capable of sending programmatically are harder to find/operate. Everyone (dealing with lightning) probably has a custodial wallet that can receive zaps via a lightning address, but even most custodial wallets don't support programmatic sending. Mobile, noncustodial wallets are incapable of doing it. That leaves a handful of options - none easy.

In lightning we talk about the problem offline receiving a lot, but online sending beyond scanning a QR code (let alone offline sending) is practically never discussed excepting Alby and the ecash people.

60 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism OP 16 Apr

After I disconnected my now-working NWC connection with Cashu, but before i reupped my CCs, I got an invoice. Invoices are the best. It just gets annoying.

NWC is "trusted" for cashu; I didn't get a notification to approve the send. That's a worse trust model than apple pay 😕

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 17 Apr

why do you think people don't attach sending wallets?

more than 70% of SN users do not run a proper LN node. That means they have to rely on other custodial accounts. That means they will use another type of CCs for SN CCs. So no real "self-custody sats". It's meaningless to trade CCs for other CCs.
From the remaining 30% that run a node and attach it to SN, maybe only 10% or less really knows what they are doing. That's why so many complaints about errors and failed zaps etc
Not everybody come to SN with the mindset prepared for "let's assmilk this faucet of sats". So for "pay to post" is enough to use CCs, you just send a good amount of sats to your SN account, that are converted into CCs and from there you start posting. Even as a new user, you can start with a small amount and if you post good content, you start receiving CCs enough to post more. So you will not have to deposit more sats to post. It pays itself. THIS IS STACKING SATS, not milking others with shitGPT posts.

Are you accumulating too many CCs in time? Fine, make a nice post and boost it! That way you participate better to the territory owner and to SN rewards too. So you practically give it back to the community and create a CCs circular economy (that only exist inside SN).

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 17 Apr

at first I was lazy

now I like keeping everything separate and silo'd for no compelling reason

135 sats \ 12 replies \ @DarthCoin 17 Apr

If somebody come as new user to SN only with "I want to earn sats" in mind.. is a moron shitcoiner.

Even me that I joined very early to SN, when I saw it, in my mind wasn't seen as a faucet, but more as a decent clean platform to discuss with other bitcoiners.

The thing is that you created a monster and now it gets harder to control it. That's why you have me here pushing with my controversial ideas.

100 sats \ 10 replies \ @denlillaapan 17 Apr

If somebody come as new user to SN only with "I want to earn sats" in mind.. is a moron shitcoiner. maybe, but that's like... 80% of the appeal. Why else would you get onto a new thing? Switching costs, annoyance of learning a new thing etc.

Probs a good reason why new peeps/activity here has slowed down drastically (#944412)

28 sats \ 6 replies \ @optimism OP 17 Apr

Why else would you get onto a new thing?

That new thing being SN? Because of quality content. Full stop. It's literally the single reason why I'm here and what drove me here prior to even creating an account. You yourself are a producer/curator of great content; I assume you get joy out of doing that. Am I wrong in that?

If zaps are the more compelling reason to join, then quality is likely to decline overall, because the driving force will become the gainz rather than producing and consuming quality content.

100 sats \ 5 replies \ @denlillaapan 17 Apr

half-interesting point... I've reflected on this a few times (~~can't find the posts~~ here: #877087), but I think it's a combo of

semi-interesting material (among lots of annoying noise; so, like Twitter)
zaps
an additional platform/forum on which I can share the work I produce anyway (i.e., here #945143)

Don't think I would bother if there weren't a sizeable zap component involved. That's also one of the reasons I'm much less interested/committed to SN now than six months ago (when the zapping was much better).

This quote, from my hatter post, resonate

what I post on SN is more effort, relatively speaking, for less direct reward (zaps) and stingier leaderboard rewards. So, rationally speaking, I should attend to it less.

92 sats \ 1 reply \ @optimism OP 17 Apr

It's hard for me personally to see SN as a side-hustle, so I have to rely on your feedback, as a professional author. This is valuable.

You're most likely the #1 ranked recipient of my CCs (while I'm unlikely to be your #1 zapper.) I kind of feel like this actually matters; I'm treating this like a customer satisfaction study. Not the ones for form tho. The ones where we improve based on the feedback and actually come out more excellent.

The way I see it, we need to drive more traffic to original content on SN. Let me draw things on my magnetic travel whiteboard sheets today and try some things... I'm feeling inspired and I have a day off coding today.

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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @DarthCoin 17 Apr

wait to see when k00b and ek will add more bots (they already exist on SN) just to create more "content" (aka noise)... and also you will realize that you are talking with bots.

Good luck with that wonderful "experience" !

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100 sats \ 2 replies \ @DarthCoin 17 Apr

If SN wants to be another shithole reddit or HN with a lot of useless noise and spam, so be it. But will end up exactly like a shithole after a while. And what we are seeing today with a "slow down" in posts and active users, is the consequence of the Madness March and all those shittons of sats thrown away to assmilkers.

But if SN wants to be something different, must take a different path and apply different rules and features.

Forget about the loser spammers, assmilkers, scammers, idiots, retards, shitcoiners etc those are the 90% of the noise and only will make things worse, making the good stackers to go away.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @denlillaapan 17 Apr

that condemns it to irrelevancy -- small fish with a few dozen posters. Nada más.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 17 Apr

That depends on how SN will be promoted outside... it must find its own niche. SN reminds me of BitcoinTalk forum in the early years...

SN must be the continuation of all those past platforms, a new way to talk about Bitcoin. In the beginning was BitcoinTalk forum, then slowly got forgotten due to many things. Then came r/Bitcoin that also slowly got spliced in many other subs, hijacked, spammed, scammed etc until forgotten into irrelevance. In parallel was bitcoin.stackexchange, with more curated and specific discussio9ns and Q&As about Bitcoin... slowly dominated by standard questions over and over and also introducing damn bots. So people got bored.

SN must find its way to replace ALL of these past platforms and offer a truly best platform for Bitcoin discussions, support, fun, announcements, markets whatever you like. Instead is trying to get all kind of things non-bitcoin related, just to attract shit noise traffic. As I said many times... if you play with shit... you smell like shit.

PEOPLE WILL REMEMBER MY WORDS

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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Car 17 Apr

Great take, sats can be earned but ideas and knowledge is far more powerful to weld.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satosora 17 Apr

People actually rage quit? I havent had a problem since ccs came about, but l did doubt it initally.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @denlillaapan 17 Apr

The product just needs to get better - better generally, but also making it easier to attach external funds and incentivizing doing so. tru dat.

Keep at it, frenz

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @realBitcoinDog 17 Apr

Yea when I joined in October this was my original thought I was proud to be zapping actual sats!

And I’m grateful you still can!

252 sats \ 7 replies \ @LibertasBR 17 Apr

If I’m on a platform that handles spam control and content filtering through “tokens” and money — which are also used to post and comment — and I earn them, that makes me really happy. More for commenting, more for posting. Even though I stopped posting after the initial excitement wore off and I realized I was talking about personal experiences that are new to me but old news for the users here.

62 sats \ 6 replies \ @optimism OP 17 Apr

I think that it's OK to share your personal experiences even if there are others that are ahead of your curve.

I've seen a lot of empathy here which is often hard to find on the platforms of the past. If I could wish for a second thing after quality content to be retained forever on SN, it would definitely be empathy.

132 sats \ 5 replies \ @LibertasBR 17 Apr

This is true and it is what makes me comment with my opinion on posts that I am interested in. I will try to publish again with my experiences as a newbie.

21 sats \ 4 replies \ @ek 17 Apr

@Undisciplined mentioned that he found his niche in thoughtful replies instead of writing own posts. Sounds like you came to a similar conclusion.

164 sats \ 2 replies \ @LibertasBR 17 Apr

Well, he must be on the other side of the curve, where he already has the knowledge and has shared so much that it is better to share and consider those who arrive. I do not have nearly as much experience as he does. And who knows, by sharing mine I might reach the same place as a commentator that I am today, but with more experience to consider. I think that posting good content is part of this experience gain.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @optimism OP 17 Apr

Is there another side of the curve though? I vote up-only.

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44 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 17 Apr

Being a territory owner is awesome, because it turns out that I mostly want to read what other people are thinking and talk to them about it.

374 sats \ 3 replies \ @ek 16 Apr

SN just gives me errors

Which error do you get when you do what?

100 sats \ 2 replies \ @optimism OP 16 Apr

My logs from ~4wks ago are no longer retrievable so I'm paraphrasing the error message from memory:

Invalid NWC connection

I just retried on your comment and if this went as supposed, you just received 212 sats? No longer getting the error message.

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 16 Apr

Yes I got sats

41 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism OP 16 Apr

Cool! Consider the reason for me getting to this void but not the argument

156 sats \ 3 replies \ @realBitcoinDog 17 Apr

I hate it. I’m splitting my podcast zaps with @Aardvark 50/50 but cuz of cc’s we only get cc’s. Makes me regret doing the split. Sad!

#945762

110 sats \ 1 reply \ @Aardvark 17 Apr

CCs are completely fine with me. I zap enough that they just evalorate anyhow.

129 sats \ 0 replies \ @realBitcoinDog 17 Apr

But I want sats I want to feel the weight of my zaps!

Does @DarthCoin need to update his slogan? Spend your sats wisely, but spray away your cc’s with reckless abandon

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @denlillaapan 17 Apr

same... I forwarded sats to someone this week.. and got zapped heavily (#943891) so now I'm stuck with a bunch of shitcoins :/

100 sats \ 4 replies \ @denlillaapan 17 Apr

CCs are free financing for SN -- equivalent to the float of an insurance company or the outstanding gift card balance of e.g. Starbucks (#743123).

With activity, you're right; they decay pretty quickly and turn into reward sats in your own (non-SN) wallet. But for the a) CCs just sitting around, and b) the time before they're fully round-spent, it's a pure shitcoin gain for SN.

They become a hot potato to get rid of asap -- i.e, quite a bit like fiat money. (#736107).

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @optimism OP 17 Apr

Gresham's Law! CCs are the weaker money, which makes sense because sats are the hardest money (though not in my cashu wallet; there it's still weak)

On-chain sats > LN sats > cashu sats > CCs

I spend them in reverse order. The thing I'm doing tho - and I'm willing to change this if someone can truly make the case and convince me that it's no bueno - is converting left to right to ultimately spend the weakest form. (I sometimes skip cashu and buy CCs from LN straight.)

The good news is I don't have a technical constraint forcing me to do this anymore: After @ek triggered me yesterday, it turned out that something got fixed on the cashu side and nwc now works. Yay for the cycle of progress. It's now a matter of choice.

100 sats \ 2 replies \ @denlillaapan 17 Apr

No. No. NO. NOOOOEH.

Fuck, I hate the Bitcoiners and their Gresham's obsession. Just no, #738907

being less anal about this, there's some logic in your story, since every version of bitcoin (on-chain, lightning, ecash) are the same, so they actually are (artificially?) fixed in price. ... but CCs aren't. They are strictly inferior, and don't have a market price fixed at 1 sat

28 sats \ 1 reply \ @optimism OP 17 Apr

I get your point in linked post about demand - I think. Do I get it right that you're saying that

my demand for the harder money is making me spend the weaker money first, because from my perspective I have less desire to hold on to the latter

Ultimately that means that the bad money "driving out" the good money is only valid until it goes to 0?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @denlillaapan 17 Apr

not quite... it's that bad/good money doesn't have meaning until you're comparing it with some objective third thing... in the time periods where Gresham existed, and where the Law would apply, you have bimetallism i.e. there's a fixed ratio of gold to silver.

Meaning, there's an incentive for you to pay with the "cheaper" metal since one is always undervalued relative to the other since world market prices of gold and silver always move.

There's no such mechanism for bitcoin so the concept doesn't apply. That you spend CCs first because they're less money-like than sats says nothing about good/bad money.

do bad cars drive(!) out good ones?

No, they coexist; and relative prices adjust

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @dingding541 17 Apr

I like it, how to launder your CC's

15 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 17 Apr

If you are a long time user of SN you will know it...

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @TadiRetata 19h

This is a thoughtful and candid reflection on using Cashu with Stacker News (SN). Your approach of testing Cashu as a “noob-friendly” entry point to Lightning is practical, especially since 6k sats is a manageable amount for newcomers. It’s interesting how you highlight the tension between custodial wallets—which you dislike for privacy reasons—and the convenience they offer, especially when integrated with platforms like SN and Nostr. The issues you faced with NWC setup and the workaround of cycling sats through Cashu Credits (CCs) reveal real-world usability challenges but also show how SN’s incentives encourage active engagement by recycling CCs through posts, comments, and zaps. This cycle effectively boosts platform activity and liquidity, turning what seemed like a limitation into a feature that benefits the SN ecosystem. Your experience underscores the trade-offs between privacy, usability, and incentives in Lightning and custodial wallet designs, and it’s a valuable perspective for anyone exploring these tools.