#6 Cashu, Community, and a Bit of Nostalgia
Building in public is the secret sauce for better bitcoin backed ecash design - with Operation Doomsday playing in the background.
Hey all, it’s been a busy time for me but I’ve been working on some pretty fun stuff. I’ll share a little with you.
Mint allocation
I’ve been exploring ways to streamline the process of managing multimint payments. The goal is to reduce the manual effort required by users when handling multiple mints. The core idea revolves around allowing users to set percentage allocations for each mint, which the wallet then uses to manage future payments automatically. I’m calling this setting mint allocation.
Mint allocation shifts the burden of calculating payment amounts from the user to the wallet. Initially, users set target ratios for their mints, prompting the wallet to perform an initial multimint swap that balances funds according to these specified distributions. After sharing this initial concept on twitter I got some really good feedback from Aldert Greijdanus, Lead Designer at Synonym.
Aldert raised a great point about the mental load involved in requiring users to decide on distribution ratios. To ease this burden (following the principle of “Don’t make me think”) an automatic option could be added at the start of the mint allocation process. Here’s how it could work: when users first launch the mint allocation setup, they would be presented with a selection screen featuring two options: “automatic” or “custom.” If the user opts for the automatic setting they would be guided to a preselected, locked sliders, with each mint being assigned an even allocation. Introducing an automatic mode allows both novice and advanced users to benefit from the risk reduction that mint allocation offers.
I’m really bullish on mint allocation feature. I think it can help address one of the biggest criticisms of bitcoin backed ecash: the risk of a mint rugging or running away with a user’s funds. This is an ever-present risk with any custodial bitcoin solution. Mint allocation gives users a way to reduce that risk by spreading their funds across different mints and maintaining that spread automatically, without having to think about it.
Simplifying mint access and setup
A user in the Cashu Discord recently provided feedback suggesting that they would like the ability to scan a QR code to join a mint, similar to the functionality supported by the Fedi app for joining federations. To gauge interest, I conducted an unscientific poll on Nostr and Twitter to see if Cashu users would be interested in this feature. Despite the small sample size, the response suggests there is interest. This should be a relatively simple feature for developers to include in their wallets. Minibits already supports adding a mint by scanning a QR code, but as far as I know, no Cashu apps currently support displaying a mint in the form of a QR code. In the future I’d love to see more applications support this feature. It would be great if bitcoin mints could display a mint’s QR code allowing users to simply scan their screen to join a mint.
However, the most interesting piece of feedback came from Kelbie, who suggested something I think could be incredibly useful: the ability to export configurations in the form of a QR code. Imagine this use case: you’ve onboarded a friend onto a Cashu wallet. You’ve already done your due diligence, joined a few trusted mints, and allocated your funds accordingly. Now you want to quickly set up your friend with the same configuration. Without a quick way to share your setup your friend would need to connect to your mints manually and then set their mint allocation. A much quicker solution would be to introduce the ability to scan a configuration QR code during new user onboarding. I love this suggestion and I’ll be exploring some UI designs for it in the coming weeks.
Bitcoin.design guide’s ecash section
Progress continues on the bitcoin.design guides section on ecash. I’ve made solid headway on the introduction and Cashu chapters, and the feedback from community members on the draft pull request has been really encouraging. Recently I made some significant changes to the landing page structure based on feedback from Mo. These changes resulted in the content from the overview section being embedded into the introduction section. I believe this makes the guide flow more naturally. Now the landing page functions less like a table of contents and more like an introduction with clickable sections that allow users to dive deeper as they learn. I’m planning to do one last cleanup before sharing this progress more publicly on Twitter and Nostr and inviting additional community feedback.
Other things
For anyone planning to attend Baltic Honey Badger in two weeks, I’ll see you there! I’ll be speaking on a panel about Cashu. It’ll be great to reunite with old friends and meet new ones. This will be my third Baltic Honey Badger in a row and the second one I’m speaking at. Time really flies!
I’ve also been working on a huge update to Hoseki Verified. I don’t often talk much about my work at Hoseki here but we’ve been on a pretty solid run lately. The new website I redesigned launched a few weeks ago, and I’m currently working on some exciting changes to the Hoseki Verified issuer profile pages. These updates will really elevate the design which is desperately needed. I think the current design is acceptable but it doesn’t showcase my best work since it was done under a time crunch. Now that I’ve finally been given some more time to refine things and I’m slowly getting happy with the outcome. Here’s a little sneak peek.
Apart from that I’ve been listening to a lot of music from my formative years. I recently stumbled upon a podcast that did a deep dive into MF DOOM, an artist who has stuck with me from adolescence to today. I was listening to Operation Doomsday a lot while working on the designs I shared above. It made me reflect on where I am now and what I do today. I don’t think my middle school self, listening to Operation Doomsday, could have ever imagined I’d be living in Sweden designing untraceable electronic cash systems for magic internet money.
I love my life and I’m eternally grateful for all the things that bring me joy. MF DOOM’s music is one of those many things. RIP DOOM.
Everything is going according to plan man,
Erik