TerrenceRubioNTU

tech

Hello fellow stackers! 👋

We are the team working on the [Validating Lightning Signer (VLS)](https://vls.tech) FOSS project: @devrandom, @ken6, @JackRonaldi 

VLS is a nifty piece of software that helps boost the security of the Bitcoin Lightning Network. 🛡️

Here's how it works: usually, your private keys are stored on your Lightning node, but if a hacker gets into your node, they could snatch your funds. To avoid this, VLS keeps your private keys separate from your node. So, even if the bad guys compromise your node, your funds are safu.

VLS doesn't stop there, though. 

When you're making transactions, instead of your lightning node signing the transactions internally, they are forwarded to VLS running on a secure signing device.  VLS double-checks everything and confirms that the transaction does not steal or lose funds before it signs.  This extra layer of security significantly reduces the attack surface for a lightning network user. It's a real game-changer.

Plus, VLS opens the door to using multi-signature setups in the Lightning Network, much like the multi-signature wallets you might know from Bitcoin L1. The idea here is that, just like a bank vault needing two keys to open, a transaction would need more than one signature to go through. This makes it even harder for anyone with bad intentions to get their hands on your funds.

Topics to ask us about:
* What is VLS?
* Why is VLS important?
* How does VLS work?
* How can I try VLS?
* How do we work with you?
* What does our roadmap look like?
* Wen multi-sig?
* What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
* What is the answer to the ultimate question of the life, the universe and everything?

We'll do our best to answer questions for the rest of the day.

Let's go! ⚡️


Validating Lightning Signer - AMA

bitcoin_beginners

Great new video from @JoeNakamoto

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_PNiqIOjVA

Off Grid Steve- Sold his house for Bitcoin 

health

Tips to flourishing in Million Sats Madness

GloriaAdkins8NY

You do not compete with those giants... you make them obsolete. 
You step out of their system. And you have many alternatives today.
But this takes time, education, OSS.

meta

I'm starting to see a large inflow from Chinese miner sellers I've never heard of before in my telegram DMs. They promise better pricing than other sellers, but is the risk worth it?

The mining industry is incredibly difficult from the procurement side because of how many players there are, as well as that there are sellers constantly misrepresenting information, or flat out scamming people for their hard earned Bitcoin. Getting scammed in some circumstances can turn some miners operations completely upside down. This is an industry with thin margins and high capex. 

There will be a lot of legitimate, smaller miner sales popping up this market who have zero overhead, and are willing to sell miners at thinner margins as a result. If that seller gets scammed, which often happens, there is a good potential that they won't have the money to make it right and refund you. There are also risks of individuals playing fast and loose when it comes to customs which could fall on the customer. 

The cheaper price is not always the better deal, and many indviduals are about to learn this the hard way. Learning to assess risk is important and I want to highlight some risks for people to consider before buying miners. 

1. Make sure to verify the person you are talking to is real. 

When you search my name on telegram, you will likely see 3-4 accounts impersonating me. If someone has a following or reputation, scammers will try to take advantage of that by impersonating them. There's not a whole lot than can be done about it. I take phone calls, do video calls, etc to try to help avoid people getting scammed. It's good to check groups you share with them, verify off of websites if the seller has one, etc. Be wary and assume the other person isn't real until you can do some verifying to have confidence in them. 

2. Choose companies with good reputations 

Reputation is incredibly important and it's something that Kaboomracks cares about. It is something that is difficult to maintain in the space, and some times requires losing money on deals to make sure the customer is whole. Asking individuals their buying experience from different companies you may not have worked with before is a good step. Verify, verify verify. 

3. You can sue Americans, good luck suing Chinese companies 

Unfortunately, lawsuits are sometimes necessary to make sure you get what you paid for. In the case that you get rug pulled by a Chinese seller located in China, it will be very difficult to get any money back. In the case you are dealing with an established American company, it will be a lot easier to use courts to hopefully get your money back. 

4. Cheapest pricing often means larger risk 

Best price on containers, infrastructure, and miners can either mean a really good deal, or a lot of risk that the seller isn't telling you about. Margin packed into sales allows for the seller to have cash on hand to handle any issues if a transaction goes sideways, which they definitely can. 

5. Verify real websites of companies

There will be clones of websites, especially of the manufacturers. There are people trying to sell miner models that do not exist. Be wary of this and question every link someone you do not know sends you. You can ask someone to email you from an email with the company domain as a form of proof they are actually associated with who they are claiming to be. 

6. If you are uncertain, phone a friend 

I spend a lot of time talking with my customers about other venders, trying to steer them away from potential scam companies. I want to sell miners, and am willing to lose sales in the short term if it means a long term relationship. If my customer gets scammed and goes under, it doesn't do me any good. I have the opportunity to interact with a lot of vendors of various products because it's what I do full time for a job. Asking someone you trust in the industry is a good step. Getting multiple opinions is also good. 

7. Don't host outside the US, or at least know the risks 

If you live in the US, hosting outside the country can look attractive due to cheaper hosting rates. The reality is that there is often increased risk. Operating in countries outside the US is not like operating in the US. 

Be safe out there. 

Beware of Mining Scams This Cycle | Best practices to not get scammed 

bitcoin

Do not fall for it again.

Legalese is tricky for those not versed within it. Surprisingly, many (low level) judges &  lawyers still do not understand the statutory construction concepts of *ejusdem generis* or *noscitur a sociis*.

Let's look at the last sentence of Section 1 of EO 6102:

**The term "person" means any individual, partnership, association or corporation.**

At first glance, it looks like the word "individual" would apply to an actual human being. When a definition contains a list such as this, the terms within the list must be within the same class. Human beings are not within the same class as the other commercial/statutory entities within this list, so in this case, an "individual" is just *one* of those other "persons".

Rarely does a person mean a human being, but it is often misapplied to us. Those that know how to fight it in court can ensure that it is not, but unfortunately, many do not have the want to learn court process and fight it.

To see when a person actually means a regular human being, look at the definition of "person" within your state's penal code.

Executive Order 6102 did NOT apply to regular men and women

# Reviewers and testers wanted

This project has just moved out of alpha and into beta. It's time to polish things up and prepare the project for a stable release! Help wanted to get things across the line.

# About the project:

A light-weight Lightning auth provider for your Next.js app that's entirely self-hosted and plugs seamlessly into the [next-auth](https://github.com/nextauthjs/next-auth) framework.

You can find the project on [npm](https://www.npmjs.com/package/next-auth-lightning-provider) and [GitHub](https://github.com/jowo-io/next-auth-lightning-provider)

### Technical review

##### Focus

If you're a JavaScript or TypeScript engineer, or have an understanding of `React`, `OAuth`, `lnurl-auth`, `Next.js`, `next-auth` or OSS in general, you can help by taking a look at the codebase and leaving your thoughts on:

In order of importance:

- Security - are there any security concerns that I've overlooked?
- Installation - do you have a `Next.js` app that uses `next-auth`? Install this package and let me know how it goes!
- Use-cases - are there any use cases or scenarios that I should add support for?
- Implementation - would you implement things differently in the codebase and why?
- Any other suggestions

##### Avoid

At this late stage in the project development, please avoid small syntactical suggestions or opinionated coding style suggestions. No nit-picking please :)

### Non-technical review

If you're not a coder, you can still help out.

##### Documentation

There are various `README.md` documents that need sense checking. Any typos that I've overlooked also need catching!

Here's a list of all the `README.md` files in the project.

- [/README.md](https://github.com/jowo-io/next-auth-lightning-provider/blob/main/README.md)
- [/examples/README.md](https://github.com/jowo-io/next-auth-lightning-provider/blob/main/examples/README.md)
- [/examples/kv/README.md](https://github.com/jowo-io/next-auth-lightning-provider/blob/main/examples/kv/README.md)
- [/examples/drizzle/README.md](https://github.com/jowo-io/next-auth-lightning-provider/blob/main/examples/drizzle/README.md)
- [/examples/plain-js/README.md](https://github.com/jowo-io/next-auth-lightning-provider/blob/main/examples/plain-js/README.md)
- [/examples/app-router/README.md](https://github.com/jowo-io/next-auth-lightning-provider/blob/main/examples/app-router/README.md)
- [/examples/ui-app-router/README.md](https://github.com/jowo-io/next-auth-lightning-provider/blob/main/examples/ui-app-router/README.md)
- [/examples/ui-pages-router/README.md](https://github.com/jowo-io/next-auth-lightning-provider/blob/main/examples/ui-pages-router/README.md)

##### Code comments

There are also many code comments dotted around the codebase. You can search for them on GitHub:

[https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Ajowo-io%2Fnext-auth-lightning-provider+%28%22%2F%2F+%22+OR+%22%2F%2F++_%22%29+%28path%3A_.js+OR+path%3A*.ts+OR+path%3A*.jsx+OR+path%3A\*.tsx%29&type=code](https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Ajowo-io%2Fnext-auth-lightning-provider+%28%22%2F%2F+%22+OR+%22%2F%2F++*%22%29+%28path%3A*.js+OR+path%3A*.ts+OR+path%3A*.jsx+OR+path%3A*.tsx%29&type=code)

> NOTE: you'll need a GitHub account to use the above link.

# Rewards

All reviewers and testers will receive a shout out in the project's main `README.md` file. And of course, in the spirit of SN, you'll stack some sats!

Sats will be rewarded at my discretion, ranging from 1,000 up to 200,000+ depending on your level of contribution. Quality, not necessarily quantity, will also be considered. For example, if you find a high-severity bug that takes one line of code to fix you'll be rewarded based on the level of impact.

# Leaving a review

I'd suggest opening an issue on GitHub before opening a PR, so feel free. Otherwise you can simply leave comments on here on SN.


Reviewers and testers wanted for OpenSats funded OSS Lightning project!

# Bankify
Turn any cashu mint into a lightning wallet with NWC support

# What is bankify?
Bankify is a response to a frustration I've had: not enough custodial bitcoin wallets support Nostr Wallet Connect aka NWC. The only ones I'm aware of (til I released this app) are getalby.com, cashu.me, and mutiny wallet if you configure it to use a federation first. But mutiny wallet is [shutting down](https://blog.mutinywallet.com/mutiny-wallet-is-shutting-down/) and alby wallet [stopped opening new accounts](https://stacker.news/items/640256) for their custodial service, so only cashu.me will work in the near future. Bankify to the rescue!

# How can I try it?
Just click here: https://supertestnet.github.io/bankify/

# How does it work?
Cashu mints have a standardized api for "melting" and "minting" ecash tokens, and these api endpoints are effectively the same as "receive" and "send" buttons in other custodial wallets. The "melt" option lets you pay a mint with ecash and in return they will pay a lightning invoice for you, and the "mint" option lets you request a lightning invoice from the mint, such that upon being paid, the mint will give you an equivalent amount of ecash tokens. So I made a simple storage service that does those things automatically in the background, including managing ecash, and just gives you nice and easy Send and Receive buttons. This app *also* runs a Nostr Wallet Connect server in the background so that NWC clients can connect to it and give it commands using *that* standardized api. So essentially this app just translates between two custodial api standards.

# WARNINGS
This wallet stores your private keys and ecash notes unencrypted in localStorage. That means browser extensions and stuff like that can read the data there and steal your money. Moreover, if you clear your cookies very thoroughly, your money will disappear. Beyond that, ecash always comes with the standard "custodial wallet" trust assumptions: if the mint wants to steal from you, it's very easy for them; if they get arrested, your money will probably be gone; if they get hacked, you're out of luck. I made this app for testing purposes and I warn you: don't put any money in it unless you're happy to lose that money for the pursuit of science.

Also: the NWC connection lives *in your browser* so if you *close* your browser it stops working. Therefore, I do not recommend using Bankify for zaps on nostr. Your nostr client will probably try to give it commands while your browser is closed, and it just won't work.

# View on github
https://github.com/supertestnet/bankify