[Discussion] Forum tipping service

[BlackHatCoiner]

I've started developing an old project that I had left behind, bitcointalk lightning tips. If you're interested in this idea, I kindly ask you to post your opinion below.

For the time being, it will work like this:

• Accounts can be created by proving you own your bitcointalk account. Once registration is complete, you will be given a private code which must be kept secret. You only need this to login, and your session lasts for a long time.
• To tip a post, you need to have a balance. To have a balance, you need to deposit via lightning. You will be given an invoice to pay from my server.
• When someone tips you, your balance increases. To withdraw your bitcoin, you provide a lightning invoice (bolt 11).
• A browser extension will be available, where you can view tipped posts in the same way merit transactions are publicly available. e.g., Merited by BlackHatCoiner (4), sat tipped by BlackHatCoiner (1,000)
• Tips can be also made privately if you don't want the rest of the users to view to which users you send or by which you receive tips.
• A registered account can tip any post, even authors that do not have an account on my server. They can claim their tips once they register.

I would like to dedicate this topic for discussion. I want to see how many people are interested / would use it.

My main problem is the architecture of the browser extension. I'm struggling to see how you will query my database for tips. Querying 25 tips (which is the maximum posts a page can have) sounds like really slowing down the browsing experience in bitcointalk. Do you have any recommendations on to how to do this efficiently?

[1714231957]

1714231957

[franky1]

To have a balance, you need to deposit via lightning. You will be given an invoice to pay from my server.[/li]
[li]When someone tips you, your balance increases. To withdraw your bitcoin, you provide a lightning invoice (bolt 11).[/li][/list]
My main problem is the architecture of the browser extension. I'm struggling to see how you will query my database for tips.

in short. blackhatcoin owns your coin. you just get HIS msat balance of his database

funny part is by operating a payment facility. blackhatcoiner becomes a MSB and has to register and then follow regulations.. (KYC)

[TryNinja]

in short. blackhatcoin owns your coin. you just get HIS msat balance of his database

That's true, but it's not like the stakes are too high. How many people would use this extension? How many would deposit even $10 at once? I would definitely keep (risk) $5 in my account to tip $0.25 or so to a few posts. And topping it up would be easy (and cheap).

funny part is by operating a payment facility. blackhatcoiner becomes a MSB and has to register and then follow regulations.. (KYC)

Register to whom?

[BlackHatCoiner]

in short. blackhatcoin owns your coin. you just get HIS msat balance of his database

Correct. So you should not deposit amounts you can't afford to lose.

funny part is by operating a payment facility. blackhatcoiner becomes a MSB and has to register and then follow regulations.. (KYC)

I don't see how this is funny, but indeed. That is a money transmitting service.


I would kindly request to keep the discussion on-topic and not on the legal part which is my business. The point of this thread is to see how many people are interested, and to discuss potential problems I might even have not thought of yet.

[digaran]

Will you be controlling all the funds? I was hoping this to be implemented on forum itself. It is actually a brilliant idea and further more it could be used even to pay campaign participants all through the use of LN, I think the LN shills need to invest in this idea with financial support, a great opportunity to introduce LN to the masses. Where do I sign up?

[TryNinja]

My main problem is the architecture of the browser extension. I'm struggling to see how you will query my database for tips. Querying 25 tips (which is the maximum posts a page can have) sounds like really slowing down the browsing experience in bitcointalk. Do you have any recommendations on to how to do this efficiently?

Get all posts on the current page -> send a single request to your API with an array of post ids -> data is returned if any tipping was found -> render it on the page.

BPIP's extension does something similar. You get into a topic, it will send a single query for all users on the current page and show if they were banned or are inactive, if they are DT1/2, etc... I even have an API which is used by the extension to grab the number of topics the user has posted to.

The data for every tipping should be indexed on a database like Postgres or Elasticsearch (both used for the ninjastic.space website). Then searching it is trivial.

No slowing down whatsoever.

[BenCodie]

in short. blackhatcoin owns your coin. you just get HIS msat balance of his database

That's true, but it's not like the stakes are too high. How many people would use this extension? How many would deposit even $10 at once? I would definitely keep (risk) $5 in my account to tip $0.25 or so to a few posts. And topping it up would be easy (and cheap).

funny part is by operating a payment facility. blackhatcoiner becomes a MSB and has to register and then follow regulations.. (KYC)

Register to whom?

In the case of $0.25/tip (probably the higher end of the average tip if this system were live, bar inevitably ridiculous exceptions) , it would take an individual to receive 40-160 ($10-$40) tips just to make closing the LN channel to redeem their tips worth it. Not feasible in these network conditions, and not very feasible even in conditions where BTC network traffic is lower. Yes, I know, it is a novelty feature, not for people to care about being able to redeem their tips or closing the channel...but that is still an important factor nonetheless.

If signature campaigns are not used with LN (which would then exceed the risk level of this centralized feature excessively), then the result of this tipping system is likely to be an pointless feature due to its very limited redeemability...Think about it...what one earns over 1, 2, or 3 years in tips, is what a signature campaign could earn in 0.5-1 week...

Not to mention, merits indirectly enable signature campaigns... So, merits already serve the purpose of a tip in a way.

...and again, it's centralized, opening the door to a lot of potential issues and vulnerabilities for users and the operator.

I see the novelty here though I personally wouldn't use this feature, and I wouldn't encourage anyone to use this feature. Time and effort could be better spent elsewhere.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Will you be controlling all the funds?

I will have custody of the funds. But, the funds will be yours. I was thinking of implementing a solution that would respect self-custody, but it would require you to run a lightning node. That is a serious burden and not attractive.

I was hoping this to be implemented on forum itself.

This forum is barely handling reports to moderators. I very much doubt it would ever introduce such a feature.

It is actually a brilliant idea and further more it could be used even to pay campaign participants all through the use of LN

Campaign participants should not be paid in lightning. This is why:

It has never been a better time, but remember that it still is for micro-payments. Weekly payouts can be up to thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin. Plus, there are the economic problems of sending a new invoice every week, needed to be online to receive payment. Then, it is the other transaction fees. I'm pretty sure moving thousands via lightning is neither attractive, maybe worse than on-chain.

Where do I sign up?

Not ready, yet.

The data for every tipping should be indexed on a database like Postgres or Elasticsearch (both used for the ninjastic.space website). Then searching it is trivial.

I'm working on MySQL. It just sounds computationally inexpensive to tell of a user is banned or inactive, versus search for a message ID on a table with all the tipping transactions.

[...]

Thanks. Feedback is very welcomed.

[TryNinja]

I'm working on MySQL. It just sounds computationally inexpensive to tell of a user is banned or inactive, versus search for a message ID on a table with all the tipping transactions.

Databases can be more efficient than you expect. I have 51,9 million posts on my Elasticsearch database and just queried for all your posts on my archive (8538) in less than 1 second. Now think about caching!

In the case of $0.25/tip (probably the higher end of the average tip if this system were live, bar inevitably ridiculous exceptions) , it would take an individual to receive 40-160 ($10-$40) tips just to make closing the LN channel to redeem their tips worth it. Not feasible in these network conditions, and not very feasible even in conditions where BTC network traffic is lower. Yes, I know, it is a novelty feature, not for people to care about being able to redeem their tips or closing the channel...but that is still an important factor nonetheless.

You don't have to setup and close your own channels. You can forward your tips to an exchange that supports LN, like Kraken, and there it is.

[dkbit98]

I've started developing an old project that I had left behind, bitcointalk lightning tips. If you're interested in this idea, I kindly ask you to post your opinion below.

I think adding Tipping service in bitcointalk forum would be very good, but I am no sure all members are ready for LN yet.
A while ago one of our local board members posted interesting open source LN project called getalby.com, maybe you should check it out.
This is already made browser extension and project is active with updates and development.
I think getlaby would work perfectly integrated with bitcointalk forum.

[SamReomo]

I think you have came up with a very nice idea and if somehow you get success in implementing it on this forum even in the form of an extension then that would be an amazing feature for many users. I believe mostly the ones who are running their own announcement threads can use the tipping feature to tip those users who post useful and informative posts on those announcement threads.

I would like to know that what can we do if we unfortunately lose that private code that was given to us during registration?

Can we somehow be able to recover it in case if we lose it or we won't be able to get it again?

Another important thing I want to know that the ones who may send tips should must have accounts on your server or they can directly do that by installing the extension?

[franky1]

in short. blackhatcoin owns your coin. you just get HIS msat balance of his database

That's true, but it's not like the stakes are too high. How many people would use this extension? How many would deposit even $10 at once? I would definitely keep (risk) $5 in my account to tip $0.25 or so to a few posts. And topping it up would be easy (and cheap).

well if you got to lock value into blackhat. knowing the onchain fee's are more then $5. you would end up throwing in 99x of $5 just to make the fee worthy of just 1% thinking you then dont have to keep topping up..
so in the end you will end up giving more then $5 to blackhat.. because.. economics

same issue arrises on the way out(closing) as bencodie explains

In the case of $0.25/tip (probably the higher end of the average tip if this system were live, bar inevitably ridiculous exceptions) , it would take an individual to receive 40-160 ($10-$40) tips just to make closing the LN channel to redeem their tips worth it. Not feasible in these network conditions, and not very feasible even in conditions where BTC network traffic is lower. Yes, I know, it is a novelty feature, not for people to care about being able to redeem their tips or closing the channel...but that is still an important factor nonetheless.

funny part is by operating a payment facility. blackhatcoiner becomes a MSB and has to register and then follow regulations.. (KYC)

Register to whom?

well he is greek, so he is part of EU so it would be registering as a PFP (payment facilitation provider) rather than the american term MSB
and he would need to register using the guidelines of Mica

now that he realises that he would have to operate officially as a PFP. maybe he will be see it now more "attractive" to create a decentralise/user custody system without a middleman

heck he doesnt even need to use LN. but instead another subnetwork, heck he can even design a new subnetwork without the LN flaws..

[BlackHatCoiner]

Databases can be more efficient than you expect. I have 51,9 million posts on my Elasticsearch database and just queried for all your posts on my archive (8538) in less than 1 second. Now think about caching!

Indeed. Just imported all the usernames of bitcointalk in a mysql table, and searched four of them. It finished in less than a second. Caching and hash indexes are probably what speed up data retrieval by that degree.

You don't have to setup and close your own channels. You can forward your tips to an exchange that supports LN, like Kraken, and there it is.

Or, if you don't have enough balance to withdraw the minimum amount of the exchange, you can tip others. I have not used Kraken, though, it might accept any lightning amount.

I think getlaby would work perfectly integrated with bitcointalk forum.

Cool, but as per my understanding, getAlby's browser extension is sort of like a lightweight lightning wallet. My browsing extension will simply send API requests and play a little bit with the forum's page structure.

I would like to know that what can we do if we unfortunately lose that private code that was given to us during registration?

There is no problem, you will just click on "Lost my private code" and be requested to re-prove your account's ownership, similarly as to when you registered.

The problem is when the private code is compromised. In that case, the attacker can steal your tips.

[franky1]

You don't have to setup and close your own channels. You can forward your tips to an exchange that supports LN, like Kraken, and there it is.

Or, if you don't have enough balance to withdraw the minimum amount of the exchange, you can tip others.

and there is the immoral of the story
keep cycling blackhats custody funds around inside blackhats database

its not even an original story

I would like to know that what can we do if we unfortunately lose that private code that was given to us during registration?

There is no problem, you will just click on "Lost my private code" and be requested to re-prove your account's ownership, similarly as to when you registered.

The problem is when the private code is compromised. In that case, the attacker can steal your tips.

blackhat also providing and managing "private codes"
HAAA funny

much easier that users use their own keys and just send blackhat PM of a signatured message
[pay poster of message link=topic=5480044.msg63431048#msg63431048 date=1704229260 100sat]
signed with address: bc1q....

that way blackhat knows who authorised it and users can register their own 'signing' PUBLIC key to use as proof of authority, so that even blackhat doesnt touch private keys

[paid2]

I find the idea very interesting, a bit like the bot that lets you tip sats on r/Bitcoin.

However, aren't you afraid that this will lead to a form of abuse on the forum (spam, the race to be on the first page of a new topic etc.)? This already exists, but wouldn't such a feature make things worse?

And aren't these just parallel merits?
We all already have the option of putting a BTC address on our profile, wouldn't it be easier to add a LN profile-box for potential tips (if fees remain high on-chain)? That would solve the custody problem.

[cryptosize]

I've started developing an old project that I had left behind, bitcointalk lightning tips. If you're interested in this idea, I kindly ask you to post your opinion below.

I think adding Tipping service in bitcointalk forum would be very good, but I am no sure all members are ready for LN yet.
A while ago one of our local board members posted interesting open source LN project called getalby.com, maybe you should check it out.
This is already made browser extension and project is active with updates and development.
I think getlaby would work perfectly integrated with bitcointalk forum.

Alby is custodial, IIRC. What do you mean it's open-source?

[dkbit98]

Cool, but as per my understanding, getAlby's browser extension is sort of like a lightweight lightning wallet. My browsing extension will simply send API requests and play a little bit with the forum's page structure.

Yeah but that is going to be a whole new extensions starting from scratch, that usually means lot of bugs and not many people willing to test it.

What do you mean it's open-source?

I mean this, open source MIT license:
https://github.com/getAlby/lightning-browser-extension

I don't think it's hard to explain (to most people) what that means 
Go ahead and make your own non-custodial alternative, can't wait to see it.

[BlackHatCoiner]

much easier that users use their own keys and just send blackhat PM of a signatured message

It's less attractive. To make an account you need to provide a public key, which you must have generated beforehand. Besides, since I will have custody of your funds, why does it matter? Whether it is a private code, or a signed message, it happens for me to authenticate your account.

However, aren't you afraid that this will lead to a form of abuse on the forum (spam, the race to be on the first page of a new topic etc.)? This already exists, but wouldn't such a feature make things worse?

I'm not afraid it will lead to a "tip race" of the first page, as it already exists with merits. I'm afraid it will be abused in the following manner: alt accounts will tip each other and make it look as if they're millionaires. It doesn't harm anyone though, does it? Pretty much the opposite. It reveals who owns alt accounts.

We all already have the option of putting a BTC address on our profile, wouldn't it be easier to add a LN profile-box for potential tips (if fees remain high on-chain)? That would solve the custody problem.

No, because very few people run lightning nodes, and if you don't run a lightning node, you don't have custody in lightning.

Yeah but that is going to be a whole new extensions starting from scratch, that usually means lot of bugs and not many people willing to test it.

I'll contact them when needed. Thanks.


If someone has thought of a way to send tips without forfeiting custody of their sat and without running a node, inform me. I will completely reconstruct the project from zero. Currently, the only viable solution appears to be one without custody. While I strongly advocate for self-custody, I don't perceive it as a significant concern, given that tips are intended to be of modest amounts.

[apogio]

The idea is brilliant.

It is widely used with Nostr UIs. For example this is Jack Mallers' profile. You can head over to the lightning icon and it will load a screen like this:



If you click on the "Zap X sats" icon it will guide you to a QR code and a lightning invoice.

Then, clicking on the "pay now" it will require you to open the wallet of your choice in order to pay. For example we could use something like alby, which requires a plugin to be installed on the browser.

So, to break it down for you, in order for this to function, we need:

1. A way to post invoices as a payee. This one is tricky if you don't run your own node, but theoretically you could create an invoice and post it somewhere. Once the invoice is paid, it gets cancelled and then they need to enter a new one. This should take place automatically. I suggest reading how nostr implements it, as defined in NIP-57.

2. A way to pay someone as a payer. This one is very easy in my opinion, because you can use whatever wallet you want.

[cryptosize]

What do you mean it's open-source?

I mean this, open source MIT license:
https://github.com/getAlby/lightning-browser-extension

I don't think it's hard to explain (to most people) what that means 
Go ahead and make your own non-custodial alternative, can't wait to see it.

You don't have to be passive aggressive.

Would you trust Binance more if they made their platform open-source on Github?

Most likely not, because it's a custodial service. That's what I meant for Alby. If you trust them for your funds, use them.