Vic on Nostr: Cashu does not put satoshis INTO bearer ecash tokens. It issues an independent token ...

Cashu does not put satoshis INTO bearer ecash tokens. It issues an independent token which on its own is incompatible with every other cashu mint doing the same.

A mint itself takes possession of the sats, and offers a service to
- give you tokens for sats
- swap tokens for fresh tokens
- accept requests to pay bolt11 lightning invoices denominated in satoshis and provides an offer exchange rate
- may fullfill payment of aforementioned invoices through bridging to lightning network.

When you send satoshis to a cashu mint, you are effectively selling your sats for tokens under the hope that you can later get some of that value back.

quoting
nevent1q…nnyk

- Proof of work was invented to prevent spam.
- Satoshi used PoW to rate-limit block production.
- Blocks create scarce Satoshis.
- Cashu puts Satoshis into bearer ecash tokens.
- KeyChat (privacy messenger) uses Cashu tokens as stamps to prevent spam.

Full circle adam3us (npub1qg8…24kw).