wallet of satoshi is a closed source custodial bitcoin wallet that many bitcoiners have installed on their phones with camera and clipboard permissions, most new bitcoiners throughout the developing world use it, and the overwhelming majority of nostr users in my mind there are only three possible scenarios for WoS: rug, shotgun kyc, or deliberate honeypot

Replies (108)

MikeMonty's avatar
MikeMonty 2 years ago
Using computer versions for ordinals showed me how much of a barrier to entry there is when it comes to easy adoption by the public. Wos offers an easy entry but does not offer self custody (based on what I’ve seen so far with zaps). Is there any known way for normies to get into this without having to sacrifice their sovereignty? It seems like a skill tree that needs to be experienced to understand and avoid becoming prey to the sophisticated users with ill intent.
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buffalo 2 years ago
Noobs, if you are using wos, move to @OpenSecret Its effortless. Really impressed with it so far. Hopefully, wos users can afford LSP channel open fees.
Never put more in WoS than you would in your real wallet/purse when going out for a drink and asking a random stranger in Australia to hold your real wallet/purse for you.
Freebird's avatar
Freebird 2 years ago
Zapping you from my WoS 🙈😂🤣 Seriously though, 2023 has been the year of learning for me, from getting clued up on btc, Nostr, setting up a business, learning heaps of new tech... When I set up wos I didn't want to but I did it, as a temporary solution, bc I had info overload and everyone kept saying "just do WoS, it's simple". I wasn't comfortable with it but did it bc it was a no-brainer. I knew I was going for convenience and would end up having to revisit. I don't keep much on it though, just enough for zaps on Nostr.
mleku's avatar
mleku 2 years ago
rug seems unlikely, i only use it cos i only have pocket change in it, i'd say this is common, they charge like wounded bulls on submarine swaps out - last time i used this i was stung 14000 sats, literally couldn't do it, just zapped it into my xapo and that was that. shotgun kyc, idk, they'd probably lose too many customers, and honeypot, well, jesus i'm just setting up a mysql container inside a VM on my machine just now and fastly.com IP address appears in the netstat. no idea - maybe mysql dialing home to do telemetry? point being that you wouldn't believe how much telemetry is going on everywhere. arch linux pacman dials home by default, for example. i'm seriously gonna migrate my whole stack to freebsd in the near future and lock down the firewall hard and keep track of every incursion ip address and start looking into who these people are.
WoS should be considered to have comparable security to the mesh pockets in the waistband of bathing suits. Could the $5 bill I put in there get swept out to sea? Yes. But I might want a sno-cone, and taking the risk is worth it. Knowing the risk is indeed important.
Mr Robot's avatar
Mr Robot 2 years ago
What’s a secure non-custodial Lightning option?
Not gonna lie, I never liked the name "Wallet of Satoshi". Something about it sounds self-important and sus af
IRAIZU's avatar
IRAIZU 2 years ago
Money shouldn't be controlled by a group of people nor should our wallets.
And let’s not overlook the fourth option, the pièce de résistance – it might just blossom into a unicorn, proving cynics wrong by sheer, improbable magic! 😆 With options like these, who needs a lottery ticket?
The one i believe you’re missing is the obvious one which is that WoS is run by a OG bitcoiner seeking to make Lightning accessible with the simplest wallet UI/UX .. which they’ve nailed I’m not downplaying the tradeoffs here but pushing back on the malevolent actor BS
Pain is the best teacher but also I do appreciate Wallet Of Satoshi as a pocket cash type lightning wallet great for zapping around small amounts or for merchants in my area who want sats for coffee/ food
What LN wallet provider seems to provide 99.9% uptime and prove that LN is actually feasible for Bitcoin? Because nothing else seems to give me an experience that simply "works". Through zapathons especially...
Kimico's avatar
Kimico 2 years ago
As a developer who does things with bitcoin in good faith, I understand and agree, but it discourages
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nobody 2 years ago
#asknostr What’s the best way to send MAX amount from Wallet of Satoshi? I’m often going back and forth trying to work around this error. image View quoted note →
Australia has become a testing ground for surveillance tech- that often gets exported to the west. See the recent introduction of the digital id- for verifying your identity online.
Think about if most internet products integrate Bitcoin! What is the most frequently use in daily life? It's not the matter about custody and non-custodial. It is about the application level.
Only way to get rid of this suspicion is hosting LN server on our own. Any app can have backdoors. Bitcoin teached us to trust no one and be your own bank. Maybe we can't completely switch to self hosted wallets but at least everybody can store big chunk of Bitcoin in their cold wallet/paper wallet and use LN wallets as a tipping/daily using money source. For me, 50$ is enough portion to keep in LN wallet.
As someone wise once said, build first, talk about it later. WoS built software that's popular with Bitcoiners & newbies alike. They've figured out a revenue model that seems ethical. Don't store your savings with custodians. Use some entropy with your password manager & don't store your keys in it.
This reminds me of those baptist street preachers that hold up signs saying your going to hell but don't tell you how to get to heaven. Calling out custodial wallets is step 1, but now you've used your influence to all but make yourself responsible for step 2, giving people the means to smoothly move from egypt to the promise land. View quoted note →
TBH I’ve been feeling this for a few years now. I don’t have much on it as it’s just one of the wallets I use when showing friends how easy things are, but yeah this thought has been in the back of my mind for some time now.
Are you aware of bitcoin park? Ten31? The guides he’s put out over the years to help newbies get on boarded to proper self-custodial wallets? The amount of events he’s organized with the goal of teaching people how to use self-custodial bitcoin wallet properly and privately? How he’s been screaming this from the rooftops for 4+ years? @ODELL has done more for “step 2” than anyone I know. God Bless him.
Yes, he’s built/done everything out in the open. Also, add OpenSats to that list. Non-profit he helped create to raise funding for free and open source software and freedom tech (mostly bitcoin and some nostr).
Way too many people using closed source apps with permissions to almost anything. Better UX around foss apps is desperately needed to raise the average user's opsec. I'm working on it View quoted note →
Lucid's avatar
Lucid 2 years ago
What is the solution?
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deleted 2 years ago
Zeus has solved for this with their embedded node mobile wallet and zaplocker 🤙
lol u wanna move your chicken piece from a fox's mouth to a lion's mouth - makes no difference either u r joking - for waiting armbendstrong rugpull install bluewallet in your mobile ADD wallet choose MAINNET then do LN-> mainnet swap using deezy.io or boltz.exchange move 2.88BTC from WOS to Blue-wallet selfcustody mainnet
Which is why I only keep <$100 on it. It trumps all others for speed and convenience. But like much of the internet, all that functionality comes at the expense of privacy and security.
PSA: these are also the only possible scenarios for a fedimint We need dynamic, annonymous, sybill resistant, and incentive aligned custodian federations ASAP.
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nobody 2 years ago
It’s not your point, but why MySQL over MariaDB?
DBTC's avatar
DBTC 2 years ago
It's fine fore small amounts. Don't worry, be happy!
Newton's avatar
Newton 2 years ago
Fuck! How did it get this wide currency!!!
Never trust a custodian. Fuck wallet of Satoshi. Its depressing how many "Bitcoiners" use it and Justify it with bullshit statements like "Oh I'm only keeping pocket change in there, it doesn't matter."
Jac's avatar
Jac 2 years ago
Two questions, do they make any money from transaction fees? On IOS what do you recommend to replace it. I’ve seen Zeus and Phoenix to be decent?
There are many, I use a few including WOS. Zeus and Phoenix run a node on your phone I know you have the Start9 setup so if you want to run a channel you have way more options
Andyl's avatar
Andyl 2 years ago
Cheers Landy, I also use Phoenix but have heard some negative things about them lately. Will definitely look into Zeus, thanks.
I haven’t heard anything about Phoenix so I’d be interested in that. If you’re on iOS you can get the Zeus TestFlight from their profile
Kimico's avatar
Kimico 2 years ago
is an exchange, which allows everything from bitcoin to other scenes... and other less maxi scenes. http://cesc.trade/u/kimico?amount=10 I understand that educating people is the main task, but... I just want to code. (y i can add - more - shitcoins)
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buffalo 2 years ago
Its more of an issue when tens of thousands of people each put 20$ worth of sats into it. It also means you arent supporting non custodial wallets and their development.
Andyl's avatar
Andyl 2 years ago
I read something on here about Phoenix sharing information, I can't find the original post. Probably nothing to worry about. Cheers for the node advice, I'm not on IOS for the Zeus option unfortunately.
Mate, this is bullshit.. @Wallet of Satoshi have done more for onboarding than anyone. Yes, everyone should run a node, have a hardware wallet and eventually open their own ⚡ channels.. that doesn't happen overnight though.
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nobody 2 years ago
Then what role does Nostr play in this? And lightning & zaps? The only reason many, a huge majority, of people even knew about WoS was because of Nostr & ease of zaps etc. Lightning is just not user friendly and they made it EXTREMELY simple.