Why not just omit the mints and try something like this:
A Lightning-inspired multisig pool protocol allowing N participants to collaborate in a pooled channel, locking funds in an N-of-N multisig.
Each participant deposits a standardized amount (or variable, with careful balance tracking). Off-chain transfers use collective signing of updated pool balances, enforced by Bitcoin script and advanced cryptographic privacy (e.g., blinded signatures or zero-knowledge proofs to unlink payers and recipients).
Withdrawals trigger on-chain collaborative signatures, preserving privacy and enabling flexible outputs. Dispute resolution leverages timeout or penalty transactions, similar to Lightning, but extended for multi-party exit.
This model offers native privacy, pooled liquidity, and pure P2P scaling without gatekeepers and custodians, advancing the Lightning and CoinJoin concepts into a native Bitcoin P2P pool.
Replies (2)
> locking funds in an N-of-N multisig
you mean an on-chain multisig? I'm not against that exactly, but it's getting further away from Cashu
Also, your proposal kinda sounds like the Ark Protocol to me, although I don't know as much about about Ark as I would like. It seems to be generating a lot of interest and I want to know much more.
I feel like the general idea of Cashu is to trust the mint for "settlement", instead of using the blockchain, partly because it's much faster than the chain.
> you mean an on-chain multisig? I'm not against that exactly, but it's getting further away from Cashu
Funds stay inside an on-chain N-of-N multisig pool and you get instant, Lightning-like balance updates among participants with a final on-chain exit. No single custodian; disputes resolve via multi-party mechanisms. This preserves Bitcoin-native security but requires sophisticated exit, dispute, and privacy design.
> I feel like the general idea of Cashu is to trust the mint for "settlement", instead of using the blockchain, partly because it's much faster than the chain.
in my limited understanding, adopting a Cashu mint-based settlement layer the off-chain settlement is accelerated by trusted mint attestations, but at the cost of introducing trust in the mint and potential liquidity constraints. In a Cashu-like arrangement, per-user liquidity is bound by the mint’s token liquidity and the ability to redeem; Lightning liquidity becomes a practical constraint because token minting/redemption must be backed by lightning liquidity so someone has to open the channels on chain anyhow. This can cap the effective throughput and affect routing of payments within the pool.
