GBKS
Christoph Ono

https://www.germanysbestkeptsecret.com/

Designer & developer. Helping improve bitcoin design with many others at https://bitcoin.design . I write a weekly update at https://gbks.substack.com . ✌️

Public Key

npub1kuc70777tsvj67fl75s2dmy376t97hv05xmyuyshzzy6vhj5q5jstv0eyw

NIP-05 Address

gbks@nosta.me

NIP-57 Address

gbks@getalby.com

Profile Code

nprofile1qqstwv08l009cxfd0yll2g9xajgld9jltk86rdjwzgt3pzdxte2q2fgpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dskalzja

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1kuc70777tsvj67fl75s2dmy376t97hv05xmyuyshzzy6vhj5q5jstv0eyw

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Last Notes

2025-04-29 09:49:08 UTC

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Awesome. Let me know how it goes.

2025-04-29 08:47:48 UTC

I asked Claude to do a usability review of nosta.me. It spent 15 minutes to successfully set up a profile and put together a nice usability report.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THU7M70Anis
Prompt and report are included in a doc under the video. If you're working on a web app, I recommend doing this to get a good baseline review. Just let it run during your next coffee break.
Also, here's the account it set up: https://nosta.me/ebd37ae82a97cc58196ba8e1d5bdb3c45547ce5fa1af9e181a4bec8a8f7db7ba

2025-04-28 08:53:57 UTC

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And speaking of hackathons, you should join the Bitcoin Designathon. It starts this Sunday. https://event.bitcoin.design/

2025-04-28 08:53:02 UTC

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The hackathon: https://runwayml.com/gen48
And a playlist with all the other submissions: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfsDVErBvuXCPH1VUnNa8zs36wHLH70T1

2025-04-28 08:52:28 UTC

Spent the weekend with my son on the Runway 48-hour hackathon and we came up with this goofy short-film. Was a great chance to tinker with all the latest AI video/image/sound tools. Tons of limitations still, but also very powerful (and fun).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pvNLnpj1zI

2025-04-23 18:50:01 UTC

Have you tried Saving Satoshi to learn bitcoin tech & coding? Would love to hear what you think. https://savingsatoshi.com

2025-04-23 12:45:09 UTC

Would love to see a Designathon project around Ark UX. Exploring new properties and behaviors is always fun. https://event.bitcoin.design/#project-recbPVzlUSGqmchRP
#nevent1q…h9a9

2025-04-16 06:22:54 UTC

One of the best parts about open-source bitcoin is collaborating with so many friendly, interesting, and talented people from all over the world. Truly borderless and permissionless.

2025-04-16 06:12:19 UTC

So if we want scaling and we're strict about self-custody, then is bitcoin + lightning + ark a promising combo moving forward? Settlement, interconnectivity and payment hubs?

2025-04-15 12:31:26 UTC

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You are clearly more patient than I am.
I prefer if they talk in their own little isolated world that has nothing to do with me.

2025-04-15 11:56:15 UTC

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Disturbing statement.

2025-04-15 11:43:27 UTC

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This is what mute lists are for.

2025-04-15 05:46:57 UTC

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They turned out great!

2025-04-11 07:06:50 UTC

Fully in event planning mode at the moment. Between the Designathon, Oslo Freedom Forum, BTC Prague, and Presidio Bitcoin events, there's a lot to organize in the Bitcoin Design Community. If you're looking for opportunities to tinker on fun bitcoin stuff with fun people, take a peek at the Designathon (global), Bitcoin 2025 hackathon (global), and the upcoming BTC++ (Austin) one.
https://event.bitcoin.design
https://b25.devpost.com
https://btcplusplus.dev/conf/atx25
Thanks to all who chip in on making these events happen.

2025-04-09 20:10:37 UTC

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I’d just love to see broader experimentation. Gotta push the boundaries sometimes to discover interesting ways of doing no things.

2025-04-09 15:06:05 UTC

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Sure thing. Everyone else can add zapping, too. And maybe they will. But right now they don't have it. So Nostr can push the boundaries, which I'd love to see.

2025-04-09 15:02:48 UTC

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Exactly.

2025-04-09 12:49:28 UTC

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If Nostr is meant to be bound by your personal preferences, then yes.

2025-04-09 08:50:01 UTC

If zapping/tipping is a key feature of bitcoin x Nostr, then maybe we should have more intense options than TikTok. More than this dog popping up on the screen and waving its butt at you. Certainly more than the current state of just showing you a small number and lightning icon.
#nevent1q…r6vm

2025-04-09 05:35:09 UTC

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Both points can be true. We need to support builders, and people have high expectations.

2025-04-08 11:08:36 UTC

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Very valid. Not sure that will change, since it is and will remain a currency exchange, and not just purchasing some diamonds in a mobile game.

2025-04-08 08:53:48 UTC

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What are the biggest friction points you see? And what would be your ideal scenario?

2025-04-08 07:28:23 UTC

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Best of luck. If you haven't seen it, maybe take a look at Resolvr, who spent a lot of time and energy into a bitcoin/nostr bounty marketplace. I think the pivoted, but not totally sure. https://stacker.news/items/301817

2025-04-08 07:26:19 UTC

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That's the chicken-and-egg problem common to the adoption of new things. It can be worked from both sides. Lots of people working on promoting bitcoin adoption. Maybe people are also willing to adopt bitcoin just because there is something fun they want to do on Nostr?

2025-04-07 18:07:07 UTC

If Bitcoin integration is a uniquely special feature of Nostr, a lot of focus should be on broad experimentation around monetization - making services/features/gimmicks that people are willing to pay for (not NFTs).
#nevent1q…uv5w

2025-04-05 19:14:54 UTC

Nice one.
https://youtu.be/IrsqKkDXb14

2025-04-04 14:19:24 UTC

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Definitely looking forward to the release of the new render engine, slated for later this year, with roughly 1 gillion x performance (at minimum). https://community.penpot.app/t/its-time-for-penpot-to-almost-move-away-from-the-dom/6437/8
I'd just use Penpot for smaller stuff at the moment, like a presentation or quick explorations. For images, I also found myself recently resizing and compressing them separately before import. That helped a lot.

2025-04-04 14:03:11 UTC

Penpot released design tokens. Another great iteration of this open-source design tool. https://penpot.app/collaboration/design-tokens

2025-04-02 11:47:28 UTC

Amazing to have more dev support for the Bitcoin Core App as we're working towards our internal V2 preview milestone. Can't wait for it. Big thanks to HRF for supporting the project.
#nevent1q…pqfy

2025-04-01 06:05:50 UTC

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Certainly an option. If I were to build this feature, I would probably start with the most simple option - manual whitelisting, and then feel out via usage what additional filtering might be useful. I do like the idea of manual control, as it puts the user fully in control. But there are probably some limits to that as well.

2025-03-31 20:00:06 UTC

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Gotcha. The social aspect is secondary and optional.
I was mostly trying to think of a way to deal with my current situation where I don’t appreciate many comments on some of my recent posts, and how to avoid getting annoyed by them. Right now we treat comments as approved by default. But maybe sometimes the opposite is more appropriate, even if it’s just in our own client/view.

2025-03-31 19:11:57 UTC

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If I understand correctly, Twitter solves this pretty well. If you encounter a muted post, you can see it with a click, without doing any unmuting.
Generally, I mute a lot and find social media barely usable without it. There are a few instances where I still look at muted posts, but it’s not that often. I am sure I miss things here and there, but I’m ok with that.

2025-03-31 18:30:14 UTC

How about a comment screener (like Hey)? New comments on your posts are first in an inbox. If you accept it, or whitelist the person, it shows up for you. Others can choose whether to see all or only approved comments.

2025-03-28 06:56:27 UTC

Hard to make a better case for bitcoin as a credibly neutral global money than the global news section of the HRF financial freedom report. https://us14.campaign-archive.com/?e=063899928b&u=c5e3037cd362a8e29147b750c&id=83297f1cf7

2025-03-28 06:00:19 UTC

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10-year old Minecraft fan: Same

2025-03-27 13:03:39 UTC

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Not a fan of dogs? 😀

2025-03-27 12:59:51 UTC

Is this good UX?
https://m.primal.net/PvDa.png

2025-03-24 13:00:22 UTC

To all the Nostr builders, how is the Nostrability project working out in helping improve interoperability? Is it something you participate in? https://github.com/nostrability/nostrability/issues

2025-03-21 06:52:42 UTC

It was a pleasure presenting the Open Design Guide (http://opendesign.guide) last week at FOSS Backstage. It's an effort to provide a smoother path into open-source for designers. Interestingly, there were 3 other talks at the conference that brought up the same problem. The Canonical team did a survey and found that most designers don't realize open-source is a thing, many of the ones that do have no idea how to get started, and many who give it a try don't get far due to the steep learning curve. Let's make that a little easier. https://m.primal.net/PnXW.jpg

2025-03-21 06:10:55 UTC

"We've been successfully removing all friction from our apps — think about how effortless it is to scroll through a social feed. But is that what we want? Compare the feeling of doomscrolling to kneading dough, playing an instrument, sketching... these take effort, but they're also deeply satisfying. When you strip away too much friction, meaning and satisfaction go with it."
Beautifully done: https://wattenberger.com/thoughts/our-interfaces-have-lost-their-senses

2025-03-18 16:38:09 UTC

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Very cool. Thanks for the explanation. Is there a shared key to do all the decryption?

2025-03-18 11:36:03 UTC

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Got a question around that. To prevent meta data analysis and get Signal-like privacy, White Noise needs to rely on private relays, right? Public ones expose too much?

2025-03-17 20:38:52 UTC

Almost every time I post on here, some insult ends up in the comments. And I’m not even posting anything provocative. Would be nice to keep things civil. Thank you very much.

2025-03-17 20:32:35 UTC

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Nice sub tweet. Let’s also get you on that mute list. Can’t handle such deep thinking.

2025-03-17 20:04:03 UTC

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Don’t be an asshole. Another one for the block list.

2025-03-17 20:02:53 UTC

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Hm, it was a free article for me, I assumed it transferred. Maybe this clicking through from here. https://bsky.app/profile/gregorykorte.com/post/3lkluavjsw22x

2025-03-17 19:57:33 UTC

The Open Tech Fund got killed over the weekend. It supported Signal, Tor, VPN access and lots of other good initiatives. I met some people from their team last year at a conference and asked if they were resilient to a second Trump term (they got almost killed during the first). Sad to see this happen now. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-17/trump-executive-order-cuts-tools-to-fight-censorship-worldwide

2025-03-17 11:09:35 UTC

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Nice one. You could elide the npub ("npub 1kva ... 8467"). The Nuts and version could probably be hidden behind an info button, as non-devs will have no idea what those mean without extra research.

2025-03-17 09:12:21 UTC

I used Penpot (http://penpot.app) for a presentation at FOSS Backstage last week. It worked great, with a few small hiccups. If you're not ready to go 100% Penpot yet, I'd recommend trying it for smaller design tasks (and give the team feedback). One step at a time.

2025-02-25 15:21:14 UTC

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It’s more so been center-left. Interestingly, the far left party also almost doubled their results (to 8.8%).

2025-02-25 15:01:54 UTC

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Haha, seriously…

2025-02-25 12:14:26 UTC

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Not sure what you mean, the center parties are still the strongest. Not everything follows this caricature of left/right that seems to be so prevalent online these days.

2025-02-25 12:13:22 UTC

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Maybe take a closer look. The raid was already planned a month before Habeck talked to the police. The old guy had also posted some nasty Nazi content. https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/schwachkopf-beleidigung-razzia-bei-rentner-war-vor-habecks-anzeige-geplant-a-c3f0062f-5d9e-49b5-b02e-53693cf4036a
And you know, freedom of speech has to be weighed against the rights of others and responsibility towards society. The internet is a public place. Yelling at people on the sidewalk, trying to mislead them with made-up nonsense, etc is problematic. Why should it be OK online? Cool to do that in private places (online or offline), but public places deserve a bit more respect. So maybe some people should get in trouble for being nasty.
It's obviously a very tricky balance that requires continuous vigilance and negotiation. But I do think we're in a decent place in this regard in Germany.
Maybe I also just don't understand the attraction of shit-posting. Seems pretty pointless to me.

2025-02-24 17:57:00 UTC

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No need to be dramatic.

2025-02-23 08:28:13 UTC

Did my usual voting day routine. Show up at 8 right when they open and then go for a run. I hope we get a strong Germany (and Europe) to tackle our short- and mid-term geopolitical challenges and economic issues, while also staying on track on longer-term climate goals. And no more right-wing nonsense, please.

2025-02-21 16:34:09 UTC

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We don’t have a text summary. They mentioned that they are a team of 8.

2025-02-13 15:48:49 UTC

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Certainly can be at times. But also plenty of times when it's an awesome place and you're surrounded by fantastic people.

2025-02-13 12:30:31 UTC

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Disturbing statement.

2025-02-13 12:23:52 UTC

So, competitive authoritarianism is where this is heading? https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/path-american-authoritarianism-trump

2025-01-31 17:30:17 UTC

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One consideration is that everyone who wants to use USDT on Lightning needs to have at least one dedicated channel for that purpose with the needed liquidity. That means additional fees for channel setup and maintenance and you need the LSP and swap provider infrastructure for it.

2025-01-30 10:47:35 UTC

Defining user experience design is pretty straightforward. Our life is a linear series of events. Things we had never heard of slide into our awareness. Maybe someone tells us about something, maybe we walk around and see something or someone, etc. You brain tries to make sense of it based on existing experiences, familiar patterns, etc. Via more exposure, you form a better understanding.
Apps are the same. Someone hears about it and wants to figure out generally what it's for. They see it and form a split-second opinion based on initial presentation. They decide to read about the features/benefits. They download it and use it, etc. At each step information is gathered and decisions are made. Maybe they get it right away, maybe they struggle. Maybe this happens in 1 minute, or over 2 months, etc.
As a user experience designer, you consider this general sequence of events, and the many ways people can experience it across all possible touch points, and try to create smooth pathways for people. And you typically have to balance user needs & wants, tech possibilities and limitations, business needs, human psychology, available resources, and other stuff. It's a huge balancing act that benefits from tight collaboration.
YMMV

2025-01-30 09:19:49 UTC

Cool to see that Block has an OSPO (open-source program office, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Program_Office). https://block.xyz/open-source

2025-01-24 10:01:19 UTC

New page about Human-Readable Addresses ("bitcoin emails" 😀) is live in the @nprofile…kd2k guide (focusing mostly on BIP-353 and Lightning Address). Take a peek and let me know what you think. https://bitcoin.design/guide/how-it-works/human-readable-addresses/
https://m.primal.net/Nxiq.jpg

2025-01-22 13:18:12 UTC

When a user sees this, what should their take-away and next actions be? https://m.primal.net/NugT.png

2024-12-18 12:04:57 UTC

Any Eliza Nostr AIs out there already? https://github.com/ai16z/eliza/pull/1203

2024-12-18 08:41:50 UTC

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Every cycle ends up with some mechanism breaking because it gets overstretched or poorly executed. Might this be it?

2024-12-18 08:40:46 UTC

My talk for FOSS Backstage about the Open Design Guide (http://opendesign.guide) was accepted. There are several other talks about the role of design(ers) in the line-up. Looking forward to it. https://25.foss-backstage.de/sessions/

2024-12-17 15:07:51 UTC

https://m.primal.net/MytC.jpg
The Saving Satoshi case study in the
@npub13s5…l03e Guide is live. It provides lots of background about this unique and ambitious project. I'm super thankful to and proud of everyone who chipped in (you're all ₿OSSes).
https://bitcoin.design/guide/case-studies/saving-satoshi/
Make sure to give it a try and let us know how it can be improved.
http://savingsatoshi.com

2024-12-17 07:40:15 UTC

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Nonsense.

2024-12-11 09:52:00 UTC

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I like it, it's really well done (tested the beta app thoroughly). Just have to keep in mind who it's for. It costs $150, so it's only economically worth it above certain amounts. Screenshots on the site show balances of over $7,000 and transactions of $50+, which seems appropriate for an on-chain only product (assuming you don't want fees to be above a certain percentage of amounts). You get a really well-thought out security model and recovery service, and a nicely executed UX that doesn't bother you with technical stuff. So if that fits your needs, it's a great product.

2024-12-11 08:03:37 UTC

Design should capture and express the essential properties of a product/technology. If users can't tell the difference between self-custodial and custodial bitcoin apps, then we're doing it wrong.
Especially open-source community-led projects are well-positioned to provide unique user experiences that companies and custodial solutions cannot offer due to their different goals, structure and incentives.

2024-12-09 07:44:38 UTC

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Awesome, thank you.
We're on the same page that having contributors & a community is amazing. My point was more about why it often doesn't happen. I've been trying to think of ways recently to help with that process, mostly because I think that a healthy and diverse ecosystem of community-led open-source bitcoin project is necessary for bitcoin to keep its unique properties.

2024-12-06 14:01:19 UTC

What time is it? It's PR review time.
https://m.primal.net/MoyY.jpg

2024-12-05 17:41:34 UTC

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This is just a figment of my imagination (aka design mockup) and not a real app (sadly).

2024-12-05 15:21:41 UTC

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It's often a very big leap for an individual to open up a project to more contributors and a community. They have to change how they do things, how they spend their time, negotiate the best way to do things, etc. Not everyone wants to do that (or has time & energy to). But as you said, it's amazing when projects turn into something bigger and/or better. We need a good mix. Nostr is probably too much on the lone wolf side at the moment (including me with Nosta).

2024-12-05 15:16:42 UTC

Not sure what everyone is so excited about. My chart still shows that 1 bitcoin = 1 bitcoin. https://m.primal.net/MoSS.png

2024-12-03 14:52:56 UTC

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Do you have API data for historical currency rates?

2024-12-03 12:40:19 UTC

Here's a visual for a planned transaction visualizer in the Bitcoin Core App (Sparrow-inspired). Does that look useful to you? You can also try the work-in-progress web prototype: https://lively-kashata-cfde7e.netlify.app/screen/coin-flow
https://m.primal.net/MmpI.png

2024-12-02 11:00:31 UTC

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Nice one. I think the fiat amounts could use a hover state, hand cursor and click event. Took me a bit to realize I could select those amounts and edit them as well. Also, deep-linking to an amount could be helpful if you want to send it to someone so they can see how much it is in their currency.

2024-11-21 14:39:00 UTC

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Maybe that's enough for a useful feature that users can wrap their heads around and easily work with?

2024-11-21 14:03:55 UTC

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Love it. That issue is quite complex. Someone in there mentioned breaking it down into 2-3 parts, which is probably worth doing. The Starter Pack thing seems really simple in comparison.
I also had some thoughts around an invite system for Nosta here, with another slightly different angle: https://github.com/GBKS/nosta-me/issues/64
Will have to think about this a bit more...

2024-11-21 13:54:22 UTC

Starter Packs are a pretty cool Bluesky feature (yes, it's basically a glorified list but framing matters). Is there a Nostr version? https://www.starterpacks.net/

2024-11-07 07:46:53 UTC

Great to see the Prototype Fund continue do its thing. They will focus on data security and software components now. https://prototypefund.de/en/the-prototype-fund-is-going-strong/

2024-11-01 15:02:12 UTC

Very interesting presentation about open-source at the United Nations. Cool to see entities like the Sovereign Tech Fund pushing things forward. https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1q/k1qmxhno3c?kalturaStartTime=293

2024-10-24 21:03:08 UTC

We saved Satoshi! Thank you to all the wonderful bitcoiners who joined our Saving Satoshi workshop at TABConf today.
https://m.primal.net/LhAn.jpg

2024-10-17 06:06:05 UTC

Sometimes the problems with adults is that they have the ability to plausibly-enough rationalize anything and everything, and trick themselves into believing weird stuff as some deep and newly-discovered truth. Good to be humble with opinions.

2024-10-17 05:58:09 UTC

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Nice. Can't tell if you do already, but localizing the placement of the unit symbol, as well as use of comma/period/etc is also a good idea. Different countries have different standards. https://bitcoin.design/guide/designing-products/units-and-symbols/#formatting-units

2024-10-16 12:26:07 UTC

Got lots of these stickers, which are all meant 100% literal, delivered for TABConf. Say hi if you attend next week.
https://m.primal.net/LXZs.jpg

2024-10-16 05:40:41 UTC

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Gotcha. As I mention in my post, the situation is that you are editing your profile, for example in a Nostr client. You want to be able to accept payments (maybe you're an artist and post music to Wavlake). Your bitcoin wallet (Phoenix, for example) gives you an address that you copy and paste in. Now we have ~10 different types of addresses across bitcoin and lightning, suited for different use cases. Wallets support different combinations of those, so we need some good UI patterns for telling users what is supported, and give them tips and validation so they can set things up correctly. It is about money after all, so it's important that users feel confident.
The mockup looks at a situation where a reusable lightning address (aka BOLT12 offer or Lightning offer) is the best address type to use. A email-like address (BIP353 Human Readable Address) is OK, but will be resolved to a reusable lightning address for better security & privacy, which we inform the user about so there are no surprises.
Big picture, I don't think anyone other than hardcore techies will recognize and understand the different address types. I am exploring whether we can just call everything a "bitcoin address". So instead of the label being "Enter a lightning offer", it is "Enter a bitcoin address". And then we provide 1-2 extra pointers below to point people in the right direction.
I'm doing lots of explorations like these and tend to share bits and snippets. There's often a lot of context that is not obvious from these short social media blurbs. So I totally get that it may not make sense. Thanks for being interested and asking.

2024-10-15 13:35:11 UTC

Very excited for this. It's bitcoin dev education, an epic sci-fi story, and a very ambitious UX design & generative AI project at the same time.
#note153y…67wm

2024-10-15 13:31:48 UTC

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No idea at all?

2024-10-15 06:57:51 UTC

Matthew launched a new BDK example wallet, in Swift. Really nice. https://matthewramsden.substack.com/p/introducing-bdk-swift-example-wallet

2024-10-14 10:02:40 UTC

Is this a good way to have users enter lightning offers? For example, in a Nostr client when editing your profile. Trying to use technical terms to the least amount possible.
I threw identicons in there just for fun. Would be nice to have visual hashes for a quick gut check, but that would obviously relay on broadly standardized implementation.
https://m.primal.net/LVgV.jpg

2024-10-11 07:36:31 UTC

Cool initiative to get open-source maintainers paid. https://opensourcepledge.com

2024-10-11 06:51:19 UTC

Some explorations around picking addresses in lightning wallets. https://youtu.be/o_0pl7XJ4Xk

2024-10-09 06:16:39 UTC

To request bitcoin, you can share a
- (Legacy/Script/SegWit/Taproot) address
- Reusable payment code
- Silent payments address
- Lightning invoice
- Lightning offer
- Lightning address
- Human-readable address
As text, BIP21 URI or QR Code. Or ask for a Fedimint/Cashu token.
Probs overlooking some other options (including bad ones like sharing xpubs) and details, but either way this is a lot to wrangle in UX and for users to have a general framework for. Let's see what solutions we converge on.

2024-10-07 15:56:58 UTC

A byproduct of @npub1vy6…27hr is this bitcoin script editor. The team built it for chapter 9, where you learn how to construct different spending mechanisms, and now it's available as a separate tool. It's brand new, we'd love to hear your thoughts. https://script.savingsatoshi.com
https://m.primal.net/LNuM.jpg

2024-10-07 11:51:23 UTC

Good UX finds that sweet spot between the "grain" of the tech and the complex needs and behaviors of people.
https://m.primal.net/LNkq.jpg

2024-10-07 10:52:19 UTC

This is a great episode to listen to for learning about the dynamics of how work sometimes gets done in open-source. Very relevant for designers and other contributors as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RVhUpc_hYY